a few tricks to take you beyond the basics of microsoft office 2010

Gwinnett County Public Schools

A few tricks to take you beyond the basics of Microsoft Office 2010

Microsoft Word 2010: Looking Up Synonyms

GCPS Tech Tips

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Gwinnett County Public Schools is committed to providing information related to student technology use in a manner that is clear, concise, organized, accessible, and current. To that end, GCPS has provided articles and handouts on its web site.

The following resource is provided for information only and is NOT an official policy or procedure of Gwinnett County Public Schools. This resource may be used by schools and the school communities to share information and ideas around student technology use. Should a conflict between the information on this site and the existing policy, regulation or rule occur, then the official or approved policy, rule or regulation supersedes the resources in this document.

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When you are writing something, do you ever have trouble thinking of the right word? Or maybe you thought of a word but there might be a better word for this situation.


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The Thesaurus feature of Microsoft Word is just the assistance needed to suggest synonyms for you.

There’s a quick and easy way to access the thesaurus and all its suggestions.


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Let’s say you want a synonym for the word thesaurus All you have to do is select Thesaurus by double-clicking on it.

For example, you may want a synonym for the word Thesaurus All you


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Then with the cursor still on the selected word…


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press the right button on the mouse.


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A drop down a menu will open and at the bottom of that menu is the word Synonyms with a little pointer out to its right side.


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Place your cursor on Synonyms and another drop down menu pops out to the side with a list of alternative words you may choose.


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If you see one you like, move the cursor over and click on it.


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Word positions the new word right into your text in place of the original word.


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You may find that sometimes the short list of suggested synonyms is not enough.

Just click on the Thesaurus button for more suggestions.


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A task pane will open to the right of the document screen.

This is the Research task pane where you can scroll down for more synonym suggestions.


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When you have located the word you want to use, click on the arrow to the right and a drop down box will open.

To use the chosen word, click Insert or Copy.

To look up additional related words, click Look Up.


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Just click on Insert and the word is placed into your document.


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In addition to providing suggestions for synonyms the Research task pane also provides antonyms for words in the list.

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You can also look up words in the thesaurus of another language.

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Click Research options at the bottom of the Research task pane.

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The Research Options window will open and then under Reference Books, select the thesaurus options that you want.


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Click OK at the bottom of the window.

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As in the English thesaurus, locate the word you want in the Research task pane, click on the arrow and chose Insert or Copy in the drop down box.


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Voila! The synonym is placed into the document.

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That is all there is to it! Below are the step-by-step directions for looking up synonyms in Word 2010 Have fun exploring this feature!


Step-by-Step:

- Select the word you want to replace by double-clicking on it- Right-click on the selected word- Point to Synonyms- Choose a word from the list of synonyms- Click on the word you want to use

a few tricks to take you beyond the basics of microsoft office 2010

Documents

word synonyms

selected word microsoft

word thesaurus

right word

youmicrosoft word

new word

original word

better word