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 2×5 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.
