Word s Writing Tools

Word's Writing Tools

Microsoft Word includes a number of features that can help you be a better writer. Some of these features can help you find and fix errors in your documents, while other features can help you fine-tune documents for publication.

This chapter covers the following writing tools of interest to most Word users:

• The spelling checker compares words in your document to words in dictionary files to identify unknown words.

• The grammar checker checks sentences against a collection of grammar rules to identify questionable sentence construction.

• AutoCorrect automatically corrects common errors as you type.

• The dictionary helps you understand the meaning of words in a document.

• The thesaurus enables you to find synonyms or antonyms for words in your document.

• Hyphenation automatically hyphenates words based on hyphenation rules.

• Word count counts the words in a selection or the entire document.

• The Change Case command changes the capitalization of words you select.

• AutoSummarize automatically summarizes a document's content.

Tip

• No proofing tool is a complete substitute for carefully rereading a document to manually check it for errors. Use Word's writing tools to help you find and fix errors, but don't depend on them to find all errors in your documents.