The
Insert Tab is right next to
the Home Tab in Microsoft Word 2007. This tab has a lot of
useful features that will let you insert things like pictures,
clip art images, shapes, SmartArt graphics, charts and a host
of other items. Let us review a few of these features in
this exciting new tab.
Before we do that here is
a screen shot of the insert tab shown below.
Today we
will be working with several different documents to show you
the functionality in the Insert Tab. A common task in
Microsoft Word is to add a Page Break. For this practice we
will use the definition assignment document as illustrated
below.
We would like to
add a page break right before the Research Analysis
section. In order to do this in Microsoft Word 2007, you
can select the Insert Tab and then select the Pages group and
then choose Page Break.
Here is a screen shot of this action.
After
performing the above mentioned action we were able to
insert a page break right before the Research Analysis
section.
This
is highlighted in the following figure.
Next we are
going to look at a Meeting Agenda for more practice with the
Insert Tab in Microsoft Word 2007. We have some basic
information about the meeting like date, time and presenter in
the beginning of our document.
We need to add at
least two more things, the schedule and the company logo as
highlighted in yellow.
One quick
way to add a meeting schedule in Microsoft word 2007 is to use
a table. Let us see how we can achieve this task next.
Select the Table command from the Insert Tab which will
launch the Insert Table functionality in Microsoft Word 2007.
It will let you pick the number of columns and rows of the
desired table in your document. As you drag your mouse over
the highlighted area, you can select the rows and columns that
you would like.
Here I have chosen a 2x5 table for my
meeting agenda. Also notice that as you drag the mouse
you will get a live preview of your table in your document,
very cool!
This is shown below in the screen shot.
Before we
go ahead and enter the data, I want to talk
about Contextual tabs. These are special tabs that
appear only when certain objects are being used such as a table or
a picture. The idea is to keep them hidden until the object
is active, leading to a more efficient work flow and
less cluttered area.
The Table object
has two such contextual tabs: design and layout. The
design lets you control things like table styles, borders and
shading.
This tab is illustrated below in the
screen capture.
The next
contextual tab related to Tables is the layout tab. This
tab will actually let you modify the structure of the table
including rows and columns plus alignment and cell size.
This is shown below with all the available options.
Once the
table is created, you can start entering the data as you wish.
In my case I went ahead and entered the training schedule
times and information shown as follows.
I also
unchecked the header row and the first column check boxes
on the Ribbon shown in red squares. I also clicked on
the More command to choose a different gallery style
for my table.
WOW!! look
at all these predefined, ready made table styles available in
Microsoft Word 2007. These styles use a
combination of color schemes, font properties and graphical
effects. As I hover my mouse over the styles, I get
a preview of what my table will look like if I select that
option.
I like the Burgundy color so I'm going to
choose "Colorful Shading - Accent 2".
Here is a screen
shot.
My first
column is taking way too much space so I would like to move
the border a little to the left. I can do this by
selecting the first column border and moving it left.
This is shown by the red
arrow in the screen shot below. Notice the dotted line will
be the new location for the column border.
The final
touch that I want to give to my table is borders on all sides
and in between cells. I'm going to select the Borders
command in table styles group under the Table Tools Tab in
Microsoft Word 2007. This will show a drop down menu
where I will choose all borders.
This is
illustrated below in the screen shot.
The meeting
schedule is now complete. Let us take a look at the end
product shown below. Very Nice and professional
looking!
Let's
switch gears and insert a company logo into our document. I
would like to use a free Clip Art image for this step. I am
working on a sales meeting so I would like to add a picture of cash
or money in my document. I can use the Clip Art feature
of Microsoft Office 2007 that will let me insert free
images and graphics in this document.
I clicked on Clip
Art command on the Illustrations group to start the
process. Here's what it looks like in my
document.
The Clip Art
dialog box launches on the right side of my document. I
will type business in the Search for text box and hit
Go. Looks like it found a currency symbol, I like
it for now. I will go ahead and choose this one for my
company logo.
This is shown below the screen
capture.
After you
enter the image, Microsoft Word 2007 will launch the Picture
Contextual Tools tab shown as follows.
This tab will let you
enhance the image further if you like. You can do things like
change styles, borders, colors, sizes and other picture effects.
I would like to make the company logo a little bit
bigger before I mess with any other effects.
I can do
modify the image size by grabbing the sizing handles on the
bottom right corner of the image, as shown by the blue
arrow. Using the mouse, I can drag the picture to
increase the size.
A screen shot of the Picture Tools tab and
the updated image is as follows.
What else
can I do to make the image stand out more? Adding a border to
my company logo may enhance the effect. So I will click on the
Picture Styles group under the Picture Tools tab. I will
select the drop down arrow to launch gallery of styles.
I will choose the black Simple Frame for my Logo.
I've included a screen shot of this.
I'm ready to
print my meeting agenda now as I have added the necessary
elements into my document. It is always a good idea to
do Print Preview before printing any document. So
when I did that, I got the following preview. I think
this looks awesome!!
The last thing I wanted to show you
is Inserting Header section for my Definition Assignment
project. I will switch to the other document for this
exercise.
Headers and footers are important
items to add to your documents to give them a professional
look and feel. A header could have information on the document
title, author name, version number etc. while a footer is
useful as it contains things like Page Numbers and Dates.
In order to
create a Header section, click on the Insert Tab and select
Header in the Header and Footer group. This will launch the
built-in Header gallery as shown below.
I will pick
the Austere style which will give me
a nice color scheme with Date and Title layout for my header.
After I made the selection, Microsoft Word 2007 inserted the
header block and I was prompted to enter the Date and Title
information. It was nice to get a date time picker for the
date. I selected today's date, entered the title of my
document and voila!
I have included
a screen capture here also:
Notice that
I was given a Header & Footer Tools tab above where I
could have further tweaked the settings.
I am actually happy with my existing
layout so I am done at this point. Now this header will be
visible on the top of all the pages in my definition
assignment report.
When I did a Print Preview, I was
able to see the document and it looks like the one
below.
This
concludes the lesson on Insert Tab in Microsoft Word
2007
. If you are unable to find the information you
are looking for,
please visit Microsoft's Word homepage