Sessions need a laptop or desktop.
If you’re on your phone now, that’s fine. Enrol now and we’ll email you a link so you can pick up when you’re at a computer.
Word · Foundations
Turn a draft nobody can navigate into a report you can hand over.
What you’ll end up with
One finished report. Every section carrying a real heading style, a contents list the software builds and rebuilds, one name spelled the same way throughout, a tidy appendix table, a header and page numbering, and a shared link whose permission you chose.
8
hours in all — about 5½ guided, 2½ on your own
6
sessions. Each designed to be completed in one sitting
Free
No payment and no card required.
Finishing gives you a completion record showing the work you built, and all three levels earn the Alongrail Certificate in Word. See what you’ll build →
You don’t need prior experience with Word for the web. There’s no payment and no card required.
From two raw files to a finished report
0165 min
Get in, and get the draft in
Word open in your browser with Wrenbury's draft in it under a name you chose, and you can say what the software thinks that draft is — including the fact that not one of its section titles is a heading.
0290 min
Headings that mean something
Every one of the agreed sections carrying a real heading style at the level the plan gives it, and worded the way the plan words it — so that the document now knows what its own sections are.
0375 min
A contents list that builds itself
The hand-typed contents gone, the report starting on a page of its own, and a contents list the software built from your headings and will rebuild whenever they change.
0480 min
Say it the same way every time
One sampling point written one way throughout, the doubled spacing gone, and the list of sampling points a real list rather than five lines that begin with a hyphen.
0595 min
The appendix, and making the report agree with it
A visit log with nothing in it the trust should not see, in date order, wearing a style rather than nothing — and a sentence in the findings that agrees with it.
0680 min
Header, footer, page numbers, hand it over
A report that says whose it is on every page, says which page of how many, has a contents list that matches where things actually are, and a link you chose the permission for.
What you need before you start
A laptop or desktop
Sessions need a laptop or desktop. If you’re on your phone now, that’s fine. Enrol now and we’ll email you a link so you can pick up when you’re at a computer. Word for the web runs in the browser, on Windows or a Mac.
Chrome or Edge
Alongrail runs in the browser too, in its own tab beside Word for the web.
The course files
Everything you work with is in the download.
What’s free
The whole course: every session, both parts, the files, and your record. Alongrail charges nothing for it. No payment, and no card at any point.
The software
None. Everything this level uses is in the free web version of Word, which comes with a free Microsoft account along with five gigabytes of online storage. There is no card and no trial clock. The desktop version of Word is a paid product and this level never needs it.
The data you’ll work with
Every file is invented — the companies, the people and everything in them are made up for the course, and the files are deliberately messy, the way real business data is. Cleaning them is part of the work.
Before you start
The course covers Word for the web, in your browser.
- A computer with a current browser — Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Firefox or Safari — and an internet connection. Nothing is installed at any point in this level.
- A free Microsoft account, made with an email address. Signing in with it at word.cloud.microsoft gives the web version of Word and five gigabytes of online storage, and that is everything this level needs. If you already have a work or school account, use a personal one for this course instead: what a work account is allowed to do is decided by whoever runs it, and a permission you cannot change is not a good place to learn.
- The course's data download, unzipped. The panel gives you the link when the session starts. Unzipping it leaves two folders: a Wrenbury folder and a Calderbrook folder. Each folder holds eight files: the draft you start from, annual-review-draft.docx; two exports, site-visits.csv and report-sections.csv; and five more documents whose names end in start. Those five are the state the report should be in at the start of each later session. You do not need them to work through the course in order — they are there so that you can start a session again from a clean copy, or run a session a second time, without having to undo anything.
- Somewhere you can find that download again. Both folders are needed from session one onwards, and the files in them are named identically, so keeping the two folders apart is the whole of how you tell them apart.
- A way to open a file of comma-separated values — a spreadsheet program, or the same browser. The two exports are read in this course, never edited, and nothing in the level asks you to change one.
- One thing to know before session one rather than after it: this course ends by making a link to your report, and anyone with the link can open it — you choose who can see it at the moment you make it, and the course shows you where that choice is before you make one. Both companies here are invented and so is every site, officer and visit in them. Never put a real client, a real address or a real person's name into the document you build in this course.
Alongrail teaches the software and gives you a record of what you built, with a link to the work itself. What happens with it afterwards is yours. We don’t place people and we take no part in anyone’s recruitment process.
Enrol free and start now.
Sign in, confirm the one thing the course needs, and session 1 opens. No payment, and no card at any point.
If something goes wrong on the way, press “Something’s wrong” in the panel, or write to hello@alongrail.com — we reply within one working day.
Frequently asked questions
What you build
Start with a draft whose headings are only bold text and whose contents list was typed by hand, and finish with a report that builds its own contents, agrees with the records behind it, carries its own header and page numbering, and can be handed to somebody outside your firm with a link.
A report of several pages in Word for the web: every agreed section carrying a real heading style, a contents list the software builds from those headings and rebuilds when they change, one name written the same way everywhere, the sampling points as a real bulleted list, an appendix table with nothing in it the client should not see and the rows in date order, a header carrying the firm and the report, page numbering in the footer that says which page of how many, a copy downloaded to your own machine, and a link you chose the permission for.
How a session works
- Open Word for the web
- Share your screen
- One instruction
- You do it
- It confirms it
- Next
You open Word for the web and share your screen. Alongrail reads what’s there and gives you one instruction. You do it. It confirms the step landed, then gives you the next one. If something doesn’t match what you see, one button gets you back on track.
Guided
In the Fields list, tick Region. The chart fills in.
One field on the axis, one measure as the value.
then
On your owna different company’s data
Same job, a different company's files. Alongrail stays quiet until you ask.
Guided, then on your own.
The second part of every session uses a different company’s data, with the same kind of mess in different places. Alongrail stays quiet until you ask. It’s the work your record points to.
About 8 hours in all·about 5½ guided·about 2½ on your own
What you earn — the record, the certificate and a sample
Completion record
- Name
- Your name
- Course
- Word Foundations — turn a draft nobody can navigate into a report you can hand over
- Completed
- The date you finish
- Project
- The report you built on your own →
- Skills demonstrated
- Getting an existing document into the web version of Word and knowing where it then lives and what is keeping it · Telling a heading from a line that merely looks like one, and reading the style a line is carrying before trusting anything built on it · Applying heading styles from an agreed plan rather than by eye, and matching a document's wording to the plan it was written against · Building a contents list the software maintains, and knowing why the word Contents is deliberately not a heading · Starting a section on a page of its own with a page break instead of a run of empty lines · Using find and replace to make one name one name, and knowing the difference between replacing one and replacing every one · Turning typed characters into a real list, and saying why that matters · Repairing a table against the export it was built from: removing what should not be there, ordering it, and giving it a style · Making a document agree with its own appendix, and checking that it still does · Putting a header and page numbering on a document, and handing it over with the permission you meant
What was built
A report of several pages in Word for the web: every agreed section carrying a real heading style, a contents list the software builds from those headings and rebuilds when they change, one name written the same way everywhere, the sampling points as a real bulleted list, an appendix table with nothing in it the client should not see and the rows in date order, a header carrying the firm and the report, page numbering in the footer that says which page of how many, a copy downloaded to your own machine, and a link you chose the permission for.
The 6 sessions, and when each was completed on their own
Each session was completed twice: once with step-by-step guidance on one company’s data, then on a second company’s data from a brief, with guidance only when asked. Every check passed on both. Alongrail records the sessions, the checks and the dates; the dashboard itself is the learner’s own, hosted where they chose.
A completion record for Word Foundations, now. It names the course, the date you finished, the skills you demonstrated, and links the report you built on your own. It’s private until you publish it, and you can unpublish it at any time.
The record is a description of work you did, not a claim about you. Anyone who opens it can see the work for themselves.
The Alongrail Certificate in Word when all three levels are complete. Foundations is the first of three. Practitioner and Professional are in development, with no dates. See the track →
How this relates to a certification — the course covers the core skills assessed in the Microsoft Office Specialist Word exam for Microsoft 365 Apps. That exam is booked and paid for separately, with Microsoft, and nothing in this course is a registration for it.
Your screen stays yours
It looks when you ask. Never otherwise. Images of your screen are not stored. What Alongrail sees →
Nothing you build is public until you publish it. Your record is private until you say so, and you can unpublish it at any time.
What’s Word for the web?
Word for the web is the software this course is built in. It runs in your browser.
You won’t learn it by watching hours of tutorials. You’ll learn it by building something real with it.
Who you’re building it for
Wrenbury Environmental Services takes water samples for a river trust — five sampling points, four officers, a few dozen visits a year. Once a year the trust is owed a written review, and this year's draft has been passed between three people and is now in a state nobody wants to be the one to hand over.
It reads well enough. The trouble is everything around the words. Its section titles are ordinary lines made bold and bigger, so nothing in the document knows they are titles. Its contents list was typed out by hand a fortnight ago and has been wrong ever since. One sampling point is written three different ways. A sentence in the findings still has a placeholder where a number should be. The appendix table carries a column of the firm's own internal references that the trust was never meant to see.
Nobody at Wrenbury has a copy of Word on a machine, and there is no budget to buy one. There is a browser, a free account, the draft, and the two exports the report is supposed to agree with.
The trust's secretary has asked for one thing: a document she can open on a phone in a meeting and find the recommendations in under a minute.
Your job is to build the report that answers it.
Do I need to know Word for the web already?
No. The course assumes you’ve never opened it.
What if I get stuck?
Press the button in the panel and say what you see. Alongrail works out where you actually are and picks the instruction back up.
Why 8 hours, when other courses are 40?
Because the time is spent doing the work rather than watching it. About 5½ hours is guided; the rest is you building the same thing again on your own.
What does Alongrail see on my screen?
Only the window you choose to share, and only when you ask it to look. Images of your screen are not stored by Alongrail. What Alongrail sees →
Can I use a Mac?
Yes. Word for the web runs in the browser.
What if I miss a week?
Nothing closes. The dates are there to help you keep moving, not to catch you out.
Does this prepare me for a certification exam?
Covers the core skills assessed in the Microsoft Office Specialist Word exam for Microsoft 365 Apps. That exam is booked and paid for separately, with Microsoft, and nothing in this course is a registration for it. Alongrail is not an exam provider.
What’s the “on your own” part?
The second half of every session: the same work on a different company’s data, with Alongrail quiet unless you ask. Both parts are needed for your completion record.
Is it really free?
Yes. No payment, and no card at any point.
Who can see what I build?
Nobody, until you say so. Your record is private until you publish it, and you can unpublish it at any time. What you build stays in your own files or account; where a step publishes something to the software’s own site, the step says so and says who can see it.
Where this course sits
Word Foundations is Foundations in Word. The track has three levels; each one you complete earns its own record, and all of them together earn the Alongrail Certificate in Word. All the courses →