3 Ways to Edit Word Documents on PC or Mac

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A simple guide to editing, designing, and changing the style of a Word doc on PC or Mac
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This wikiHow teaches you how to edit a Microsoft Word document's page layout, change its design theme, and make basic style edits on the text, using a computer.

Things You Should Know

  • To edit the text in a Word doc, select your text then look in the "Font" field for different text options.
  • To edit the page layout of a Word doc, click "Layout > Margins" and select the margins you want to use.
  • Select a design theme in "Design > Theme" to make your Word pages more cohesive and uniform.
Section 1 of 3:

Editing the Text Style

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  1. This button is in the upper-left corner of your document. It will open your text styling tools on the toolbar ribbon.
  2. You can select a word, sentence, paragraph or section in your document.
    • If you want to select the entire document, press Control + A on Windows, or ⌘ Command + A on Mac.
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  3. This will open a list of all your available font options.
  4. Clicking a font here will change the selected text to this font.
  5. This field shows the current size of your text next to the Font field.
    • You can manually enter a size here, or click the
      Android 7 Dropdown
      icon and select a size on the menu.
  6. The alignment buttons look like aligned, centered, and justified paragraph icons in the middle of the Home toolbar.
    • You can align your text left, center it, align it right, or justify it.
  7. This button looks like a paragraph icon with two blue arrows next to it. It will open your spacing options on a drop-down menu.
  8. You can set your spacing at different common values like 1.0, 1.5, or 2.0.
    • If you want to double-space your text, select 2.0 here.
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Section 2 of 3:

Editing the Page Layout

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  1. Find the document you want to edit, and double-click on its name to open the text file.
  2. This button is located above the toolbar ribbon in the upper-left corner of your document. It will open your layout tools on the toolbar ribbon.
  3. This is the first option on the Layout ribbon. It will open your document's margin options on a drop-down menu.
  4. You can use Normal, Narrow, Moderate, Wide, or Mirrored margins.
    • Click a margin option to see what it looks like.
    • You can see the exact margin indent values below each option.
    • If you don't like any of the options here, click Custom Margins at the bottom, and manually enter the margin indent values you want to use.
  5. You can manually customize the margin indent and spacing options of a paragraph or section in your text without affecting the overall margins of your document.
  6. You can find these sections in the middle of the Layout ribbon.
    • Indent will allow you to customize the selected region's margins from left and right.
    • Spacing will allow you to make the space above or below the selected region larger or smaller.
  7. This will open your document's page orientation options on a drop-down menu.
  8. Click one of the options here to change your document's page orientation.
  9. This will open a list of available paper-size configurations you can use for your document.
  10. This will help you accurately preview your document's print output on the paper size you're planning to use.
  11. This option allows you to create multiple text columns in your text document.
    • You can select a paragraph or section in your document and apply your columns here if you want to use different numbers of columns in different parts of your text.
  12. Click a column option on the drop-down menu to apply it to the selected part of your text.
    • Two and Three will create multiple, equal-sized columns.
    • Left and Right will create two columns, and make one of them wider than the other one.
    • If you want to manually customize your column number, size, and spacing, click More Columns at the bottom.
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Section 3 of 3:

Selecting a Design Theme

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  1. You can find it between Insert and Layout above the toolbar ribbon in the upper-left corner. It will open your design tools on the ribbon.
  2. This is the first option on the Design toolbar in the upper-left corner. It will open your document theme options on a drop-down menu.
  3. Click on a theme to see different design variations of it.
    • When you select a theme, related design variations will be listed next to it on the Design ribbon.
  4. This button is located towards the right-hand side of the toolbar ribbon. It will open a drop-down menu of different color palettes you can use.
  5. Click the color palette you want to use. This will filter the themes on the toolbar ribbon, and restrict the selection to the selected color palette.
  6. This will open a list of all the available fonts you can use for your text.
  7. This will filter the themes on the ribbon and only show themes with your selected font.
  8. Find an interesting design and click on it to apply the theme to your document.
    • Some themes will change all the heading and spacing stylings in your document whereas some others will do as little as only changing your font. [1]
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Common Questions: Editing Word Docs on a Mac

How do you unlock a Word document for editing on a Mac?

If there are locked sections in your Word document, click the Tools menu and select Protect Document . Remove the checkmark from "Protect document for" and click OK .

How can you edit a document on Mac without Microsoft Word?

If you don't have Microsoft Word, you can open the document in Pages. Just hold down Control as you click the document, select Open with , and then click Pages .

Why is Word not allowing me to edit?

If you get an error that says, "Your account doesn't allow editing on a Mac," try using the license removal tool to uninstall and reinstall your license. Make sure you know your Microsoft login information so you don't run into trouble when reinstalling. [2]

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References

  1. ↑ https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/collaborate-on-word-documents-with-real-time-co-authoring-7dd3040c-3f30-4fdd-bab0-8586492a1f1d
  2. ↑ https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/how-to-remove-office-license-files-on-a-mac-b032c0f6-a431-4dad-83a9-6b727c03b193

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