The last tool we’re going to look at is the AutoSummarize tool. You can use this tool to provide a quick summary of your document. However, this tool may copy parts of the document outright, so be aware that it’s not the same as re-wording items yourself. You shouldn’t use AutoSummarize on a copyrighted document (other than for your own purposes) as you may inadvertently plagiarize the document.

To launch AutoSummarize, click the Tools menu and click AutoSummarize. There are a few options we need to configure in this dialog before Word can summarize the document.

First, choose the type of summary you want. You can see from the dialog on the right that we have four choices:

-          Highlight key points in the document

-          Create a new document and put the summary there

-          Insert an abstract at the top of the document

-          Hide everything but the summary in the original document

Once you have clicked on one of these choices to select it, we need to set the length of the summary. We do this by setting a percent of the original document. In the sample on the right, the summary will be a quarter of the length of the original document. Document statistics for both the original document and the summary are displayed below the percentage.

The last checkbox allows you to update document statistics automatically if you choose. This can be useful if you have chosen to hide everything but the summary.

Once you’re done, click OK to make the summary.

Let’s look at one document before and after the summary has been completed. Here’s what the original document looked like:

Now, after we have chosen to highlight key points in the document, this is what it looks like:

You’ll notice that we have an AutoSummarize toolbar. This is another one of those toolbars that only appears in special situations; in this case, when AutoSummarize (using either the Highlight Key Points or Show Summary Only options) has been completed. Let’s take a closer look at it.

This toolbar has only three commands. The first command () allows you to switch between Highlight Key Points and Show Summary Only view. The second command is actually a slider bar (). The blue box represents the length of the summary as a percent of the original document, like the percent we entered in the original AutoSummarize screen. You can either drag the blue bar or use the left or right arrows to increase or decrease the size of the summary.

The last button we have is Close. This will close the AutoSummarize view and restore your document to how it looked before performing the AutoSummarize.