Mike’s Top 6 Microsoft Word Updates
I love fall, while fall means summer is wrapping up (which I don’t love) it means that all our favorite systems get some fancy updates! This will kick off a whole series of posts about the main tools we use and the updates they get. The first one of those systems that we will explore is Microsoft Word. Word has come a long way from when I was using it in high school. Every year updates come to Word but, as a teacher, I think this is the best year yet. We are going to look at my Top 6 new improvements to Word and Word Online. These updates I think can transform how Word can work for you and me. Without further ado, let’s take a look at Mike’s Top 6 Word Updates.
Word to Sway
If you had told me 20 years ago that one day in the future your boring report could be turned into a great website I would have laughed. I mean, at that time I would have taken a convert a Word document to PowerPoint and would have been happy. Today, right now, with an Office 365 account you can take a simple word document and convert it into a Sway. Sway is a drag and drop program that allows the user to create interactive reports, presentations, digital storytelling and so much more. One thought with using this tool to change your report from a standard report to one that is more interactive is to make sure that you are using proper formatting. By using the correct formatting, the Sway can be created following the formatting as an outline. One bonus is that you don’t lose that Word document.
As a student I would have loved something like this for my high school biology project on dissecting a Frog. My partner and I wrote up a long 30+ document with our report with images that we had hand drawn. This could have been turned into a great presentation very easily, instead we shared our pictures through an overhead projector (Elmo cameras weren’t even a thing yet…I’m old I know).
Word to PowerPoint
Just like with the first point above, you can take a boring, written presentation and turn it into an awesome PowerPoint! It’s super easy to do too! You go to File, then Export and then Export to PowerPoint Presentation. It will ask you a couple of questions and then boom! You have a well-organized PowerPoint presentation that you can turn around and tweak and make the best presentation of your life!
Again, I think back to well written reports that you would have to turn around and present on. This can solve that problem by giving you a starting point. Once it’s a PowerPoint then you can go in and edit it without fear or messing with your written report. Try it out and let me know what you think!
Embed Apps into Your Word Document.
If you work on MS Word online, you can embed a whole host of sites and it will add it to your document. Some of the sites that you can do are YouTube, Microsoft Forms, Microsoft Stream, Sway, Flipgrid Shorts, Vimeo, SlideShare and Ted Talks. For most of these all you need to do is collect the link and paste the link inside of the Word document. Here is a video from one of my favorite people, Mike Tholfson: How to embed apps in Microsoft Word // YouTube, Forms, Sway and more!
You have the ability to also just use tYou have the ability to also just use the link in a word document but what’s the fun in that! To be kept up to date with the latest in what you can embed into Word check out this link below.
Designer
You might not have noticed this one, but it’s been around for a little while now. By clicking on the button in Word online you can have your documents get a quick one over to give your document a series of formatting fixes and layouts. At this point of writing this blog post it let me know that it can fix and review 4 formatting issues which helps someone who is doing a lot of writing. I can see this being used by students to fix some of their formatting issues and the look of their document. There are a handful of layouts that the Designer can give you to create a slick looking document.
Editor
Don’t you wish your students had another editor other than you? Word has made some huge strides with their editor. In the past it was just a spelling and grammar checker that was limited. While the A.I. has improved the spelling and grammar that word will show but now there is a whole host of ‘Refinements’ that can help improve the quality of your writing. It also can switch between Formal, Professional and Casual (like this blog) styles of writing and give you a score based on that style. At this point of the blog post, I had a Formal Score of 84%, Professional Score of 92% and a Casual score of 94%. I think back to when I was teaching 5th Grade and I think this would have made a world of difference in my students’ writing ability, I know it has made me a better writer since it came out.
Text Prediction
If you are using Word online maybe you noticed this new feature where word is trying to complete your sentences for you. If you have, you are looking at another one of my favorite new features and updates, which is Text Prediction. By using A.I., Microsoft Word helps you complete your sentences and thoughts at a much faster rate by prewriting what you are thinking. In fact, there are several sentences in this blog post that all I had to do was select Tab and it would finish my sentences. Again, by using A.I. Microsoft is making improvements to all the tools that we love and will continue to use for the rest of our lives.
A few other Updates to Microsoft Word:
- Improved Read Aloud voice (Neural Text-to-Speech)
- Improved Dictation and new languages
- Improved Dark Mode
- Modern Comments
- Word web Table of Contents
- Word web – Ruler
As you can see Microsoft has made some great updates to Word. I didn’t number this list because I love them all. Let us know which one is your favorite on Yammer or in the comment section below (depending on where you are reading this). As always, keep your eyes out for our next post as we continue to look at the new school year improvements made to all our favorite systems.