In this lesson, you'll learn how to use Word's online Help system.
The Help command lets you access Word's online Help system, which can display program information and instructions on your screen. One way to access the Help system is via the Help command on the main menu. This menu has five commands on it:
This lesson explains the most useful parts of the Help system in this lesson. Please refer to your program documentation if you want additional information on the Microsoft Network or WordPerfect Help.
Timesaver Tip: Quick Help You can display the Help Topics screen as you edit your document by pressing F1.
The Help Topics screen has four tabs that let you access different parts of the Help system.
See the Contents tab in Figure 2.1. Each title, or book, in the
list describes a section of the Help material. To open a book, select it, and then
click the Open button. To close an open book, double-click
the open-book icon next to the title.
Figure 2.1
The Contents tab on the Help Topics screen.
When you open a book, a list of its chapters appear, as shown in Figure 2.2. A question-mark
icon marks the book chapters. To open a chapter, click the question-mark icon, and
then click Open. A book may also contain other books,
which you can open the same way.
Figure 2.2
An opened Help book displays its chapter headings.
Two different Help screens may appear when you open a chapter. One is a graphical
screen that provides a picture of the selected topic. This type of screen (see Figure
2.3) has labels that you can click to display additional information on a specific
task or topic.
Figure 2.3
A graphical Help screen.
A text screen also provides Help information, as shown in Figure 2.4. Many text screens
have buttons you can click for more information.
Figure 2.4
A text Help screen.
On any Help screen, click the Help Topics button to
close the Help screen and return to the Help Topics window. Or press Esc
to close the Help screen and return to your document.
The Index tab provides an alphabetical list of Help topics, as shown in
Figure 2.5. You can scroll through the list to find the one of interest, or you can
start typing a word in the first box; the list will automatically scroll to the proper
section. Click the topic you want in the list, and then click the Display
button. If you want to scroll through the list, you can click the scroll bar arrows
to search for a topic.
Figure 2.5
The Index tab on the Help Topics screen.
The Find tab in the Help Topics window (Figure 2.6)
lets you search the Help system for the topic you need.
Figure 2.6
The Find tab on the Help Topics screen. To use the Find tab:
Word displays a Help screen with information on the selected topic.
The Answer Wizard lets you find Help information by asking questions in your own
words. It's one of Word 7.0's new features. You can access the Answer Wizard
by selecting Answer Wizard from the Help menu, or by
selecting the Answer Wizard tab in the Help Topics
screen. The Answer Wizard provides an unusual way for you to obtain Help information,
as shown in Figure 2.7.
Figure 2.7
The Answer Wizard.
To use the Answer Wizard, type a question or request into the number 1 text
box on the Answer Wizard screen, and then press Enter
or click the Search button. You may be wondering how
you check spelling. Word displays a list of topics that it thinks might answer your
question. Click the topic you want to view, and then click the Display
button. For most topics, Word then displays a Help screen with the relevant information.
In some cases, Word will "demonstrate" the task to you by issuing the needed
menu commands.
When the Tip Wizard is active, it "watches" you work and displays helpful
hints about what you are doing. The Tip Wizard appears below the Formatting toolbar,
as shown in Figure 2.8. In this figure, the Tip Wizard displays a tip about Word's
automatic spell-checking feature (which you'll learn about in Lesson 21).
Figure 2.8
The Tip Wizard displays helpful hints about what you are doing.
To turn the Tip Wizard display on or off, select View Toolbars,
and then click the Tip Wizard option. When the Tip Wizard
is turned on, it detects you doing certain things and flashes the yellow light bulb
in its window; you will see a tip or hint. You can scroll through previously displayed
tips using the scroll bar at the right end of the Tip Wizard window.
Normally, the Tip Wizard displays each tip only once. To reset the Tip Wizard so that it will display previous tips again in the future, press Ctrl and click the light bulb on the Tip Wizard.
If the Tip Wizard appears but does not display any tips, you may need to activate it:
If you are using Word's menus or dialog boxes, you can obtain context-sensitive Help at any time by pressing F1. If you highlight a menu command, information about that command appears. If you see a dialog box is open, pressing F1 displays information about the dialog box. After you have read Help, press Esc to close it and return to what you were doing.
Plain English: Context-sensitive Help Information directly related to what you are doing at the moment.
In this lesson, you learned how to use the Help system. In the next lesson, you'll learn how to enter and delete text, and how to move around a document.
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