MS Word Questions and Answers

Answer: C

Correct answer: A part with its own page layout settings

A section is a part of a document with its own page setup - margins, orientation, paper size, columns, headers, footers, page numbering, line numbers and borders. Sections are created by inserting section breaks from the Layout tab. Every document has at least one section, even if no break has ever been inserted. The four kinds of break differ in where the new section starts. Next Page begins on a new page; Continuous begins on the same page, which is how a multi-column block is placed within a single-column document; Even Page and Odd Page begin on the next page of that parity, as printed chapters do. The detail that causes most difficulty is that a new section starts out linked to the previous one for headers and footers, so Link to Previous must be turned off before they can differ. Deleting a section break merges the sections, and the text takes the formatting of the section that followed.

Answer: C

Correct answer: Table of Contents

A Table of Contents is generated from the Heading styles applied in the document, listing each heading with the page it falls on. It is inserted from the References tab. The dependence on styles is the crucial point: Word finds headings by looking for Heading 1, Heading 2 and so on. Text merely made large and bold is invisible to it, which is why a table of contents that comes out empty almost always means styles were never applied. It is a field, so it does not update itself as the document changes. Pressing F9, or choosing Update Table, refreshes it, with the option of updating page numbers alone or the whole table. The distractors are the neighbouring References tools. An Index is an alphabetical list of marked terms with their pages, built at the end of a document. A Bibliography lists cited sources. A Cross-reference points to a numbered item elsewhere and updates when that item moves.

Answer: D

Correct answer: Ctrl + E

Centring uses E, because C is already taken by Copy. The set runs Ctrl + L left, Ctrl + E centre, Ctrl + R right, Ctrl + J justified.

Answer: C

Correct answer: place text anywhere on the page independently of the main text flow

A text box is a container that can be positioned anywhere on the page and moved freely, holding text that is independent of the main body flow. It is inserted from the Insert tab. It is used for pull quotes, captions, sidebars and callouts - anything that must sit in a fixed place rather than move with the surrounding text. Its text wrapping setting decides how body text behaves around it: In Line with Text treats it as a character, while Square, Tight and Behind Text let the body flow around or under it. Anchoring is worth understanding too, since a text box is attached to a paragraph and moves if that paragraph moves. Text boxes can be linked so that overflow from one continues in another, which is how newsletter layouts are built. The second option describes Borders and Shading, which is simpler where no repositioning is needed.

Answer: C

Correct answer: WordArt

WordArt turns text into a graphic object that can be curved, shadowed, filled and rotated. The other three names are not Word features.

Answer: C

Correct answer: Changes every occurrence in the document at once

Replace All changes every occurrence in the document in a single operation and reports how many replacements were made. Replace, by contrast, changes the current occurrence and moves to the next, allowing each to be judged individually. Replace All is best used with care, because a careless search string can do a great deal of damage - replacing art with craft will also alter party, start and heart unless Find whole words only is ticked. The result is undoable with Ctrl + Z, which undoes the entire operation as one step. The dialogue is more capable than it looks. Match case distinguishes capitals; formatting can be searched for as well as text; and special characters can be found by code - ^p for a paragraph mark, ^t for a tab - which makes it the standard way to tidy pasted text. With Use wildcards enabled it searches by pattern rather than by literal string.

Answer: D

Correct answer: To set margins, indents and tab stops

The Ruler shows the width of the text area and provides direct control over margins, indents and tab stops. It is displayed from the View tab. Four markers appear on the horizontal ruler and each does something different. The upper triangle sets the first-line indent; the lower triangle sets the hanging indent, which affects every line except the first; the small rectangle beneath moves both together as the left indent; and the triangle at the right sets the right indent. Tab stops are set by clicking on the ruler, and the box at its left end cycles through the types - left, centre, right, decimal and bar. The decimal tab is the one to use for columns of figures, since it aligns the decimal points however many digits precede them. The grey areas at each end represent the page margins, which can be dragged directly.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Superscript

Text raised above the baseline is superscript, as in x² or a footnote marker. Lowered text is subscript.

Answer: B

Correct answer: periodically saves a temporary copy so work can be recovered after a crash

AutoRecover writes a temporary copy of open documents at intervals - ten minutes by default - so that if Word or the machine crashes, the work can be recovered when Word next starts. The interval is set in File, Options, Save. It is important to understand what it is not. It does not save the document: the file on disk is untouched until Ctrl + S is pressed, and the AutoRecover copy is discarded when a document is closed normally. It is a crash safety net, not a substitute for saving. The related setting, Keep the last autosaved version if I close without saving, preserves that copy for a time and makes it reachable through Recover Unsaved Documents at the foot of the Open pane. AutoSave is a different and newer feature: for files stored on OneDrive or SharePoint it writes changes continuously to the real file, with version history available.

Answer: C

Correct answer: Landscape

Word offers exactly two orientations: Portrait, taller than it is wide, and Landscape, wider than it is tall. Portrait is the default. Landscape is chosen for wide tables, charts and timelines that would not otherwise fit across the page. The practical point worth knowing is how to mix the two. Orientation is a section property, so a single landscape page inside a portrait document requires a section break before and after it - a Next Page break in each case - after which the orientation of that section alone can be changed. Simply selecting the page and changing orientation does not work without them. Orientation is set from the Layout tab, alongside margins, paper size and columns. It also affects headers and footers, which reflow to the new width, and can require the page numbering to be checked afterwards.