Word for Microsoft 365 cheat sheet

For details about how to use Copilot in Word, see our guide to using Copilot for writing tasks in Word, Outlook, and OneNote.

If you’re wondering what happened to Word’s Smart Lookup and Researcher features, well, Copilot ate them. Until recently, these two useful features let you search the internet from inside Word, with Smart Lookup intended for quick web searches and Researcher for more in-depth searches across academic journals and other sources.

But at the beginning of 2025, Microsoft removed Smart Lookup and Researcher from Word and the other Microsoft 365 apps. Now the only way to search the web and do research from inside Word is via Copilot. Copilot lacks some features of Smart Lookup and Researcher, notably the ability to insert citations and footnotes in documents.

Also, keep in mind that Copilot at times suffers from “hallucinations” — that is, it makes things up that aren’t true. So you’ll have to double-check its results. For help in reducing the number of Copilot’s hallucinations, see “Microsoft Copilot tips: 9 ways to use Copilot right.”

Get instant translations

Another useful addition is the Translator pane, useful for those who need to work in multiple languages. To translate words or phrases, select them, right-click your selection, and choose Translate from the menu that appears.

The Translator pane appears. The top of the pane shows your selection, and the bottom shows the translation. The top pane attempts to identify the original language, which it does with uncanny accuracy. If it misidentifies the language, though, simply select the right one. After that, in the bottom of the pane select the language you want to translate to.

The translation appears. To insert it somewhere into the document, move your cursor to the spot where you want it to appear, then click the Insert button at the bottom of the pane. You can also copy and paste any part of the translation into the document or another document.

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Translator can also translate an entire document. To do it, go to the Review tab on the Ribbon, and in the Language section, click Translate > Translate Document. The Translator pane appears. You can let it auto-detect the original language or click the From drop-down to set it. Then click the To drop-down to set the language you want to translate the document to and click the Translate button. Word opens the translated document in a new window.

Keep in mind that Translator is part of Microsoft’s Intelligent Services, the artificial intelligence behind other Office features including Search and Researcher. You’ll need to enable it before using any of these features.

Translator is also available in Outlook, Excel, and PowerPoint; see our story on translation in Office for details.

Add new types of charts

Over the last decade, Microsoft has added several new types of charts you can add to documents, spreadsheets, and presentations: Treemap, Sunburst, Waterfall, Histogram, Pareto, Box & Whisker, Funnel, and Map charts. Each provides a unique way to display data visually. See our Excel for Microsoft 365 cheat sheet for details about the new chart types, including what each one looks like and what type of data it’s best suited for.

To insert any of the new chart types (or any other chart) in a document, select Insert > Chart and then choose the type of chart to insert. When you do that, the chart appears in your document with placeholder data, and a pop-up window appears that looks like a mini Excel spreadsheet. Enter or edit the data, or else click the Edit Data in Microsoft Excel button to open it up in Excel and edit it there.

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Note that the Pareto chart does not show up when you select Insert > Chart. To insert one, select Insert > Chart, select Histogram, and at the top of the screen that appears, select the option to the right, Pareto.

Use AutoSave as a safety net while you work

If you’re worried that you’ll lose your work on a document if you don’t constantly save it, you’ll welcome the AutoSave feature. It automatically saves your files for you, so you won’t have to worry about system crashes, power outages, Word crashes, and similar problems. It only works only on .docx documents stored in OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, or SharePoint Online. It won’t work with files saved in Word’s older .doc format or files saved to your hard drive.

AutoSave is a vast improvement over the previous AutoRecover feature built into Word. AutoRecover doesn’t save your files in real time; instead, every several minutes it saves an AutoRecover file that you can try to recover after a crash. It doesn’t always work, though — for example, if you don’t properly open Word after the crash, or if the crash doesn’t meet Microsoft’s definition of a crash. In addition, Microsoft notes, “AutoRecover is only effective for unplanned disruptions, such as a power outage or a crash. AutoRecover files are not designed to be saved when a logoff is scheduled or an orderly shutdown occurs.” And the files aren’t saved in real time, so you’ll likely lose several minutes of work even if all goes as planned.

AutoSave is turned on by default in Word for Microsoft 365 .docx files stored in OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, or SharePoint Online. To turn it off (or back on again) for a document, use the AutoSave button on the top left of the screen. If you want AutoSave to be off for all files by default, select File > Options > Save and uncheck the box marked AutoSave files stored in the Cloud by default on Word.

Using AutoSave may require some rethinking of your workflow. Many people are used to creating new documents based on existing ones by opening the existing file, making changes to it, and then using Save As to save the new version under a different name, leaving the original file intact. Be warned that doing this with AutoSave enabled will save your changes in the original file. Instead, Microsoft suggests opening the original file and immediately selecting File > Save a Copy (which replaces Save As when AutoSave is enabled) to create a new version.

If AutoSave does save unwanted changes to a file, you can always use the Version History feature described below to roll back to an earlier version.

Review or restore earlier versions of a document

There’s an extremely useful feature hiding in the title bar in Word for Microsoft 365: You can use Version History to go back to previous versions of a file, review them, compare them side-by-side with your existing version, and copy and paste from an older file to your existing one. You can also restore an entire old version.

To do it, click the file name at the top of the screen in an open file. A drop-down menu appears. Click Version History, and the Version History pane appears on the right side of the screen with a list of the previous versions of the file, including the time and date they were saved.

Preston Gralla / Foundry

In the Version History pane, click Open version under any older version, and that version appears as a read-only version in a new window. Scroll through the version and copy any content you want, then paste it into the latest version of the file. To compare the two versions, click Compare on the old version, and you’ll see them side-by-side, and also see edits made to the older version. To restore the old version, overwriting the current one, click the Restore button at the top of the editing window.

Version History works best when used in conjunction with AutoSave. You can use it without AutoSave, but it’s not as useful because you don’t get as many saved versions to go back to.

Other features worth checking out

Several other features added over the past few years may prove useful for business users:

Work in a distraction-free environment

If you’re the kind of person who needs help focusing on the work at hand, you’ll be pleased with Word’s Focus mode. When you put Word into Focus mode, the Ribbon and all toolbars are hidden, and all parts of your screen that aren’t Word turn black. So you’ll find no distractions at all.

To put Word into Focus mode, choose View > Focus (the Focus button is in the Immersive group near the left end of the Ribbon) or press Alt-W, then O. To get out of Focus mode, press the Esc key. When you’re in Focus mode, if you want the Ribbon to appear (with white text and icons against a black background), move your cursor to the top of the screen. Press Esc or start typing in Word to make the Ribbon go away.

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If you want more options for getting rid of distractions, you can use what Microsoft calls Immersive Reader. It gives you even more options for focusing on your text, including displaying only a few lines of text at a time, changing the page color, and more. You can also have it read the text to you, and have it display text in which words are broken down into individual syllables. To use it, choose View > Immersive Reader, then choose your options. Click Close Immersive Reader to return to your normal view.

Get to favorite folders quickly

You likely have a handful of folders where you frequently save and frequently open files. And you likely get annoyed every time you have to browse through your disk to get there. Pinned folders solve the problem.

When saving or opening a file, in the Save or Open dialog, hover your mouse over any folder that you want to pin, and then click the pin icon. From now on, that folder will stay at the top of the Save or Open dialogs, so you can get to them quickly.

Note that Save and Open don’t share pinned folders — you pin them separately.

Write better with the Editor

Those who want to make sure their writing is concise and grammatically correct should turn to the Editor, a beefed-up version of grammar- and spell-checking. Select Home > Editor, and the Editor pane appears with an easy-to-scan summary of a document’s readability, along with tools to improve it. At the top you’ll see your overall score, with 100% being the best.

Preston Gralla / Foundry

It then shows you the number of sentence-by-sentence improvements you can make in various writing categories, including corrections in spelling in grammar and refinements for clarity, concision, and so on. Click any category, and Editor will bring you to each issue that can be improved and offer recommendations.

Paste in the format you want

Word also includes an improved way to handle content pasted from the web or other sources. You can now set your default paste options so whatever you paste matches the look and feel of the document into which you’re pasting it rather than the source material.

When you paste something, you get three options:

• Keep source formatting. This keeps the original formatting and layout, such as font size, color, bold and underlining, list formatting, and so on, of the content you’re pasting.
• Merge formatting. This uses some of the original formatting of what you’re pasting (such as bold, underline, lists, and table structure), but matches it to the style of the document into which it’s being pasted (such as font family, size, and color).
• Keep text only. This keeps the text but strips out things such as bullets, table structure, and images. The text will match the formatting of the existing text just before your cursor.

To change your default paste option, select Select Default Paste and from the list that appears, select which you want it to be. To change it to another option, go to File > Options > Advanced, scroll down to “Cut, copy, and paste,” click the Pasting from other programs down arrow, and select what you want the new default to be.

Make documents more inclusive with the Accessibility Checker

Many people have problems accessing a document’s content, such as those who have issues with their vision. Microsoft’s Accessibility Checker in Microsoft 365 can check documents you create to make sure that they’re more accessible to people, such as by eliminating colors with poor contrast that can be hard to read.

Get to it from the Ribbon by selecting Review > Check Accessibility > Check Accessibility. A right-hand pane called the Accessibility Assistant appears. It flags and helps you fix accessibility issues.

Preston Gralla / Foundry

Create a Sway web page from a document

If you’re one of the few people who use Microsoft’s Sway app, which lets you easily create simple, web-based presentations, you’ll want to try out a feature that lets you create a Sway page from a Word document.

To do it, select File > Transform. The Transform to Web Page pane appears. Select a style in the pane, then click the Transform button. A web page is created on the web and opened in the Sway app in your browser. To share it with others, select the Share button on the Sway page and follow the instructions.

Note that if you have problems with doing this, your administrator may not have given you the proper permissions, or you may need to update your copy of Microsoft 365. Check with your administrator for details.

Use keyboard shortcuts

Using keyboard shortcuts is one of the best ways to accomplish tasks quickly in Word. You can even use them to navigate the Ribbon. For instance, Alt-H takes you to the Home tab, and Alt-G takes you to the Design tab.

Preston Gralla / Foundry

But there are many other keyboard shortcuts to help you accomplish a vast array of tasks in Word. See our story “Handy Word keyboard shortcuts for Windows and Mac” for the ones we find the most useful.

This article was originally published in October 2019 and most recently updated in March 2025.

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