Microsoft Word is a powerful word processor and editor designed by Microsoft. It provides tremendous number of features related to word processing and content editing. Description of some of the features is given below:

Mail Merge:

Mail merge is for simplifying repetitive documents and tasks. Mail merge can be used for creating many documents at once that contain identical formatting, layout, text, graphics, etc., and where only certain portions of each document varies. Mail merge is also used for generating mailing labels, envelopes, address lists, personalized training handouts, etc. As well as hard copy mail shots, it can be used to generate multiple emails and electronic faxes. And it can even be used to create a “friendly” front-end to spreadsheet or database information.

Mail merge primarily consists of two files, the Main Document and the Data Source. The Main Document contains the information that will remain the same in each record, and the Data Source contains all the variable information, in the form of fields. This is the information that will change in the Main Document when the merge is completed. Along with the information that remains the same, the Main Document also contains merge fields, which are references to the fields in the Data Source.

When the Main Document and Data Source are merged, Microsoft Word replaces each merge field in the Main Document with the data from the respective field contained in the Data Source. The end result is a third document, a combination of the Main Document and Data Source – although you can also mail merge directly to the printer; (or fax or email) – you don't need to create a merged document on screen; and you can also “preview” the mail merge without actually merging.

Header & Footer:

A header or footer is text or graphics that is usually printed at the top or bottom of every page in a document. A header is printed in the top margin; footer is printed in the bottom margin.

Headers and footers can be as simple as the document title and a page number, but you can create headers and footers that contain graphics, multiple paragraphs, and fields. You can specify a different header or footer for odd and even pages or use a different header or footer for the first page of a section or document. If you divide a document into sections, you can use different headers and footers in each section. For example, you might want the header for each section to reflect the title of that section.

Auto Correct:

AutoCorrect is a facility within Microsoft Word that can automatically correct common typing or spelling errors. Auto Correct feature has been designed to provide following capabilities:

  • Correct your common typing or spelling errors automatically
  • Change two initial capitals (e.g. THe to The).
  • Capitalize the first letter of a day (e.g. monday to Monday).
  • Turn straight quotes into smart quotes.
  • Capitalize the first letter of a sentence.

Auto Text:

AutoText is a facility within Microsoft Word that can automatically complete the phrase you are typing. Auto Text feature save lots of keystrokes for phrases that you use regularly. This could be a letter head, address or long paragraphs which you sometimes use when writing letters or documents. Besides the AutoText entries that Word gives you, you can easily add your own entries.  Just highlight the text you want to add, making sure that it doesn’t contain specifics to one document.  From the Word menu, select Insert, then AutoText, then New.

The main difference between the two is that AutoCorrect corrects automatically as you type. AutoText works by watching what you type and if you start typing one of your stored passages it offers a tip on screen that you can choose to activate or just ignore.

Auto Format:

Auto Format feature can be used to automatically format particular items in a word document. Word can go through and automatically correct any inconsistencies or errors in a document. Word can recognize certain elements like headings, bulleted & numbered list, body text, letter elements, etc in a document and assign styles to them automatically.