How to Improve Word Drawing Tools

Microsoft Word has several drawing tools to enhance your documents. However, if you don't know exactly how to use them you can't unlock their true potential. Improving Word's drawing tools requires you to understand their full capabilities. By learning these tools you will benefit with faster workflow creating more documents with high quality graphics.

Traditional Method

1. Open a new document in Word by navigating to your computer's Start menu or double-click the icon on the desktop. Click on the "Insert" menu option. After it is open, select the "Shapes" icon on the "Illustrations" panel.


2. Select any shape from the gallery and drag it onto a document in order to place the shape. The number of steps it takes in order to draw this shape is much longer than necessary. Following the remaining steps will solve this problem and improve Word's drawing tools.

Improved Method

1. Locate the and click the "Quick Access" toolbar in the upper left corner. Use your mouse to click on the down arrows.


2. Click on "More Commands", and then select the "Drawing" item from the "Chose Commands" drop-down list.


3. Click on "Insert Shapes" in the lower-left corner, followed by the "Add" button on the center of the screen. This action will add this command to the Quick Access toolbar.


4. Click "OK" to close the dialog box. Click the new icon that you just added to the Quick Access toolbar. However, you can chose to select any shape from the gallery. By following this method it only took a few short mouse clicks to insert this new shape compared to the number it took following the previous method. Using this method allows you to use the Quick Access toolbar and improve your use of the Word drawing tools.