Home / Non-Accredited / Microsoft Office & Computer Skills / Microsoft Word Beginners to Advanced (3 days)
Quick Look Course Summary:Microsoft Word Beginners to Advanced (3 days)
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Next Public Course Date:
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Length: 3 day(s)
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Price (at your venue): 1 Person R 14,997 EX VAT 3 Person R 11,205 EX VAT 10 Person R 8,120 EX VAT
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Certification Type:Non-Accredited
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Locations & Venues: Off-site or in-house. We train in all major city centres throughout South Africa.
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Microsoft Word Beginners to Advanced (3 days)
Three consecutive days that take a group from a blank page to corporate templates, macros and mail merge – the complete Word ladder in one booking.
Word is the one application almost every office worker uses and almost nobody has been trained in. The result is visible in every organisation: documents that take twice as long as they should, templates nobody dares edit, and one overworked person who fixes everyone's formatting. This three-day beginners to advanced Word course deals with all of it in sequence, one level a day.
Day one is BOTI's licensed Word Essentials kit: documents, page setup, formatting, tables, lists, simple references and graphics. Day two is the Word 2024 kit at intermediate level: styles and numbering, multi-section layouts, long structured documents, tables with formulas, charts, Track Changes and co-authoring, forms and templates. Day three is the Word Expert kit: managing and protecting documents, wildcards and custom styles, indexes and custom tables of contents, fields and mail merge from Excel, building blocks, content controls, macros and custom themes.
Each day builds on the one before and nothing is repeated. The practice documents are drawn from South African workplaces – letters on a letterhead, an HR policy with numbered clauses, a board report with a landscape appendix, a tender response under review, a mail merge to three hundred staff. Delegates leave with documents, forms and a template they built themselves and a set of working methods they can pass on to colleagues.
Why this course
For your organisation
- A complete Word capability built in one booking, from new users to in-house experts
- Consistent documents across the organisation, produced faster and reviewed properly
- Templates, building blocks, macros and mail merges that remove hours of repetitive work every month
- A single facilitator and group across three days, with each day building on the last
- Staff who can maintain the organisation's templates instead of working around them
For your delegates
- Three days of hands-on practice with no level repeated
- The fundamentals first, so the harder skills have something to stand on
- Styles, sections and references that keep long documents under control
- Your own protected form, corporate template and recorded macro to take back to work
- A full mail merge from an Excel list, done end to end
What delegates will be able to do
- Create, format, save and print professional documents and check them before they leave the organisation
- Build tables, lists, simple references and graphics that stay where they are put
- Apply and modify styles, create multilevel numbering and divide documents into sections with their own headers, footers and page numbers
- Structure long documents with Outline view, an automatic table of contents and cross-references
- Review documents with Track Changes, comments, co-authoring and version history, and create a protected fillable form
- Manage, compare, protect and restrict documents, and copy styles, macros and building blocks between templates
- Use wildcards to find and replace text and formatting, create paragraph and character styles and control pagination
- Build an index, a customised table of contents and a table of figures, and work with fields
- Run a mail merge from an Excel list with managed recipients and previewed results
- Create building blocks, content controls, simple macros and custom themes, colour and font sets, and prepare documents for accessibility
Who should attend
Organisations that want to take a group all the way: administrative and support teams, personal and executive assistants, HR, compliance and quality staff, bid and tender teams, and individuals who want to become the office's Word expert in one week. No previous Word training is needed for day one; the three days are designed to be taken in order.
Course outline
Day 1 – Beginners: the fundamentals done properly
Creating, saving and finding your way around documents
- Starting from a blank page or a built-in template; opening a PDF in Word to edit it
- Inserting text from another file; Find, Go To and bookmarks for moving around a long document
- Hyperlinks to a web page, an email address or another document
- Views, zoom and split window; adding your most-used commands to the Quick Access Toolbar
- Showing formatting marks to see why a document is misbehaving
- Document properties, print settings and printing only part of a document
- Saving as PDF and other formats; checking compatibility with older versions of Word
- Inspecting a document for hidden personal information and accessibility problems before it leaves the organisation
Page setup and the look of the document
- Margins, orientation and paper size – A4 by default
- Headers, footers and page numbers
- Document themes and style sets for a consistent look in one click
- Page colour and page borders for a notice or certificate
- Page, section and column breaks, and changing the page setup for one part of a document
- Text in two or three columns for a newsletter or staff notice
Formatting text and paragraphs
- Selecting, cutting, copying and pasting; find and replace
- AutoCorrect entries for words you type often; special characters and symbols
- Fonts, size, colour, highlighting and Format Painter
- Alignment, line spacing, paragraph spacing and indents – without pressing Enter twice
- Clearing unwanted formatting from pasted text
- Applying built-in heading and body styles
- WordArt and arranging text for a heading on a notice or flyer
Tables and lists
- Inserting a table, or converting typed text to a table and back again
- Table styles, cell margins and spacing; merging and splitting cells
- Resizing rows and columns, splitting a table and sorting the rows
- A header row that repeats on every page of a long staff list
- Bulleted and numbered lists: changing bullets and number formats, custom bullets
- Multi-level lists: promoting and demoting levels, restarting or continuing numbering, setting a starting number
Simple references, cover pages and graphics
- Footnotes and endnotes, and changing how they are numbered
- Captions for figures and tables
- A standard table of contents from the gallery, and updating it
- A cover page for a short report or proposal
- Pictures, shapes, screenshots and text boxes
- Picture styles and effects, removing a background and wrapping text around an object
- Positioning objects on the page and adding alternative text for accessibility
- SmartArt for an organogram or a simple process diagram
Day 2 – Intermediate: structured documents, reviewing and templates
Styles and numbering that hold together
- Why manual formatting breaks in long documents and styles do not
- Applying and modifying built-in styles so one change updates every heading
- Numbered headings for a policy or procedure (1, 1.1, 1.1.1) with a multilevel list linked to heading styles
- Multilevel lists for clause numbering in contracts and tender responses
- Cleaning up formatting in text pasted from emails, PDFs and older documents
Layout for multi-section documents
- Section breaks: a landscape appendix, a different first page, a chapter that starts on a new page
- Headers and footers that differ by section, and page numbers that restart for each part
- Margins, orientation and paper size that change between sections
- Cover pages, columns and pull-out boxes for a newsletter or annual report
- Borders, shading and a DRAFT or CONFIDENTIAL watermark
Long and structured documents
- Building a heading structure Word can work with: headings, subheadings and Outline view
- Moving and reordering whole sections with the Navigation Pane and Outline view
- An automatic table of contents based on your headings, and keeping it current
- Bookmarks and cross-references ('see clause 4.2 on page 12') that update themselves
- Citations, sources and a bibliography in a research or board report
Tables, charts and visuals for data
- Formulas in a table: totals and averages in a quotation or budget table without opening Excel
- Keeping rows together and controlling where a table breaks across pages
- Positioning a table on the page and wrapping text around it
- Inserting and formatting a chart for a monthly report
- Icons, shapes and images positioned and grouped so they stay put
Reviewing and working together
- Track Changes: switching it on, reviewing edits and accepting or rejecting them
- Comments: adding, replying, @mentioning a colleague and resolving
- Sharing a document from OneDrive or SharePoint and co-authoring at the same time
- Version history: seeing who changed what and restoring an earlier version
- Spelling and grammar, Read Aloud, Immersive Reader and the Accessibility Checker
- Chatting in Teams about the document without leaving Word
Templates, forms and personal set-up
- Using a company template and adjusting it for a new document type
- A fillable form – a leave request or visitor register – with text fields, drop-down lists and tick boxes
- Protecting the form so colleagues can complete the fields but not change the layout
- AutoText and building blocks for a standard disclaimer, signature block or address
- Customising the ribbon with your own tab and group of commands
- Word options worth changing: AutoSave, default save location and the proofing language (English, South Africa)
Day 3 – Advanced: templates, automation and documents built to be reused
Managing templates, versions and linked content
- How templates and documents relate, and modifying an existing template safely
- Copying styles, macros and building blocks between documents and templates
- Comparing and combining two versions of a contract or policy into one reviewed document
- Linking an Excel table or chart into a board report so it updates when the figures change
- Managing document versions, enabling macros safely and displaying the Developer tab
- Changing the application default font and other settings that affect every new document
Controlling review and protecting documents
- Preparing a document for review: what to set before it goes to legal or a client
- Restricting editing: read-only with exceptions, formatting restrictions and fill-in-forms only
- Locking Track Changes with a password so reviewers cannot switch it off
- Managing changes and comments from several reviewers on a tender response
- Marking a document as final and protecting it with a password
Advanced editing, layout and styles
- Find and replace with wildcards and special characters: fixing hundreds of inconsistencies in minutes
- Finding and replacing formatting and styles across a document
- Creating your own paragraph and character styles and modifying existing ones
- Resolving style conflicts when text arrives from other documents
- Paragraph pagination: keep with next, keep lines together, page break before, widow and orphan control
- Advanced page setup: mirror margins, gutters and different odd and even pages for printed, bound documents
- Linked text boxes for a newsletter article that continues on another page
Advanced references, fields and mail merge
- Customising a table of contents: levels, styles and tab leaders
- Marking index entries and building and updating an index for a manual
- Captions and a table of figures or tables
- Fields: inserting them, modifying their properties and using them in headers, footers and standard letters
- Mail merge from an Excel list: letters, envelopes, labels and emails
- Managing the recipient list: sorting, filtering and fixing data problems before you merge
- Merge fields, simple rules and previewing results before three hundred letters are printed
Custom elements: building blocks, content controls and macros
- Quick Parts and building blocks: creating, saving and managing a gallery of reusable clauses
- Content controls for templates: date pickers, drop-down lists and check boxes with their properties set and locked
- Recording and editing simple macros to automate repetitive steps, and running them from a button
- Custom colour sets, font sets and themes that carry the corporate identity
- Custom style sets and a corporate template built from scratch
Accessibility, language and documents that travel
- Language options: proofing in English (South Africa) and marking passages in other languages
- Checking that every picture, table and chart carries alt text, and fixing the ones that do not
- Managing +Body and +Heading fonts so themes and templates behave
- Preparing documents for an international audience: dates, measurements, currency and content standards
- Exporting an accessible, tagged PDF
How it is delivered
Three days, 08:30-16:00, consecutive or one day a week over three weeks. In person at your offices anywhere in South Africa, at a BOTI venue, or live online. One delegate or a group of up to 20, each on their own machine. Taught in Word for Microsoft 365 (Word 2024); the cloud collaboration features on day two need a Microsoft 365 account. Laptops with the software can be supplied on request. Manuals and exercise files for all three days included. We deliver it at your offices in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, Cape Town and anywhere else in South Africa, at a BOTI venue in Johannesburg, or live online for teams in different places.
What our clients say
“Business Optimization Training Institute facilitated Microsoft Excel Training for our company. The course was efficiently scheduled and planned around our timetable. We were impressed by the quality of training.”
“The training was very informative and practical, leaving our employees feeling confident in their ability to leverage Excel more effectively.”
“The training courses were efficiently scheduled and planned around our timetable. We were impressed by the quality of training. I look forward to working with Business Optimization Training Institute in the future.”
Frequently asked questions
Can you run this course at our offices?
Yes. Most groups are trained at the client's premises anywhere in South Africa, on your own computers or on laptops we supply on request. We can also host the course at a BOTI venue or run it live online.
How many people can attend?
From one delegate to a group of about 20, each on their own machine so that everyone practises every exercise. See the price table for group pricing, or ask us for a quote.
Is the course accredited?
No – it is a non-accredited short course and delegates receive a BOTI certificate of attendance. The training spend may count towards your B-BBEE skills development – check with your verification agency. If you need an accredited route, ask us about BOTI's End User Computing skills programmes (QCTO accreditation pending).
Can the three days be split up?
Yes. Many clients run one day a week over three weeks so delegates can apply each level at work before the next. Each day is also available on its own as Microsoft Word Beginners (1 day), Microsoft Word Intermediate (1 day) and Microsoft Word Advanced (1 day), or as Microsoft Word Beginners to Intermediate (2 days).
What if some delegates are already competent?
Mixed groups are common. Confident users can join from day two, or we run day one for the new users and bring everyone together for days two and three. Tell us about the group when you book.
Can we use our own templates and documents?
Yes. Send us your letterhead, a policy or report and the forms and letters you produce most often; the facilitator builds the exercises around them and delegates leave with improved versions.