Hi! I’ve formatted the document for my girlfriend for the test she wanted to make. I have several questions (opinions) regarding formatting:
How to automate numbering in exercise 1 to keep it look the same?
Is there any better way to format everything in two columns rather than using custom tabs (for this case)?
How to make the text underline to automatically prolong to the end of the one-line text and not further?
Are there any design ideas to enhance the document?
Is OnlyOffice ideal for the kind of work I am trying to do?
I don’t deal with .docx format quite often and don’t write documents usually so it would be nice to know what I can enhance not to repeat my design mistakes. But my general goal is to keep my docx designs minimalistic and straightforward.
Thanks for the detailed questions and for sharing the sample — the test already looks very clean and readable. Let me go through your points one by one.
Automating numbering
The most robust way is to use built-in numbered lists instead of typing numbers manually.
On the Home tab, click the Numbering button and choose the style you like (you can also define a custom one with framed numbers if needed).
If you want numbering to continue automatically when you add a new line, just press Enter at the end of an item; the next number will appear.
If you have two separate blocks that must share one numbering sequence, right-click the second list and choose “Continue numbering”.
This way, the numbers will stay consistent even if you insert new questions or reorder them.
Two columns vs custom tabs
For your particular layout (idioms on the left, translations on the right), there are two “canonical” approaches that are better than manual tabs:
Two-column page layout:
Layout tab → Columns → Two.
Then type the left column text, insert a column break where needed (Layout → Breaks → Column), and type the right column text.
This works best if both columns are continuous text blocks of similar length.
Tables:
Insert a 2-column table.
Turn off table borders or leave only some of them to get a clean look.
You can use table alignment and column width to keep everything perfectly aligned without worrying about tabs.
For matching exercises, tables give you the most control and are much easier to maintain if you later change or translate content.
You may also use table templates to apply a design.
There are several options depending on what exactly you want:
Simple underline under words: just apply underline formatting to the text you type; the line will be exactly as long as the text. For blanks, you can type spaces and apply underline to them, but that’s not very visually stable.
Insert a one-row, one-column table cell where you need the blank, remove the left/right/top borders, and keep only the bottom border — you get a neat line of fixed length that will grow or shrink with the text.
Adjust the cell width to whatever visual length you want.
You can copy and paste this “blank” cell to reuse it in other questions.
This approach prevents the underline from overshooting the line or becoming misaligned if the font changes.
Design ideas to enhance the document
You are already close to a good minimalist layout. A few small tweaks could make it even cleaner:
Use styles consistently: define styles for headings and for question text. Then you can easily change font, size, or spacing for the whole document.
Reduce the number of different fonts: usually one font for headings and one for body text is enough.
Align numbering and text: ensure all question text starts at the same distance from the left margin (either via list indentation or tables).
Add a bit more spacing between sections I and II so they are clearly separated.
Is ONLYOFFICE ideal for this kind of work?
ONLYOFFICE is well suited for exactly this type of test or worksheet:
It supports all standard Word formatting tools (styles, lists, tables, columns) and saves to DOCX, so your girlfriend can open the file in other office suites if needed.
For repeated work (more tests in the future), you can turn this file into a template: clean up the answers, keep the formatting and structure, and simply duplicate the file when you need a new version.
I wish you the best of luck in mastering all the features of ONLYOFFICE — there are quite a lot of them, and they are very useful for working with documents.
