ICDL Advanced Documents cheat sheet

Section breaks (Next Page, Continuous, Even/Odd Page) store page setup such as orientation, margins, and columns independently of other sections.

Page Setup dialog: margins, paper size, orientation, and gutter apply to the section containing the insertion point; 'Apply to' controls scope.

Line spacing options: Single, 1.5, Double, At least, Exactly, and Multiple; Exactly fixes line height and can clip tall glyphs.

Paragraph spacing Before/After is added to line spacing and is not collapsed between adjacent paragraphs in most word processors.

Tab stops set via ruler or Tabs dialog: Left, Center, Right, Decimal, and Bar; a leader character (dots, dashes, line) fills the gap.

Indent types: first-line, hanging, left, and right; the hanging indent is standard for bibliography entries and numbered lists.

Keep with next, Keep lines together, and Page break before are paragraph-level pagination controls used to prevent orphaned headings.

Styles hierarchy: paragraph, character, linked, table, and list styles; direct formatting overrides style formatting until cleared.

A paragraph style stores font, paragraph, tab, border, and numbering settings; a character style stores font and character-level formatting only.

Style inheritance: 'Based on' links styles so a parent change propagates to children; 'Next paragraph style' sets the style applied after pressing Enter.

Modify a style once to update every paragraph using it; use 'Select all instances' to locate affected text.

The default template (Normal.dotm in Word) supplies styles to new documents; changes saved there affect all future documents.

Templates (.dotx without macros, .dotm with macros) can store styles, boilerplate text, building blocks, and page setup.

Style Inspector and Reveal Formatting panes show which style and direct formatting are active at the cursor.

Automatic style updating (Update style to match selection) overwrites the style definition; it should be used deliberately.

Copy styles between documents using the Organizer in the Manage Styles or Templates dialog.

A table of contents built from heading styles is a field; it must be updated (F9) after edits to reflect new page numbers and headings.

TOC levels map to Heading 1, 2, 3 by default; custom levels can map other styles via TOC Options.

Captions (Insert Caption) create SEQ fields; cross-references to figures, tables, and headings update when fields are refreshed.

Footnotes appear at the bottom of the page; endnotes appear at the end of the document or section.

Citations and bibliography use a source manager; the bibliography field regenerates when sources are added or a style (APA, MLA) is chosen.

An index is built from marked entries (XE fields) and compiled with Insert Index; page numbers update on field refresh.

A bookmark names a location or selection; a cross-reference can target bookmarks, headings, numbered items, footnotes, and captions.

Field codes display with Alt+F9; update all fields with Ctrl+A then F9 to refresh references and indexes.

Track Changes records insertions, deletions, and formatting; Accept/Reject individually or all, and choose which reviewer's changes to show.

Comments are annotations separate from text and do not alter content; they can be replied to and resolved in modern versions.

Compare and Combine Documents merge two versions into a third document showing differences as tracked revisions.

Document protection options include read-only, comments-only, form fields, and password encryption via the Save/Info permissions settings.

Mail merge main document links to a data source (list, spreadsheet, database); merge fields map to column headers.

Merge rules: IF, NEXT, NEXTIF, SKIPIF, and SET control conditional content and record skipping during a merge.

Master documents and subdocuments split a large document into linked files; the master holds the TOC and shared styles.

Digital signatures and document inspection (remove metadata, comments, hidden text) support integrity and privacy before distribution.