Microsoft Word

Getting help, asking questions about Microsoft Word

Information at your fingertips

In Word, press F1. It's the Help Key. To get help, type in your question, or a couple of words that describes what kind of help you're looking for. For example, try "table of contents" or "insert picture" or "page numbers".

Information about Microsoft Word on the web

The best website about Word is the MS Word MVP FAQ site. It also has lots of links to other websites about Word created by Microsoft Word MVPs.

Ask questions about Microsoft Word - for free!

Microsoft hosts several public newsgroups devoted to Word. Anyone can ask questions about Word in these newsgroups. All kinds of people read the Microsoft newsgroups. Questions are asked by everyone from raw beginners to professional users of Word. Questions are answered by lots of people. Some are MVPs, some are regular visitors, and some might only drop in once. So your question will be seen by a wide variety of people with a very wide variety of expertise. Most questions are answered within 24 hours (that's not a promise: it's an observation).

For hints on the best way to ask your question see Tips from MVPs on posting to the Word newsgroups.

How to find the Microsoft Word newsgroups

If you have Outlook Express (which comes with Internet Explorer), go to news://msnews.microsoft.com.

If you don't have Outlook Express, or if you live behind a corporate firewall that prevents your accessing news groups directly, see

• Word newsgroups on Google's website (which lets you search the entire archive of all newsgroup postings ever) or
• Word newsgroups on Microsoft's website (Microsoft variously calls newsgroups Discussion Groups or Discussion Boards or Forums)

How to search for old messages in Microsoft Word newsgroups

Google keeps an archive of all questions and answers sent to Microsoft Word newsgroups. If you have a problem with Word, there's a good chance that someone else has had the same problem. You can search the Google archive. You can restrict your search of that archive to the Microsoft Word groups. To do that, in the box marked "Return only messages from the newsgroup" type microsoft.public.word.*