4 Steps in Saving a Document to be Printed

Have you ever wanted to bring a hard copy of the document that you’ve created with the Microsoft Word or the WordPad desktop app? Saving and printing documents are a basic knowledge to have especially if you want to really maximize the use of your Windows 8.1 machine. We have already discussed the steps in formatting texts and inserting graphic elements like a picture or clipart into a document that you are working on in Microsoft Word or WordPad but this time, we will be looking at the steps involved in saving and printing the documents that you have created with these desktop apps so you can have it in a real paper and send or give it to the people who are supposed to see it or just keep a copy of it for future use so be sure that you have a printer connected to your Windows 8.1 machine so you can try the printing steps that I’ll be showing below.

1. Typing in and Formatting Texts in Microsoft Word

We’ve covered the steps in formatting texts in WordPad on one of our previous articles but now, you also need to learn the steps in formatting texts in Microsoft Word before finally saving it for printing. The steps that are involved in formatting texts in WordPad looks similar to that in Microsoft Word but there are other options in the latter that are not found in WordPad. To see what these options are, you will need to access Microsoft Word first by pressing the Windows key or clicking on the Start Button. After doing so, simply type Microsoft Word  on your computer’s keyboard and the Search screen will appear which would then display the search results. From here, simply click on  the Microsoft Word shortcut for it to open.

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When the app opens, just put your focus to the top of the Window and you will see that the options that appears are those that are under the “Home” tab. From here, simply go to the “Font” and “Paragraph” options group and you will see all available tweaks that you can use in formatting your document. For instance, under the “Font” group, you can access options for “Bold”, “Underline” and “Italicize” and if you want to apply these formatting options to a word or group of words, you will need to highlight it first by placing the cursor before the word to be highlighted and holding down the left-click button then dragging it towards the end of the word or group of words that you want to change format of.

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If you want to change alignment on the entire document itself, you can highlight everything on the screen by placing the cursor anywhere on the document page and pressing on the “Ctrl+A” keys. After you do so, all of the stuff on the document page should become highlighted and ready for the alignment tweaks that you want to do. Once this happens, you can click on your desired formatting options under the “Paragraph” group which are “Align Left, “Center, “Align Right, and “Justify and many others which we will just leave for you to explore.

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2. Saving a Document

Now that you”re able to format the document according to your preference, it is time to learn how you can save it all ready for printing. There are varied ways in  saving a document and you can use any of them that is most comfortable to you. For instance, simply by pressing on the “Ctrl+S” keys, you will be able to quickly access the “Save As” Window, input the title that you want for the document that you are going to save, specify the location where you want to save it and finally hit the “Save” button located at the bottom-right portion of the screen itself. The screenshot below shows the Window that you will be encountering right after you press the “Ctrl+S” keys while the document Window is open.

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For instance, if you want to save the document into the desktop screen, all that you need to do is click on the “Desktop” shortcut located at the navigation pane at the left of the “Save As” Window and after doing so, you will be able to access all folders in the Desktop section where you can save the file. If you just want it to be saved outside any folder then you can hit the “Save” button right away but if you want to store it in a folder, you’ll need to find the folder first, click on it then finally hit the “Save” button.

3. Other Ways of Saving a Document

Just like any other stuff that you can do in your Windows 8.1 machine, saving a document can also be done in other ways except from the “Ctrl+S” method. For instance, at the top-most portion of the screen, you should be able to see the “Quick Access Toolbar” where an icon for the “Save” action is available.

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After clicking on the button, you should be able to access the same “Save As” Window that appears when you press on the “Ctrl+S” keys. From this Window, simply give a title to the document that you are trying to save, identify to which location it will be saved into and finally, hit the “Save” button that is located at the bottom-right portion of the screen.

4. Printing the Document You Saved

Finally, we will go to the last action that we’d like to cover in this tutorial and that is to print the document that you have worked on. Printing something would require a printer of course and if in case you have not attached the printer to your computer yet, you will need to do it first before proceeding on with the process. Printers also need to be installed using the installation disk that comes with it. If in case you’ve just bought the printer that you are planning to use, be sure to install its drivers first so it can be identified by your computer once it gets connected. After installing the device, you can open that document that you would like to print and finally, you will need to click on the “File” tab then hit the “Print” option under it.

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From this section, you can set how many copies of the document you would like to print, choose which printer to use and adjust the settings of the document that you want to print. After making tweaks in these aspects, simply click on the “Print” button located at the top-left portion of the Window.

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After doing so, your printer should be able to start printing the document. If in case you don’t see any action on the device itself, just check the connections between your computer and the printer and make sure that everything is connected perfectly. There should be no lose connections on both ends and make sure that there’s enough paper in the printer itself before even trying to print a document with it.