We all know that the cover is the first image, the first impression that people will take of our presentation , the cover is the one that attracts attention, arouses interest and attracts the reader, that is why it is so important to do it well. Microsoft Word is the text editor par excellence that most of us use when preparing an essay, this powerful tool has a good number of default covers that we can choose from for our report, it goes without saying that they are easily modifiable thus giving a personal touch that adapts to our needs to be precise. Next we will show you how to use them.
Index( )
- How can a cover page help me in my Word document?
- Introduction to content
- How can I make a formal cover in Microsoft Word?
- Create a blank document
- Set the sheet size to ‘Letter’
- Enter the title of your document
- Select the best font
- Adjust the title size 2 times larger than normal
- Enter a heading
- Modify the font of the sheet 2 times less than the title
- Enter names of authors, year and institution
- What other formal covers can I create in Microsoft Word?
- Using APA standards
- Making use of various colors
- Varying the font
- Inserting images
- Placing text boxes
How can a cover page help me in my Word document?
In the case of a page that is inserted at the beginning of a document , the covers are loaded with a great responsibility since they are the ones that introduce the following pages, it is the first thing the reader sees and largely affects the decision to continue reading or not , to have a clearer idea, the cover is like the host who welcomes us to a banquet.
If it is well prepared, we get an idea of what follows in the rest of the information so we continue reading but if the question is that the cover does not even attract our attention, we will most likely not continue reading, even when A popular adage says that ‘ we should not judge a book by its cover’ the reality is that most of us do. Hence the importance of preparing a cover that is as professional as possible, which will be the first contact we will have with the reader.
Introduction to content
The first thing we should know is that Microsoft Word has what is necessary for the development of modern, striking and creative covers that can easily help us to attract the teacher’s attention if we are preparing an academic paper, report or essay and as we know, This office application is effective doing the job for which it was designed, so we do not expect less in the case of the development of a good cover. The truth is a very good application that will undoubtedly be very useful when we want to personalize and make the information we want to present attractive.
How can I make a formal cover in Microsoft Word?
Next we will indicate one by one the steps we must take to make an excellent cover using Microsoft Word, if you follow this procedure to the letter, the results will be fascinating and you will have a professional- looking cover .
Create a blank document
If we want to make a cover, what we must do first is create a blank document where we will precisely design our cover, for this we simply click on the ‘Start’ button in the menu that appears below, we click on all the available programs, then we look for the folder with the name ‘Microsoft Office’ and open it.
Within this, we will see each tool that the Office has installed on the PC, here we select Microsoft Word, we wait a few moments while it starts, on the next screen we select the option blank document and voila, we create it, until now We only have the canvas so to speak, where we will make the cover.
Set the sheet size to ‘Letter’
Word documents have a great variety of sizes , that is why once the blank document is created, the next thing on the list to do is make sure that the document, that is, the sheet is in letter size. To do this, we go to the ‘Page Design’ tab where we can see a variety of options, including margins, sheet orientation, columns, indentation, spacing.
For the purposes of this particular step we will click on ‘Size’, it is here where we can verify and adjust the size of the created sheet we can choose between A4 size, legal executive, A3 each with a specific objective but to make a cover we will select the option ‘Letter’ if the option is not already predetermined when creating the document.
Enter the title of your document
To place the title of our document , we must first take into account that it must be centered at least 2 or 3 lines below the beginning of the page, this depending on the length of the content. Then by clicking on the ‘Start’ tab, in the section corresponding to ‘Paragraph’ we can see some options for the position of the title, to the left, right or justified, we must click on ‘Centered’ now it corresponds to us to place the Name. We can also do this procedure, first writing the name, then shading it and pressing the ‘Centered’ button.
Select the best font
Once the title of our essay has been decided, we must select the best type of letters, it must be according to the occasion, this part will largely depend on the reason why we carry out this essay, what type of chair it is, what idea we want to convey. In the ‘Font’ section we have several buttons that can help us, if we press the little arrow pointing down that is right between the name of the font and the size, a wide variety of available fonts will be displayed according to the installed version.
Cambria, calibri, comic sans are some of those that we can use, however there are very particular fonts for academic works such as Arial or Time New Roman, it all depends on the impression we want to give. Once the font is selected, we go to the next point to continue shaping our cover.
Adjust the title size 2 times larger than normal
Like the typeface, the size can be adjusted in the section corresponding to ‘Font’ , right next to the name of the font there is a number that corresponds to the size of the font or letter, just to the right of this number is a small arrow pointing down indicating that it can be displayed, there we will see the different sizes of fonts, we can also simply write directly the number of size we want, we recommend selecting a size twice as large as the normal one, remembering that because it is A title should stand out.
Enter a heading
A header is nothing more than a part of the document that can be seen at the top of it that contains some information of interest. To place a header on our cover, we must click on the ‘Insert’ tab, then we look in the section corresponding to header and footer, we will see that in one of the options in this section one of them says ‘Header’ and right at the side an arrow pointing down, we click there and the different types will be displayed, three columns, Austin, grid and even with a band are some of the options.
At that point we will select the heading option ‘Blank’, by clicking here, a small text box will be placed that will allow us to write something, what we will do is write the title in a summarized way, we only seek to give some professionalism to the cover and header is perfect for it.
Modify the font of the sheet 2 times less than the title
As everything related to the title is ready, what we must do now is adjust the letter of the rest of the sheet , we achieve this by placing the cursor at the end of the title, press ‘Enter’ and once the cursor is below the title we We go back to the part related to the font or letters and select what the font size will be for the rest of the information that we can add, we recommend that it be two times less than the title for the cover of our activity. It is important to note that if we have used bold type, we must deactivate it before continuing.
Enter names of authors, year and institution
Our cover is almost ready, the last thing we have to do is identify it with the author data in which we recommend you put the first name followed by the second initial and then the surnames. We must not forget to put the institution to which we belong and the year of publication, that is, the year that elapsed during the development of the trial.
What other formal covers can I create in Microsoft Word?
Some of these covers come pre-designed in Word depending on the version installed on the computer, however there are other very practical and creative models to give a good image to our academic papers and essays, let’s see some of them.
Using APA standards
The APA standards establish that a good cover page should only contain the name of the Institution, Faculty and School, the title of the work, author or authors, tutor if it is a research work, place and date. He adds that the title should be short, go straight to the point and even better if it is short, if it exceeds two lines, subtitles can be used . It must be a letter-size sheet with 2.54cm margins, it also dictates that the size and font, as well as the line spacing, must be the same on the rest of the sheets.
Making use of various colors
The wonderful thing about Word is that it offers you a range of options that help us to personalize our covers, the range of colors it offers is very large and easy to apply in various elements such as the background of the sheet, change the header color, color of the letters of the title or even of the content, the truth is that we should not stay in light dark or black and white if we have the opportunity to take advantage of these options to continue perfecting our covers.
To change the font color for example, you just have to go to the ‘Font’ section and we can see some buttons with the letter A. Usually the one that is further to the right is the one that allows us to change the color of the letters, the middle one is to highlight if at any time we want to highlight some text and the one on the left is to give some effect to the font.
Varying the font
To take full advantage of each tool available in Word we must continue to explore its options, one of them is the selection of fonts or typefaces , previously we mentioned that it is possible to change the typeface with which Word comes pre-designed but if it turns out that none We find it useful, we can always search the web for other fonts and even font packages that allow us to improve our options.
Inserting images
In Word we also have the choice of inserting an image related to the topic we are dealing with in the document, an illustration alluding to the topic that allows the reader to record an idea or conclusion of interest , remembering that our goal should always be to maintain the desire to continue reading, that is why this tool is very efficient since as the saying goes, an image says more than a thousand words.
To achieve this, we just have to go to the ‘Insert’ tab in the section that says illustrations, we will see the ‘Images’ button, we click there and the image library will immediately open where we can select the folder where the image is saved and then press into it to insert it.
Placing text boxes
A text box is a box that we can place anywhere on the sheet and where we can write any matter of interest such as notes, ideas, among others. To insert a text box, within the ‘Insert’ tab we look for the ‘Text’ section we will see several buttons such as insert capital letter, objects, date and time but just on the left side of this section is the ‘Text Box’ button generally larger than the others, we click on it and we will be able to see a table to write on our sheet.
