Tools of the Trade

Many of us who write or edit for a living spend a lot of time in a word processor, typically either Microsoft Word or Google Docs (or both). It’s only natural, then, that we know a lot about these programs. But it’s always good to brush up on the basics.

Take this month’s quiz to test your word-processing know-how. We’ll plan on returning to this topic in a future workout, so check back with us in the coming months.

Subscribers to The Chicago Manual of Style Online may click through to the linked sections of the Manual (cited in some of the answers). (We also offer a 30-day free trial of CMOS Online.)

Note: Though the answers in this quiz are intended to test general principles of word processing, they rely on up-to-date versions of English-language installations of the desktop version of Microsoft Word 365 and the browser-based version of Google Docs for many of the details.

[Editor’s note: This quiz relies on and links to the 17th edition of CMOS.]

Chicago Style Workout 73: Word Processing

1. By default, Microsoft Word and Google Docs will automatically capitalize the first letter of a sentence.

True

False

2. On a standard QWERTY keyboard, the commands for cut, copy, and paste are normally associated with the keys for X, C, and P, respectively.

True

False

3. In Word and Docs, the feature that allows you to locate a specific string of text and replace it with another string of text is called “search and replace.”

True

False

4. Special characters like the accented é in entrée are available in all versions of Word and Docs, but to get Greek characters like α (alpha) or ω (omega), you’ll need to install a special font.

True

False

5. The spelling and grammar checker in Word will find things that the one in Docs won’t, and vice versa.

True

False

6. If·you·see·dots·between·words,·what·is·a·likely·explanation?

your software is about to crash

you’re viewing nonprinting (or formatting) characters

7. A paragraph indent in either Word or Docs is known as

a first-line indent

an initial tab

8. According to CMOS, you should turn automatic hyphenation on during editing to smooth out the right margin.

True

False

9. Thanks to context-sensitive AI, the feature for smart quotes and apostrophes in both Word and Docs never makes a mistake.

True

False

10. In Word, numbered notes may be inserted as either footnotes or endnotes; in Docs, only footnotes are available by default.

True

False

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“Special Characters,” by bofotolux / Adobe Stock.

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