Getting Started with Microsoft Word Online

Getting Started with Word Online

Word Online is the cloud-based version of Microsoft’s powerful word processing program. Using Word Online, you can create professional documents of nearly any type. You can also add tables, images, and much more. Best of all, Word Online’s interface is intuitive and easy to use, so the tools you need will be easily accessible.

Here’s how to get started with using Microsoft Word Online:

Logging into Office 365

Your first step before using Word Online is to log into Office 365 with your Microsoft account. To start, open your Internet browser and navigate to the login page at https://login.microsoftonline.com:

Instructor Tip: If you do not have a Microsoft account, you can create one right from this page.

Then, enter your Microsoft account name and click “Next:”

If prompted, choose the sub-account to sign in with:

Finally, enter your password and click “Sign in:”

Now, you will see your Office 365 landing page:

Launching Word Online

To start Word Online, simply click the icon on the Office 365 landing page:

Instructor Tip: You can also click the app launcher in the top left corner and click the Word icon from the menu that appears.

Word Online will then open in a new tab:

The Word Online Interface

Word Online looks and operates in much the same way as its desktop counterpart, Word 2016:

Let’s go over the basics of each element.

1: Navigation Commands

The top left part of the screen contains the app launcher (where you can access other Office 365 apps), the name of the app (Word Online), and a breadcrumb trail (with clickable links to other parts of your Office 365 profile).

2: Title Bar

The name of the current file is displayed here. You may also see more information about the file (for example, here you can see it has been saved). You can click the file name to change it.

3: Sharing Commands

Click this icon to share the current document. You can also view your Office 365 profile name here.

4: Tabs

Groups of like commands are organized under tab names. Click a tab to view the commands in the ribbon.

5: Ribbon Interface

Displays tab commands organized into groups. If you click the different tabs, you will see the commands change. Notice, too, that some of the commands might be grayed out. This is because those commands are only usable in certain situations.

Like the desktop version of Word, Word Online also features contextual tabs. These are special tabs that only appear when you are working with a specific object or group of information. For example, if you were to insert and select a picture, you would see a contextual tab offering commands for that object:

Once you switch to working with something else, this tab will disappear.

6: Working Area

The content in the currently open file will be shown here.

7: Status Bar

This bar is used to display information about the document. In the sample image, you will see a page and word count on the left-hand side. (You may see other commands here depending on your current task.) On the right-hand side you will see commands to zoom into or out of the document and participate in the Office Experience Program.

Creating a New Document

When you open Word Online, you will be prompted to choose an existing document or create a new one. For this example, let’s create a new, blank document by clicking the related thumbnail:

The document will be created and saved to either your personal OneDrive account or SharePoint space:

This document will use “Document” as the default name. To change its name, click the current name on the title bar, type the new name, and press “Enter:”

With your new document named, you can begin composing it just as you would in the desktop version of Word. For example, clicking and typing within the workspace will add text:

As you continue to work on your document, it will automatically be saved. To create a new document, click the File tab:

Then, click the New category and click the thumbnail for the document you want to create:

The new document will now be created and displayed in the current browser tab.

Closing Word Online

Remember that Word Online is constantly saving your document, so you do not have to worry about losing data when closing Word Online, and you do not have to manually save it either. So, once you have finished composing your document, you can just close the browser tab (or browser) in which Word Online is open.

This is an excerpt from Velsoft’s latest computer course: Microsoft Word Online.