You’ve used Microsoft Word many times to type up work, obviously, but did you know that you can create some pretty fun, colourful documents as well? Today we’ll get started creating a copy of your homeroom timetable that you can personalize and decorate however you like.
Here’s my sample. Your finished product should look something like this (click for a closer look):
The schedule for 604 looks like this. You will use this information to fill in your timetable, but you can decorate and change things as you like.
NOTE: You could, if you want, lay out your timetable so that it reads from top to bottom (like the timetables you may have seen in the past.) I’ll show you how to make one that looks like the timetable above (but oh so much nicer!), but if you want, you could do it something like this:
But I’ll show you the standard way. If you want to do one like the one above, you’ll just need to switch your rows and columns around.
You may either read the instructions below or watch the tutorial video below where I will demonstrate step by step. If you choose to watch the video, you NEED HEADPHONES.
Do not watch the entire video and expect to remember anything! Watch a minute or two until I do something, then pause the video, and go do that thing. Once you’ve completed that step, come back and watch a little more.
First, open Microsoft Word and create a new BLANK DOCUMENT
The first thing you should ALWAYS do with any work is to SAVE. Press the File menu at the top left of your screen or press Ctrl + S
then 
Name your file Timetable
Then click More save options
Press Browse to find the correct location for your file
The easiest and safest place to save your work is in your DOCUMENTS folder.
Then click Save
You’ll know it’s saved correctly when you see the new file name appear at the top of your page
The program will start to AutoSave for you if that switch is turned On, but you can also press the button next to that to save your work at any time
Now we can start to set up our page properly.
Clic on the Layout menu at the top of your screen
Then choose Orientation
And switch your page orientation to Landscape to turn your paper sideways so that it is wider than it is tall.
One more thing that really helps. Again, in the Layout menu at the top, choose Margins and change those to Narrow
Now that the page is set up, we can put something on it!
In the Insert menu at the top of the page, look for Table. Click that, then below the boxes that appear, choose Insert Table
You want your table to have 11 columns and 9 rows
Now make sure that you can see your whole page. At the top of your screen, choose View, then select One Page
If you have your cursor in or on your table on your page, you should see a box at the bottom right. You can click that and drag it out to expand your table to fill up the page.
Here’s what the whole page should look like:
BE CAREFUL when you pull that table down to stretch it that you DO NOT GO ONTO ANOTHER PAGE! We want this all to fit on one page, so don’t pull too far!
This is BAD:
This is GOOD:
You’ll notice on my sample that some of those boxes (called CELLS) are joined together to make one wide box/cell.
To do that, click in the top LEFT cell, then hold down shift, and click on the top RIGHT cell to select all of the cells in that row OR click inside the first one, HOLD DOWN YOUR MOUSE BUTTON and DRAG to the right. You’ll know you’ve got this right if that top row (and only that top row) turns grey:
Once you have those cells selected, you should see a menu section at the top called Table Design.
Click the Layout tab on that section, then find where it says Merge Cells
That button should join your top row cells and create one big wide cell. Now you can start filling in some of your cells, as you see below. Obviously you’ll put your name at the top instead of mine. Duh!
You may also choose to MERGE some of the periods that might be the same every day (optional!) So if you do the same thing every day during your morning break, maybe you just want one big cell instead of 6
There are two empty cells at the top left that I like to merge
NOTE: When you type in your name (or spell something wrong) you’ll see a red squiggly line underneath. That’s just Word checking your spelling as you go and letting you know that it doesn’t recognize a word. It doesn’t really know names, so often those will not be in the program’s dictionary. Often, though, it’ll alert you to the fact that you actually made a mistake (it happens!).
To check what the problem is, see a suggestion, and either change the spelling or ignore, RIGHT CLICK on the underlined word(s). In my case, I like to write my name like that, so I can just tell Word to ignore that weird word:
Sometimes, though, it’ll point out a mistake that you may not even realize that you made. Here’s one that happens a lot:
You can just click on the corrected spelling and the program will change the word and get rid of that red line
Fill in the rest of your periods! You may borrow a paper copy from the black binder at the front of the room if you need one or scroll up to the top of this page for a photo of your class’s schedule.
You may, if you wish, fill in the periods however you like! If you want your day full of eating. sleeping, and Fortnite, go right ahead! I do think that these are really helpful to put in your binder or in your locker, and I’ll be glad to print a copy for you to use if you want to make an accurate schedule.
The periods below are accurate for someone in 605 and are just an example to anyone in any other class. Don’t forget to use Bold, Italics, or Underlining to make things stand out:
SAVE YOUR WORK!
Press the File menu at the top left of your screen or the little save icon
OR press Ctrl + S
then