First: Learning keystrokes. They are so much faster than always grabbing the mouse. The one I use most (besides Bold and Italics) is CTRL h for Find and Replace. The first thing I do when proofreading/copyediting is to replace all double spaces with single spaces.

Second: When the document hasn't been set up with appropriate styles, I use the format painter a lot. Format one paragraph just the way you want it, double click on the paintbrush icon, then click on every other paragraph where you want the same formatting. It's magic!

Just sharing one or two pointers is good enough to establish yourself as a Word expert. I also frequently use the "help" feature for finding shortcuts.

One of my favorite tips, particularly useful when a client can't fix weird spacing, line or page breaks, is to turn on the formatting marks (that little paragraph symbol in the menu bar). You can then see–and delete–extra spacing, errant hard returns, random page breaks and the like.

I took 9 workshops in the course of a month, and it made a huge difference.

And, the retail stores offer them for free.

Now, if we can just get the computer's technical difficulties sorted, I'll be back to believing in their prodcuts!