Thinkabara

📝 Microsoft Word for Beginners · Lesson 8 of 9

A paper ready to hand in

Google Classroom

Title page, table of contents, footnotes, spell check and PDF.

Title page or MLA heading

Many teachers want MLA style: no title page — just four lines at the top left (your name, teacher’s name, class, date) and a centered title. Others want a title page: Insert > Cover Page has ready designs, or make your own with the title big and centered and your details below. After a title page press Ctrl+Enter.

Automatic table of contents

  1. Make sure every heading has the Heading 1 or Heading 2 style (lesson 4)
  2. Click on the page where the table of contents should go
  3. On the References tab click “Table of Contents” and choose an automatic table
  4. Changed your paper? Click the table of contents and choose “Update Table”

Footnotes and citations

Quoted a book or website? Click at the end of the sentence and on the References tab click “Insert Footnote”. A small number appears, and you type the source at the bottom of the page. For MLA or APA citations, the References tab also has “Insert Citation” and “Bibliography”.

Check before you hand in

F7Spelling and grammar check (Editor)
Review > Word CountHow many words your paper has
Ctrl+PPrint preview

Save as PDF

Many teachers ask for a PDF, because it looks the same on every computer. File > Save As, and choose PDF as the file type. Keep the Word file too, so you can still make changes.

✏️ Practice: your turn

  1. Take the three-section document and add a title page or an MLA heading
  2. Add an automatic table of contents on page two
  3. Add one footnote with a source
  4. Run spell check with F7 and save a copy as PDF

✏️ 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. What does the table of contents need in order to build itself?
2. You added a section. What do you do with the table of contents?
3. Which key checks spelling?
4. Why hand in a paper as a PDF?

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