Gwinnett County Public Schools
GCPS Tech Tips
A few tricks to take you beyond
the basics of Microsoft Office 2010
Microsoft Word 2010:
Looking Up Synonyms
Microsoft Word 2010: Looking Up Synonyms
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The following resource is provided for information only and is
NOT an official policy or procedure of Gwinnett County Public
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Microsoft Word 2010: Looking Up Synonyms
When you are writing something, do you ever
have trouble thinking of the right word? Or
maybe you thought of a word but there might be
a better word for this situation.
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Microsoft Word 2010: Looking Up Synonyms
The Thesaurus feature of Microsoft Word
is just the assistance needed to suggest
synonyms for you.
There’s a quick and easy way to access the
thesaurus and all its suggestions.
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Microsoft Word 2010: Looking Up Synonyms
For example, you may
want a synonym for the
word Thesaurus All you
Let’s say you want a synonym for the word
thesaurus All you have to do is select Thesaurus
by double-clicking on it.
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Microsoft Word 2010: Looking Up Synonyms
Then with the cursor still on the selected word…
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Microsoft Word 2010: Looking Up Synonyms
press the right button on the mouse.
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Microsoft Word 2010: Looking Up Synonyms
A drop down a menu will open and at the bottom of that
menu is the word Synonyms with a little pointer out to its
right side.
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Microsoft Word 2010: Looking Up Synonyms
Place your cursor on Synonyms and another drop
down menu pops out to the side with a list of
alternative words you may choose.
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Microsoft Word 2010: Looking Up Synonyms
If you see one you like, move the cursor over and
click on it.
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Microsoft Word 2010: Looking Up Synonyms
Word positions the new word right into your text
in place of the original word.
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Microsoft Word 2010: Looking Up Synonyms
You may find that sometimes
the short list of suggested
synonyms is not enough.
Just click on the Thesaurus
button for more suggestions.
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Microsoft Word 2010: Looking Up Synonyms
A task pane will open to
the right of the document
screen.
This is the Research
task pane where you
can scroll down for more
synonym suggestions.
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Microsoft Word 2010: Looking Up Synonyms
When you have located the
word you want to use, click on
the arrow to the right and a
drop down box will open.
To use the chosen word, click
Insert or Copy.
To look up additional related
words, click Look Up.
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Microsoft Word 2010: Looking Up Synonyms
Just click on Insert and the word is placed into your
document.
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Microsoft Word 2010: Looking Up Synonyms
In addition to providing
suggestions for synonyms
the Research task pane
also provides antonyms for
words in the list.
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Microsoft Word 2010: Looking Up Synonyms
You can also look up words in the
thesaurus of another language.
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Microsoft Word 2010: Looking Up Synonyms
Click Research options
at the bottom of the
Research task pane.
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Microsoft Word 2010: Looking Up Synonyms
The Research Options
window will open and
then under Reference
Books, select the
thesaurus options that
you want.
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Microsoft Word 2010: Looking Up Synonyms
Click OK at the bottom of the
window.
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Microsoft Word 2010: Looking Up Synonyms
As in the English thesaurus, locate the word you want in the
Research task pane, click on the arrow and chose Insert or
Copy in the drop down box.
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Microsoft Word 2010: Looking Up Synonyms
Voila! The synonym is placed into the
document.
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Microsoft Word 2010: Looking Up Synonyms
That is all there is to it! Below are the step-by-step
directions for looking up synonyms in Word 2010
Have fun exploring this feature!
Step-by-Step:
- Select the word you want to replace by
double-clicking on it
- Right-click on the selected word
- Point to Synonyms
- Choose a word from the list of synonyms
- Click on the word you want to use
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