Don't Be Redundant in MS Word

Dennis Faas's picture

Don't you hate it when you have finished a document for your boss or a letter to your best friend and you realize you have used the same word within three or four paragraphs?

Well with the Thesaurus feature in MS Word, you no longer have to worry about these things! MS Word comes with a built-in Thesaurus and it is very easy to use.

Follow the steps below to learn how to use the Thesaurus in MS Word:

In Older versions of MS Word, follow these steps:

  • Highlight the word that you would like to replace with another word and then open up the Thesaurus.   You can access the Thesaurus in a couple of ways. You can click on Tools | Language | Thesaurus but that seems like a lot of work to me and you all know that I love to save time and keystrokes! I usually just use the shortcut and click on Shift + F7.  
     
  • A dialog box will open with a list of definitions Word may have and a list of synonyms for you to select from.   Select the word you would like to use.
     
  • Click Replace.   You can even click on one of the definitions and get another list of synonyms as well.   If you are using the latest version of MS Word (2007), the process will be slightly different.   You will find the Thesaurus on the Review ribbon and you can access it here by clicking on Shift | F7 as well.  
     
  • Once the Thesaurus button is clicked with your word highlighted, it should open on the right-hand side of your program window.   You will see a whole list of alternatives and you can click on one of the suggestions and receive other synonyms for that word as well -- just like in older versions.  
     
  • To use a word, click the down arrow and select Insert from the menu.

Happy word hunting

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