Thinkabara

📝 Microsoft Word for Beginners · Lesson 1 of 9

Your first document

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Open a document, type, save and undo a mistake.

What you see on the screen

At the top is the ribbon, with tabs: File, Home, Insert, Draw, Design, Layout, References, Mailings, Review and View. Each tab opens a group of buttons. Most of what you need at first is on the Home tab.

In the middle is the white page, and the blinking line is the cursor: the place where the next letter you type will appear.

A new document

  1. Open Word and choose “Blank document”
  2. Start typing. Don’t press Enter at the end of a line: Word wraps to the next line by itself
  3. Press Enter only when you want to start a new paragraph

Saving

Save early, not at the end. The first time, Ctrl+S opens the Save window: give the file a clear name, like “History paper - Maya”, and choose a folder. After that, Ctrl+S saves instantly.

If the document is saved to OneDrive, an “AutoSave” switch appears at the top and every change is saved by itself.

Shortcuts worth remembering

Ctrl+SSave
Ctrl+ZUndo the last action
Ctrl+YRedo what you undid
BackspaceDeletes the letter before the cursor
DeleteDeletes the letter after the cursor

Tip

💡 Deleted a whole paragraph by mistake? No problem: Ctrl+Z brings it back. You can press it several times to go several steps back.

✏️ Practice: your turn

  1. Open a blank document
  2. Write three lines about your day, pressing Enter between them
  3. Delete one word, then bring it back with Ctrl+Z
  4. Save the file as “My first document”

✏️ No Word on this computer? Practice in our free online document editor

🧠 Quick quiz

Answer all 4 questions correctly to mark this lesson as done.

1. When do you press Enter while typing?
2. What does Ctrl+Z do?
3. Which tab has most of the basic formatting tools?
4. When should you first save a document?

0 of 4 correct

All lessons in Microsoft Word for Beginners

  1. ✍️ 1. Your first documentOpen a document, type, save and undo a mistake
  2. 🎨 2. Formatting textFont, size, bold, color and the Format Painter
  3. 📐 3. Paragraphs, alignment and listsAlignment, bullets, numbering, indents and line spacing
  4. 🏷️ 4. Headings and stylesHeading 1 and Heading 2, the Navigation Pane and updating a style
  5. ▦ 5. TablesInsert a table, add rows and columns, design and merge cells
  6. 🖼️ 6. Pictures and shapesInsert a picture, resize it, wrap text and add alt text
  7. 📄 7. A neat pageMargins, orientation, page breaks, headers and page numbers
  8. 🎓 8. A paper ready to hand inTitle page, table of contents, footnotes, spell check and PDF
  9. ⚡ 9. Time-saving tricksFind and replace, paste without formatting, templates and sharing