Creating Portfolios Using Microsoft Word

In this tutorial, I'm assuming you know how to make Word documents, or documents using other popular word processing programs.

By no means will this tutorial cover all the skills needed to create good looking documents in Word. I've tried to include some of the specific skills needed for portfolio
creation, especially the electronic variety.

Organization
If you have a portfolio that’s 5 or 6 pages long, it’s not hard to keep things organized. You would probably have things like your resume, a few writing samples, some references, and a few other key documents. Chances are that they would be created in a word processing program like Word, but that’s not necessary, as we’ll see later. You might wonder why you would have to worry about having things organized if you only have a few documents. Don’t worry, my friend; things have a way of getting more complicated. Get organized when your portfolio is in its beginning stages. It will make the process much easier in the long run.
If you're smart (and I know you are), you would create a folder on your computer something like the one on the right. You would probably have a file for each document in your portfolio, similar to the picture here. That's a great start if you can get this far. If you can do this, you've started to master the organization of files. You put them into one sensibly named folder. Too many people make the mistake of neglecting to place everything that belongs together in the same folder. If you have a series of documents that belong together in a portfolio, then put them together in a folder. It will make your life easier.

In the picture at the right, you'll see that I made several folders within the My Portfolio folder. If you have a lot of files to organize, this really helps. It helps both you and the person viewing your portfolio. Just make sure your folders are named sensibly.

Remember: If your portfolio starts out small with no extra folders, you can always add folders later. Simply cut and paste your files into the appropriate folders.

The picture to the right is my St. Bonaventure internship portfolio. I have quite a few documents in this series of folders. If I wouldn't have created the folders, it would have been tougher to find things, both for me and the viewer.

My portfolio was made into a website, but it doesn't need to be. Whether your pages are web pages, MS Word documents, or anything else, organization with the use of folders is a great idea.

Next: The cover page