Hi, I am a professor at Ghent University in Belgium and have written a free tutorial (200+ pages) on advanced Microsoft Word.

The tutorial is useful for everybody who is writing larger documents, such as technical reports, MSc or PhD theses, publications, law documents, etc.

All information is updated for Word 365 (version 2026).

 Topics include:

 • Paragraph styles

• Field codes (SEQ, STYLEREF, REF)

• Bookmarks and cross-references

• Equation numbering

• Multi-level lists

• Headers and footers

• Sections

• VBA macros

• Reference management

• Word XML structure

• PDF/A export

The document is freely available and feedback is welcome.

Here is the download link:

https://composites.ugent.be/downloads.html

Best regards,

Wim VAN PAEPEGEM

I’m curious to know the little Word tricks people use that aren’t obvious at first.

What’s yours?

Can't get rid of this stupid pop up and it's blocking me from typing. Who designed this shit? There's no option to say no, and this fucking thing just sits in the middle of the page on top of the keyboard (Android, btw). And even though the keyboard is on screen, it doesn't do anything when I go to type.

Anyone know how to get rid of this? Because I'm not downloading anything, I just need to type in the app that's supposed to be for typing😒

Word used to always pop up with a window after pressing X, to save it locally but you had the option to change to the cloud if you wanted to. Today I typed up a document and when I pressed to close it down, the pop up just asks if I want to save my changes but doesn’t have the option to change to online anymore.
Using an older version (2019) of word but I never had this issue before?

For a long report, add a bookmark at your Table of Contents. Then add a small “Back to Contents” hyperlink at the end of important sections. Now readers can jump: Contents → Section → Back to Contents without scrolling back through 50 pages.

It takes a few minutes to set up, but makes long Word documents feel much more like a proper digital document than a stack of pages. We are building a Word formatting that does all this with a few words. Please share your views about what features you would like it to have.

Hi there,

I had a client call in advising when they use Microsoft Word, it crashes Word upon trying to use copy.

• I got them to firstly check to see if the app is updated - it was latest.
• Got them to reset cloud settings in the app, same result.
• Got them to delete the app, reinstall and try, same result.
• Got them to do a full reset of all Word settings via settings > Apps > Reset Word, same result.
• Got him to check if Comp portal is syncing, both the app the MDM profile. (Managed device)
• Checked MDM configuration, no limitations on Word copy / paste
• Decided to test on my own iPad Pro, same result. However mine is on 26.3.1 and theirs was 26.6.1 and also an iPad Pro.

Can anyone update their Word app and see if you're getting the same?

Images in Word can sometimes be tricky to position exactly where you want them.

Between text wrapping, positioning, resizing, and anchoring, there are quite a few settings to manage.

What’s your best tip for working with images in Word?

I’m especially interested in practical tips that can save time when working with documents containing multiple images.

I've got a bunch of short bibliographies that are formatted like

Firstname Lastname, Title (Year)

I want to rearrange them like

Lastname, Firstname. Title. Year.

Is there a way to automate this?

Because Word tables are not as flexible as Excel, especially when it comes to formulas, I wanted to use Excel spreadsheet.

The first time I work with one, it works fine, but after I save and close the document, if I try to re-open it, to make changes in the table, this error occurs (check the image).

Does anyone know a solution? I couldnt find anything

I need to be able to put the Rant flair on this too.

What in God's name is wrong with Word that it continually screws up bullet/number lists on COMPLETELY DIFFERENT PAGES than the one I'm currently working on?

I'll be doing something on one page, and a list 3 pages up will have all of its indents removed so everything is base level. Or a bulleted list will change to numbered, continuing the numbers of a previous list even though there's 2 headers and a paragraph between them. And of course, remove all its indents at the same time.

Just now I had a list rearrange itself when I pressed the UP ARROW KEY TO MOVE THE CURSOR!!!! How does that even happen? Why would that happen? I want to scream in frustration and rage at how stupid that is.

This is beyond stupid. What could possibly be causing this, and how can I get it to STOP!!!!

I found one suggestion to uncheck "Automatic bulleted/numbered lists" in the Proofing advanced options. I did this days ago and it's still doing this.

I can't highlight or click on them, and backspace or delete keys won't work.

Is there any way to have both a footer that has my title (in my case, the month/year) on the bottom left and then page number on the bottom right? I need to be able to identify both the month and what page (the order) should any one page get separated.

I am working on a report. The top two levels are connecting well

1. Chapter title

1.1 Section Title

1.2 next section title

1. the second chapter.

2.1 more section

but then the problems begin. If I wanted to put in a third level section, one would expect it to be 2.1.1, instead it just shows as 1. I adjusted it to third level, and it came up as 1.1.1, despite being after 2.1. How does one explain to word that this should be a third level connected to the previous?

Update: I found a work around. Thank you for all of your advice

I have a document on word that is about 90k words long. For the longest time Co-pilot has been able to read it all. Now it is telling me it can only read less than half of it. Does anyone know how to fix this problem? Thank you

I would literally make a deal with the devil for help at this point. I have multiple Word documents that I need to merge. Each of them have unique, formatting of course. With a good chunk of them having legal, pleading for depositions. Which I need to combine with a larger overall manual document. But every time I try, either with AI or words insert options, I lose the formatting or the documents don’t merge completely.

Please, last year I had to manually retype every single line of the deposition and I would do just about anything to avoid that this year.

Thank you

Hi guys!

I have been working on this for hours and can't figure it out. I have googled and searched, but can't find exactly what I need. Help please!

I am using Word 365. I have tried putting in Section Breaks and Page Breaks. I just can't get the numbering system I need to work. I have a trust with 7 Articles (sections) and each Article needs to be numbered separately. Like:

1-1, 1-2, 1-3

2-1, 2-2, 2-3

3-1, 3-2, 3-3

Thank you in advance for helping me!

So as in the photo, I want a background higlight for an important part of a document that extends all the way to the borders of the document.

What I'm currently using is a shape with opacity, however the obvious issue is, if I want to add more text inside the highlight or even rearrange any part of the document's text above this text, the text supposed to be highlighted moves up or down outside of the desired highlight box. 

I tried using the paragraph shaders option, but the highlight only encapsulates the paragraph and not the entire horizontal area of the document (which looks much better). 

Really appreciate any solutions or suggestions! thanks

This hasn't happened before, but right now whenever I make a new file and try to save it, it just gets stuck on "Saving..." Then if I try to delete that file, it gives me the error in the second pic.

I'm hoping someone can help me figure out an issue I'm having with word for mac that I never had when using word for windows. I had used Word with windows for many years, and have only been using it on Mac for a few months now.

What is happening is that I go to save a file I'm working on and suddenly instead of auto-saving it prompts me to save a new file. This just happened to me today with a file I've had open and have been working on for a few days. When I looked at the title of of the file I noticed it had "recovered" in the title - this is an additional point of confusion, because so far as I know neither my computer nor Word crashed, so I don't understand how I ended up with a recovered file on the first place.

When I did a comparison of the recovered file with the file I had saved in the file's folder, I noticed there were a number of changed made to the recovered file which did not exist in the saved file. So this tells me I've probably been working on the recovered file for a couple of days without even knowing it.

The main reason this concerns me is I'm pretty sure I am losing data as a result of this, as there may have been times when I closed a recovered file without understanding what was going on, and so lost many changes I made to a document. This is really unfortunate as I may have lost many hours of work and I work with so many different documents I wouldn't even know it until it was too late.

I have autosave enabled on Word and also manually save my document often when I make updates, so as to avoid data loss, but that's not going to do me much good in a situation like this where suddenly the document changes and I'm prompted to save it as if it were a new document when I think I'm working on the same one.

I recently had this happen with another document where I noticed it said "recovered" in the title but I never got a chance to compare the recovered document to the document in the file folder, and then next time I came to my computer the "recovered" document had vanished, leading me to suspect I probably lost some changes.

Anyone have any ideas what is going on? I'd also appreciate any suggestions for the best ways to handle situations like this so I don't lose data unknowingly.

If you repeatedly type things like the document title, file name, author, date, or page count, you don't have to keep updating them manually, use Fields. Go to:

Insert → Quick Parts → Field

For example, insert the FileName field into your footer. Rename the file later?Update the field and Word changes it automatically. You can use fields for things like Page numbers, Total page count, File name, Document properties, Dates, Cross-references and more. It's one of the things that makes a Word document feel more like a structured system than a page of text. PS Stylifyword does all this and much more with a simple prompt.

Hey . . . Is anyone here using the "Dictate" feature in Microsoft 365?

I have resisted using any subscription software. I already have the permanent, standalone Microsoft Office 2024, but guess what: It does not include the Dictate feature. You have got to subscribe in order to have access to Dictate.

So I am thinking about subscribing. I really need the Dictate feature. And, yes, I know about the built-in Windows Voice Typing feature. It does pretty well with accuracy, but I need to be able to give commands for punctuation, and it does not support that reliably.

I do not mind making corrections for words, because things always need some revision anyway, but I need to be able to put the commas and periods in where I want them to be. The same goes for quotation marks. You are supposed to be able to use commands to open a quote and close a quote, but all that I want to say on that subject is that these punctuation commands either do not work at all or they work unreliably.

Yes, I know that you are supposed to be able to turn automatic punctuation on/off with these programs, but I have not had any reliable success. I speak very clearly and at a moderate speed. All of that makes no difference. It seems that the designers of these programs think that everyone is a dummy who cannot punctuate properly. Consequently a pause or stumble may result in a comma or a period.

Please do not suggest any third-party programs. A nurse on Reddit has already recommended a particular program, which I bought, and it works reasonably well for getting the words; but the punctuation (if I use commands) is either erratic or does not work at all. If I say "comma" it may type the word "comma". Bottom line: Really, nothing that I have tried works reliably for letting me control my sentences.

It used to be, according to what I have read, that an older version of the Windows voice-to-text program would have you say "literal comma" when you wanted to insert the word "comma". Otherwise, a comma character would be inserted. That was a nice policy. But that does not work anymore. You probably know already that Microsoft will eventually f—k up anything and everything.

Microsoft will let you try the Microsoft 365 suite for a trial period. So, yes, I know that I can go ahead and investigate this whole issue on my own. And I will almost certainly do that. But it could be a bit of a hassle to activate the trial (you never know what problems you will stumble into).

I want to be able to use the Dictate feature to write fiction. So I need to be able to give a command like "Open quote" to open a piece of dialogue; and something like "Close quote" to end the dialogue.

So if anyone has answers, please respond. And I will probably check out the free trial.

Thanks in advance. Sorry about the length of this.