1. Get comfortable with the Track Changes feature
Tools > Track Changes
Track Changes is excellent if you routinely proofread documents for your co-works. It clearly marks the places you have made any edits and changes, then the author can accept or reject the modifications you have made. You can also make comments about the reasons you made a certain change or ask a question in the margin.
WARNING: Before presenting your document to a client or prospect, be sure you accept all the new changes you’ve made. Your customers don’t need to see how the magic is made.
2. Use Find and Replace for efficient editing and formatting
Edit > Find > Advanced Find and Replace
Let’s say you’re editing an extensive document for a colleague who has this frustrating habit of spelling words the British way (e.g. colour for color, programme for program). You could either A) comb through the entire document and replace each word by hand (going cross-eyed in the process) or B) use the Find and Replace function to instantly take out all misspellings. In the same manner, if you need to format a document’s typography to fit your business’s branding, you can utilize the Find and Replace function to, let’s say, find all instances of Times New Roman font and replace them with Helvetica font (or whatever typeface your company uses).
3. Customize your toolbars to suit your daily needs and routines
View > Toolbars > Customize Toolbars and Menus
If you spend any significant amount of time in Microsoft Word, you might want to create a workspace that reflects the nature of your work. That could mean eliminating unnecessary toolbar clutter. It could also mean adding or repositioning certain buttons and functions which you use constantly.
4. Eliminate formatting frustration: Add the “Show all nonprinting characters” button to your toolbar
This helpful button lets you see all of the formatting elements at play in your document, many of which are otherwise hidden. When Word starts to act peculiar and you can’t figure out why your text isn’t doing what you need it to do, just click the “Show all nonprinting characters” button to see what’s happening and how to fix it. Boom.