and automatically converts them to live hyperlinks. However, you may notice that addresses with spaces are not converted correctly.

After the first space in the address is encountered,

Word stops creating the live hyperlink because it doesn’t know whether you are finished typing the address and continued on the next word or if the address contains spaces. However,

there are a couple of easy solutions for this problem.

The first way to specify that a group of words containing spaces is a web or UNC address you want to converted to a live hyperlink, is to surround the text with the left (<) and right (>) angle brackets, as pictured below.

When you press the “Space Bar” or the “Tab” key after the closing bracket, Word converts the address in the brackets to a live hyperlink.

NOTE: You can also surround the address with quotes.

Another method is to replace each space in the address with “%20” (without the quotes), which is the hex value for a space.

Again, when you press the “Space Bar” or the “Tab” key after the end of the address, Word converts the address to a live hyperlink. Notice that the hex value for a space remains in the hyperlink. It is still a valid hyperlink.

You can apply the same methods to UNC addresses to convert them to live hyperlinks as you type, as shown below.

If you have an address containing spaces that did not convert correctly, you can fix it without retyping it. Simply right-click on the part of the address that is a hyperlink and select “Remove Hyperlink” from the popup menu.

Then,

add the brackets or quotes on either end of the address and enter

a space or tab after the closing bracket or quote. The address will be converted to a live hyperlink.

This last tip is especially useful if you have some long addresses you need to

fix but don’t want to retype.

You can easily adjust your Word document’s margins to make room when using a hole punch or printing to pre-punched paper.

To leave room for a hole punch, you’ll need to adjust the layout of your document. It’s better to do so ahead of time so you can see how moving the margins affects the layout of your document.

To know how large to make the margins, consider the size of your hole punch or pre-punched paper. Most hole punches (whether you’re punching two holes at the top or three holes on the side of the page) punch about 0.5 inches from the edge of the paper.

We recommend measuring your punch or paper to make sure and maybe even making the margins just a bit bigger.

If your punch does measure out at 0.5 inches, for example,

you might want to make your margins 0.75″ to be on the safe side.

Once you know how big to make your margins, head to the “Layout” tab in Word and click the “Margins” button.

You’ll only need to adjust margins on one side of the paper for a hole puncher, so go ahead and click the “Custom Margins” command on the drop-down menu.

You’ll want to change the margins on the side that you want to hole punch. If you’re adding hole punches to the top of your document, for example, you’ll add your measurement to the “Top” margin. If you’re putting them on the left, you’ll add it to the “Left” margin.

Here, we’re adding 0.75″ to Word’s default 1.0″ top margin to make room for a two hole punch at the top of the page.

If you’re printing a double-sided document that will go into a binder to form a book, you’ll want to adjust the “Gutter” margin instead of adjusting the left or right margins. A gutter margin setting adds extra space to inside margin of each page, so to the left margin on the fronts of pages (usually the odd-numbered pages) and the right margin on the backs of pages (usually the even-numbered pages).

When you’ve got your margins set, hit “OK” and your margins are saved. Now you’ll be able to punch holes to your heart’s delight!

What is a Résumé?

A résumé, often referred to as a CV (curriculum vitae), is a summary of a person’s background and experience, including work experience, education, and even volunteer work, and its most common use is to send to potential employers when searching for a new career opportunity. In fact, though taking on a much different form than that of what you’d expect a résumé to look like today, Leonardo Da Vinci even did this himself, and he is often given credit as the first person to create a resume.

Of course, the résumé has undergone quite the transformation since Da Vinci’s 1482 version, drastically so during the age of word processors and digital typesetting in the 1970’s—40 years after résumés became an institution. Fast-forward to today and not only do you have your standard .doc or .pdf résumé, but you’ll also see people uploading video résumés on YouTube and using social media platforms like LinkedIn to sell themselves to companies.

We should be thankful for these developments because now we can skip the quill and ink and jump straight into Microsoft Word.

Using a Microsoft Word Résumé Template

Microsoft Word offers a bunch of résumé templates. Some are beautiful; some are not. We’ll let you decide which style fits you best, but here’s where you can find them.

Go ahead and open Word. As soon as you do, you’ll be greeted with several different templates to choose from, ranging from a simple blank document, cover letters, résumés, or even seasonal event flyers. Click the “Resumes and Cover Letters” link under the search box to see only those types of templates.

Now, you’ll see all the different resume styles Word has to offer. There are a lot of different styles and color schemes to choose one, so pick what feels right. If you scroll down the list a bit, you’ll also see some plainer resume templates designed for different purposes—like an entry-level, chronological, or extended CV style.

Some of the templates are already built into Word; others are a quick, free download from Office.com (and you won’t even have to leave Word to grab them). When you click to create a resume, Word will let you know the download size (if it needs to download the template). Click the “Create” button and a few seconds later, you’ll be in your document and ready to edit.

That’s all there is to it! But what if you didn’t find a résumé you liked? Luckily, Word has a few formatting tools to help you craft the perfect résumé.

Crafting a Custom Résumé in Microsoft Word

Before we start, it’s important to know that each résumé should reflect a person’s personal experience and education. Since everyone’s experience is different, it’s no surprise that their résumés will be too.

That being said, there are some general aesthetic guidelines for making a résumé that we highly recommend you follow.

Go ahead and open up a clean, blank document in Word.

The first thing we’ll want to do is set our margins. Go to the “Layout” tab and click the “Margins” buttons.

The drop-down menu displays several different margin options from which to choose. If you can’t find the one you’re looking for, you can click “Custom Margins” at the bottom and enter your specifications. Let’s go ahead and do that.

According to the experts, the best margin size is 1” for the top and bottom and 0.63” for the sides. This may seem like an oddly specific number, but the objective is to get as much (relevant) information about yourself as possible on a page without overwhelming the reader. With the above credentials, we leave enough white space on the page for the reader to not feel suffocated.

Click “OK” once you’ve entered the margin sizes you want.

Deciding What Information To Include

Now that our margins are set, it’s time to start inputting information.

The information you put mainly depends on what you’re trying to accomplish and where you are in your professional career. If you have over two years of working experience, then detailing that information is much more valuable than which high school you graduated from or which clubs you were a part of in college. Like a cover letter, your résumé should uniquely cater to the recipient. Dress to impress.

So, which information should you put? We’ll give you the overview, and you can decide which areas you should detail.

• Contact Information
• Professional Experience (It’s also ok to include any volunteer work at the bottom of this section)
• Education
• Additional Skills

For all of these, tailor the information to the job. You don’t need to fit irrelevant work experience in there unless not including it would create a gap in your work experience. But if you’re applying for a job as an accountant, nobody cares that you delivered pizzas 12 years ago. And you do list out any additional skills, make sure they’re relevant to the position for which you’re applying. Your high school friend might be impressed by how high you can kick, but your future employer—not so much.

Another thing to remember is that you should always list out your experience in reverse chronological order. That is, list out your most recent experience first, and go back from there.

Organizing That Information

There’re several ways to do this, but arguably the most effective way is by creating headings and then inserting a table for the content of each section. By doing so, you’re not only able to move content around in groups instead of individually, which can be a headache in itself, but you’re also able to give your résumé a unique touch by adding table designs. In the image below, for example, we’ve added a dashed border to the left side of the table to create a nice little visual element to tie the different experience elements together.

First things first, let’s go ahead and find a heading that we like. In the “Styles” section of the “Home” tab, you’ll find several default styles. If you can’t find one you like, then Word has a feature that lets you create your own. First, click the “More” arrow on the right-hand side of the different built-in styles.

You’ll see a menu with three different options. Go ahead and click “Create a Style.”

The “Create New Style from Formatting” window will appear. The only thing you can do here is to name the style, so click “Modify.”

Now you should see a window with many formatting options. For fonts, there’s no best option. Just make sure you use something that’s clean and readable. “Georgia” is a great example. A 14 pt font size is fine for headings, but make sure it’s bold so that each section is easier to find for the reader.

The “Add to the Styles gallery” option will automatically be selected. It’s good to leave this option selected so you’ll have easy access to your heading for the other sections of your résumé. If you plan to use this heading again in future documents, you can go ahead and deselect “Only in this document,” but since we only plan to use it for our résumé, we’ll keep that option selected.

Click “OK.”

Go ahead and type in your first heading and apply the new style to it. In this example, we’ll use “Experience” first.

Now, let’s use a table under our first heading so that we can keep all our content lined up correctly. Place your insertion point on the line under your new heading, switch to the “Insert” tab, and click the “Table” button.

You’ll see a 10×8 grid on the drop-down menu. You can create the table size by moving your mouse over the grid and clicking when it’s the size you want. For your résumé, you’ll need one column and enough rows to contain the separate pieces of information you have to list. For example, if you have three prior jobs to list in the Experience section, you’ll want a table that’s 1×3.

And here’s what it looks like after we’ve inserted the table into the document.

We’ll remove the border lines later. First, go ahead and put in your information. You’ll want the “Job Title, Company” text to be 1 or 2 pts larger than the rest of the text but be sure to keep it smaller than the heading of the section. If you want your job title to stand out, you can change the color or make it italic, but try to keep it simple.

Once that’s ready, let’s go ahead change the borders of our table. Select the table by placing your insertion point anywhere inside it. Switch to the “Design” tab in the “Table Tools” section of the Ribbon, and then click the “Borders” button.

If you want to keep it simple and remove all the lines of your table, select “No Border.” In this example, we’re going to give our table a little flavor, so we’ll select “Borders and Shading.”

Because we only want to customize the left border of our table, we will select “Custom” under the “Setting” section. This lets us use the “Preview” section to deselect the sides on which we don’t want borders. Click the boxes surrounding the preview to turn off all the borders except for the left one.

In the “Style” list, you can select the border design, color, and width you want. Click “OK” when you’re ready.

Now we should have an experience section on our résumé that’s starting to shape up. A little playing with colors and maybe spacing the table rows a bit, and you should be ready to go.

Now, just repeat these steps for the rest of the sections and your professional résumé will be finished in no time!

First, place your insertion point in the location in your document where you want to insert a music symbol. On the “Insert tab” on the Ribbon, click the “Symbol” button and then choose “More Symbols” from the drop-down menu.

In the Symbol window, open the “Font” drop-down menu and choose the “MS UI Gothic” font.

Open the “Subset” drop-down menu and select the “Miscellaneous Symbols” option there.

Scroll down a bit (four or five lines) and you’ll see seven music symbols:

1. Quarter Note
2. Eighth Note
3. Beamed Eighth Note
4. Beamed Sixteenth Notes
5. Music Flat Sign
6.      //    Natural Sign
7.      //    Sharp Sign

Click the music symbol of your choice and then click the “Insert” button (or just double-click the symbol) to insert the symbol at your insertion point.

You can insert as many symbols as you want while the Symbol window is still open. When you’re finished inserting symbols, click the “Cancel” button.

In this example, we inserted a Beamed Eighth Note. The size of the inserted symbol depends on the original font size in your document. To enlarge the symbol, select the symbol, click the “Font Size” drop-down, and select a large font size. In the example below, we went with 72 points.

You can even go a step further and copy and paste your symbol several times to create a nifty musical border for your document.

And that’s all there is to it!

Placing an Illustration Behind Regular Text

An illustration in Word refers to any of the objects you can insert from the “Illustrations” group on Word’s “Insert” tab. We’re going to be using a simple picture in our example here, but the same technique applies to any of these illustration types.

To get text to appear on top of an illustration, you change the text wrapping option on the illustration so that it appears behind your text.

If you haven’t already inserted your object into your Word document, go ahead and do that now. When you insert most of those illustration types—pictures, icons, SmartArt, charts, and screenshots—that object is placed in line with your text by default. The exceptions to this are 3D models and shapes, which are placed in front of text by default.

It doesn’t much matter since you’re going to be changing from that default to get the object behind your text, but do be aware that things might look a bit different to start with depending on what you’re inserting.

After inserting your object, click it to select it. You’ll notice a small icon at the top right corner.

This is the “Layout Options” icon. Go ahead and click that to pop up a small list of layout options. Select the “Behind Text” button under the “With Text Wrapping” section. Once you do, any text on the Word document that got moved around when inserting the image will go back to its original position.

Notice that when you select “Behind Text,” two more options become available. The “Move with text” option allows your graphic to move on the page as you add or delete text. The “Fix position on page” option keeps your graphic in the same place on the page as you add or delete text. It can be a little confusing how this works, but we’ve got a guide on positioning images and other objects in Word if you want to learn more.

At any rate, now that you’ve got that “Behind Text” option enabled, all your regular paragraph text appears in front of your object.

Inserting a Text Box Over an Image

There’s also another way to get text to appear in front of a picture or other object—a text box. When you create a text box, it works like any other illustration object. You can drag it around and have it show up in front of another object like an image. This technique is handy when you want to use anything other than regular paragraph text.

Go ahead and get your image or other illustration inserted first. To insert a text box, switch to the “Insert” tab and click the “Text Box” button. On the drop-down menu, choose the type of the text box you want. Here, we’re going with the “Simple Text Box” option.

After insertion, the text box is selected automatically so you can go ahead and type in your text. Then, drag it over your image. You’ll end up with something like this:

You’ll notice that there is a border around the box and the background of the text box is solid white. Let’s go ahead and remove the border and background fill.

Click the border of the text box. You’ll notice a new “Format” tab appears. Go ahead and click that tab. There are two options in the “Shape Style” section that we’re going to be using—“Shape Fill” and “Shape Outline.”

When you click the “Shape Fill” button, a drop-down menu with different colors and theme options appears. Click the “No Fill” option.

The background of your text box is now gone.

Next, click the “Shape Outline” button and choose the “No Outline” option from that drop-down menu.

Now, you’ll see that the border has been removed.

That’s all there is to it. The big advantage to this method is that you drag that text box around however you want to get your text lined up just right with your image.

No matter the reason, you can do it easily in Microsoft Word.

Placing an Illustration Behind Regular Text

An illustration in Word refers to any of the objects you can insert from the “Illustrations” group on Word’s “Insert” tab. We’re going to be using a simple picture in our example here, but the same technique applies to any of these illustration types.

To get text to appear on top of an illustration, you change the text wrapping option on the illustration so that it appears behind your text.

If you haven’t already inserted your object into your Word document, go ahead and do that now. When you insert most of those illustration types—pictures, icons, SmartArt, charts, and screenshots—that object is placed in line with your text by default. The exceptions to this are 3D models and shapes, which are placed in front of text by default.

It doesn’t much matter since you’re going to be changing from that default to get the object behind your text, but do be aware that things might look a bit different to start with depending on what you’re inserting.

After inserting your object, click it to select it. You’ll notice a small icon at the top right corner.

This is the “Layout Options” icon. Go ahead and click that to pop up a small list of layout options. Select the “Behind Text” button under the “With Text Wrapping” section. Once you do, any text on the Word document that got moved around when inserting the image will go back to its original position.

Notice that when you select “Behind Text,” two more options become available. The “Move with text” option allows your graphic to move on the page as you add or delete text. The “Fix position on page” option keeps your graphic in the same place on the page as you add or delete text. It can be a little confusing how this works, but we’ve got a guide on positioning images and other objects in Word if you want to learn more.

At any rate, now that you’ve got that “Behind Text” option enabled, all your regular paragraph text appears in front of your object.

Inserting a Text Box Over an Image

There’s also another way to get text to appear in front of a picture or other object—a text box. When you create a text box, it works like any other illustration object.

You can drag it around and have it show up in front of another object like an image.

This technique is handy when you want to use anything other than regular paragraph text.

Go ahead and get your image or other illustration inserted first. To insert a text box, switch to the “Insert” tab and click the “Text Box” button.

On the drop-down menu, choose the type of the text box you want. Here, we’re going with the “Simple Text Box” option.

After insertion, the text box is selected automatically so you can go ahead and type in your text.

Then, drag it over your image. You’ll end up with something like this:

You’ll notice that there is a border around the box and the background of the text box is solid white. Let’s go ahead and remove the border and background fill.

Click the border of the text box. You’ll notice a new “Format” tab appears. Go ahead and click that tab. There are two options in the “Shape Style” section that we’re going to be using—“Shape Fill” and “Shape Outline.”

When you click the “Shape Fill” button, a drop-down menu with different colors and theme options appears. Click the “No Fill” option.

The background of your text box is now gone.

Next, click the “Shape Outline” button and choose the “No Outline” option from that drop-down menu.

Now, you’ll see that the border has been removed.

That’s all there is to it.

The big advantage to this method is that you drag that text box around however you want to get your text lined up just right with your image.

How to Insert a Built-In Watermark

With your document open, switch over to the “Design” tab.

In the Page Background group on that tab, click the “Watermark” button.

On the drop-down menu, click any of the built-in watermarks to insert it into your document.

Word places the watermark behind the text.

How to Insert a Custom Watermark

You can also create custom watermarks from text or images. To do this, select the “Custom Watermark” from the “Watermark” drop-down menu.

Using Custom Text Watermarks

In the Printed Watermark window that opens, select the “Text Watermark” option. Type the text you want to use into the “Text” box and then configure the options for language, font, size, color, and orientation the way you want them. Click “OK” when you’re done.

Word inserts your custom text watermark behind the text.

Using Custom Picture Watermarks

If you want to use a picture as a watermark, select the “Picture Watermark” option and then click the “Select Picture” button.

You can use a picture file on your computer, search for an image on Bing, or select an image from your OneDrive storage.

Select an image from the results and then click the “Insert” button. We’re using an image from our computer.

Back in the Printed Watermark window, you have a couple of options for how your picture appears. The “Scale” is set to automatic by default, but you can change the size of your image if you want. The “Washout” option inserts the image with pale colors the way most watermarks appear. You can disable that option to have the image presented in its full glory. Click “OK” when you’ve set it up the way you want.

Word inserts the image behind the text in your document.

How to Move or Resize a Watermark

To move a watermark after inserting it, you’ll need to open the Header/Footer area in your document. Do so by double-clicking anywhere in the header or footer area.

When you do that, the watermark becomes editable. This is true whether you’re using a text or picture watermark. You can drag the image around to move it, or you can grab and drag any of its handles to resize it—just like you would with any other image.

Since the same watermark appears on all pages, resizing or moving it on one page means those same changes are made everywhere else.

How to Remove a Watermark

There are two ways to remove a watermark. The first is by opening the Header/Footer area, so the image is accessible (the same way we talked about in the previous section), selecting the image, and hitting the Delete key.

You can also switch to the “Design” tab, click the “Watermark” button, and then select the “Remove Watermark” command. Either way works just fine.

And just like with moving or resizing a watermark, deleting one removes it from every page of your document.

If you’ve ever opened a Microsoft Word document with a custom font that you don’t have embedded, you know that Microsoft Word changes the custom font to your default font setting.

That change can mess with the layout of your document and make it look sloppy and hard to read.

You can embed custom fonts in your Microsoft Word document to make sure that it retains your formatting when you send it to someone else.

Embedding fonts does make document file sizes a bit larger, but it’s worth it in some situations.

Here’s how to embed a custom font in your Microsoft Word document.

In an open document, switch over to the “File” menu.

On the sidebar that opens, click the “Options” command.

In the Word Options window, click the “Save” category.

On the right, select the “Embed fonts in the file” check box.

Check the box for “Embed only the characters used in the document (best for reducing file size).”

Choosing this option means that Word will only embed a font if it’s used in the document.

If you don’t check this option, Word will embed all fonts in your system in the file, even if they’re not being used.

You should leave “Do not embed common system fonts” checked.

This option also reduces file size because it won’t embed common system fonts.

Click “OK” to save your settings.

Now the fonts you used in your document are embedded into the file,

and your document will look its best when someone else views it.

The “Shrink One Page” command works by automatically sizing down your text and adjusting margins to shrink your document just enough. If you’re working on a document (like a school essay) where you must use a required font or margin size, this command probably won’t work well for you. But in other circumstances, it’s worth giving a try. While you can undo the command if things don’t look right, we’d encourage you to save your document first to be on the safe side.

The “Shrink One Page” command isn’t on the Ribbon by default, so you’ll need to add it. The easiest way to do this is to add it to your Quick Access Toolbar. That’s the little toolbar at the top left of your window with the Save and Undo command.

Go ahead and click the down arrow at the far right of the Quick Access Toolbar.

On the drop-down menu, click the “More Commands” option.

In the Word Options window, the “Quick Access Toolbar” category should already be selected on the left. On the right, click the “Choose Commands From” drop-down menu and select the “All Commands” option.

On the long list of commands on the left, scroll down and select the “Shrink One Page” command. Click the “Add” button to add it to the list of commands shown on the Quick Access Toolbar.

Click “OK” when you’re done.

You’ll now find the “Shrink One Page” button on your Word ribbon. Click it to shrink your document by one page.

Keep in mind that because Word is resizing fonts and margins, using this command can cause formatting issues—especially if you have images or other illustrations already positioned where you want them. Before saving your document, check it to make sure that no weird errors occurred during the process. If there are, you can always click the undo button to remove the changes.

In an open document, switch to the “Insert” tab on the Word ribbon.

Next, click the “Screenshot” button.

You will be greeted with a thumbnail image of every Window you open at the moment.

Then click one of the thumbnails to take a screenshot of that window immediately inserted into your document. You can then position that image like you would any other illustration.

If you want to capture a specific area on the screen instead of an active window, click the “Screen Clipping” command instead of a thumbnail on that Screenshot drop-down menu.

Your entire screen will dim, and you can draw a rectangle over just the portion you want to capture.

As soon as you select the area, Word adds the image to your document right away.