Welcome to my Word tutorial site. This site does not attempt to be comprehensive. For subjects not covered by articles here, please try the Word MVPs’ FAQ site and other sites linked below.

For more information about me, other Word MVPs, and the Microsoft MVP program, please see the “About Microsoft MVPs” page at that site. Note that I do not offer paid Word consulting. Word is not my business but just a tool I use in my business. All of my Word support is offered free through the Microsoft newsgroups.

• For a list of the articles currently on offer at this site, see the Tutorials page.

Note: If you were redirected here after clicking on a link to an article at my old Web site, please look for the same article in the Tutorials list. For example, if you clicked on a link to http://home.earthlink.net/~wordfaqs/Letterhead.htm and ended up here, you will find a link to http://sbarnhill.mvps.org/WordFAQs/Letterhead.htm on the Tutorials page.

• For a list of my articles at the Word MVPs’ FAQ site, see the My MVP FAQs page.

• For links to other useful sites, including sites maintained by other Word MVPs, see the Useful Links page.

• For answers to your other questions about Word, please see the Word MVPs’ FAQ site or post a message in one of the many Word newsgroups at msnews.microsoft.com, which is a public news server hosted by Microsoft for peer-to-peer support of all its hardware and software products. There are several dozen newsgroups devoted to Word alone; all are read by many knowledgeable users, and most questions are answered (usually correctly) within a few hours or even minutes (though occasionally it takes days).

For a description of the Word newsgroups and tips on posting

There are two ways to access these newsgroups:

• Using an NNTP newsreader such as Outlook Express:

If you are familiar with Usenet and already use a newsreader, you will be comfortable with this option. A newsreader is better suited to users who want to read a lot of messages efficiently, and it is the method used by most of the users who post most of the answers.

Microsoft provides information on using NNTP.

Word MVP Graham Mayor also provides illustrated instructions on how to set up Outlook Express to access the Microsoft news server.

• Using a Web interface:

For users who don't need to access newsgroups frequently and just want to drop in and post a quick question, Web portals can be more satisfactory. They are also available to those behind a firewall or corporate policy that prevents access to Usenet.

One of the oldest ways to access newsgroups (and search Usenet archives) is Google.

Microsoft also offers a variety of Web portals to its newsgroups. One page is devoted specifically to Office newsgroups, including Word. Another page lists all the Microsoft newsgroups alphabetically. Another page has the newsgroups broken down by language. If you are using Word 2003 or 2007 and enable access to the online Help, you may see the option to "Get help from other users." This will also direct you to the Word newsgroups (Communities) on the Web.

For general instructions on using Microsoft's newsgroups on the Web, see here. You can also find a detailed Help file for the Communities interface here.

—Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)

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