Processing With the Software Program Microsoft Word

¶ … processing with the software program Microsoft Word 2000 for granted now a days. But no matter how good someone thinks they are with Word 2000 there are always new tricks or skills to learn. Most people have no idea how much Word 2000 actually does. The majority of users take for granted that spell check occurs automatically when we spell 'wrng' instead of 'wrong.' But this is just one feature -- there are many more. This report focuses on five new things that I have learned about Microsoft Word 2000 that I think are fresh insights into just how good Bill Gates' team has done.

Microsoft has made some serious changes in Word 2000. Because so many people use Microsoft Word 2000 the product has literally changed the way the world does word processing. Both the Internet and the business world have become very dependent on the entire Microsoft Office software programs. Word 2000 for example has become a favorite HTML and email editor and a web page design program. Microsoft Word 2000 has so many tools that an average kid like me can look and act like an entire corporation because I can create professional looking documents, newsletters, websites and then email all of the data anywhere in the world in the blink of an eye.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves -- I have learned five new skills with Word 2000 that are a most know for everyone. I will give a little question and answer period for the following:

Create your own digital certificate

Route a file

Add phonetic guides to text

Know what languages Word recognizes

Why would anyone need to insert the date and time into a document automatically? I can think of a number of reasons but I feel the best reason is that each time the document is printed it automatically gets a current date and time stamp. Actually putting either the date or the time or both in a document is pretty easy but I know that there are plenty of secretaries out there still typing those things in each time they start a document. Insert the current date and time comes down to deciding where in the document you want them.

By putting the program's cursor in the chosen spot you can then go to the toolbar menu at the top of the page and look for the word 'Insert' and open the 'drop down menu.' On that menu is the option for Date and Time. I am sure that most people don't know that if you want to insert the date or time in a different language format you can easily change the format by clicking the language in the Language box and choosing the format you want. Now here is the kicker, you can select if you want the date and time to automatically update or to remain the same as the original choice by inserting the date and time as a field that's automatically updated when you open or print the document. Of course you may only want the original date and that simply means you insert the date from the menu as I mentioned earlier.

Creating your own digital certificate is pretty cool. You can even make it look like some special branch of the government like the CIA authorized your document. Actually, digital certificates you create isn't really an issued by a certification authority. So, a certificate that you create is only considered an unauthenticated certificate and will get you a warning if you try to pass it off on the Internet if the receiving PC has their security level set to medium or higher. But basically you create a digital certificate by opening Microsoft Windows Explorer and finding the SelfCert.exe. Once the file is found you simply double click on it and edit the file in Microsoft Word. Like I said, you can make that certification look as official as you want it to look like and because of this everyone should be real careful when they accept internet certificates or download programs that say they come from certified websites.

The Internet is just one big network and routing files is how a network functions. This skill has become second nature for emailers even though they don't usually know it. Attaching a file to an email to send it out over the Web is just one way of routing. Through Microsoft Word, routing a file is also just as easy. You simply open the file you want to route and on the File menu, click on 'Send To' and then click 'Routing Recipient' and add the appropriate address. In the 'Type name or select from list box' you type in a name or names of the recipients and that is it. Chose the routing options you like and away the document goes -- well, that is if your connected to the web or some other smaller network.

Adding phonetic guides to your text may not seem like it is something you will ever have to do but with the internet making the world smaller you never know when you are writing someone in China. The phonetic guide in my version of Word 2000 is only available for East Asian languages but I understand you can get more guides directly from Microsoft. To add phonetic guides you simply choose Asian Layout from the Format menu and click Phonetic Guide. In the Ruby text box you enter whichever phonetic guide you are using. Once chosen you can do all of the normal editing like changing the font and size or realigning by using the Alignment option. Talking Chinese is cool

The phonetic guides led me to the question of just what languages can Microsoft Word detect automatically. Microsoft adds the normal disclaimer about whenever you use the automatic language detection option you should install the proper spelling and grammar files for that particular languages. This can be done by either going to the Microsoft web page or reinstalling the Word program and choosing the language you need. But I was very surprised by just how many languages Word can detect: Arabic Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Danish Dutch English Finnish French German Greek Hebrew Italian Japanese Korean Norwegian Polish Portuguese Russian Spanish Swedish Thai. It only makes sense since the entire world has been sucked into the information age.