How do I Have Fun With Microsoft Office Word?
By Anni Martin
Microsoft Word is much more than a simple word processor. It can provide hours of fun for the whole family. Amuse the children by using template-based paper crafts, coloring pages or paper games. Use templates to create a photo album, or print out a ready-made template to keep football scores organized. Combining templates with sounds or movies enables a user to make unique cards to send via email. You can also include sound and movie files in a portable document format (PDF) file or you can create a media-enhanced web page.
Game Templates
Step 1
Open Word 2007, and then click on the "Microsoft Office" button in the Ribbon. Click on "New" from the drop-down menu. The left task pane has a series of category links to various templates available for Word. Scroll down the list and click on "More Templates" at the bottom. The middle task pane changes to show more template categories.
Step 2
Click on the "Games" category in the middle task pane. Thumbnails show the available game templates in Word, such as Buzzword Bingo, Connect the Dots and crossword puzzles.
Step 3
Select a game template. Some templates, like the Math maze game, were created by Microsoft. Other templates, like Mind Reading Magic, are created by members of the Microsoft community and uploaded to the template site. Click "Download" to download the template to the hard drive. When the download is complete, you have a new document based on the template you chose.
Step 4
Modify the game template to make it your own. For example, if you opened the "Maze! Factor 3" game template, you can modify the template to meet a child's specific needs. To change the factor numbers in the game, double-click the table area cells and type different numbers.
Step 5
Click on the "Microsoft Office" button, and then click "Save" to save the game document. Click on the "Microsoft Office" button, and then click "Print" to print out the page.
Insert Sound or Video in a Word Document
Step 1
Open Word 2007 and create a document to enrich with sounds or a movie file. Click on the "Insert" tab, and then click on the "Object" in the "Text" group. In the "Object" dialog box, click on the "Create from File" tab.
Step 2
Click "Browse," and then select the sound or movie file to add to the document. Click "Insert," and then mark a checkbox to either include the file as a link or an icon.
Step 3
Click "OK" to include the file in your document. Depending on what you chose, the object shows up as a link or an icon. When you double-click on the object, your sound or movie should play.
References
Tips
- You can make your own movie and sound clips, or you can use the clips in the Clip Gallery that comes with Word. Word can support many sound and movie file types including AVI, MP3 and MOV.
- Templates, movies and sounds can also be used in Microsoft Word 2003 or 2010, although the directions would be slightly different.
Warnings
- According to Microsoft, in order to play sounds and movies on a computer, the computer must be equipped with a sound card. In addition, the computer needs a movie program (such as Media Player) installed to play the movie.
Writer Bio
Translating technical jargon into everyday English is one of Anni Martin’s specialties. She is an educator and writer who spent over 13 years teaching and creating documentation at the University of Missouri. She holds a Master’s Degree in educational technology as well as Bachelor’s degrees in journalism and political science from the University of Missouri.