Microsoft Word 2007 Tutorial

The Recent Documents List

Word displays a list of the files you’ve recently opened on the right side of the Microsoft Office button menu. To open one of these files, simply select it.

You can “pin” any of these files so they’re available in the list for as long as you need them. Just click the greyed-out pin next to the file name to pin the file. When you no longer need the file in the Recent Documents list, click the green pin to unpin it from the list.

Unpinned files (those with grey pins) cycle through the list in the order in which they’re opened. Depending on how many files you’ve chosen to display in the list, the oldest file opened will disappear when the list is full and another document is opened. For example, if the list is limited to 10 documents, and you open a document not in the list, the tenth document will be dropped unless it’s pinned to the list. This doesn’t mean the document is deleted-only that it won’t be available in the Recent Documents list until it’s opened again.

To change the number of documents to display in the list:

1. Click on Word Options at the bottom of the Microsoft Office button menu.

2. In the Word Options dialog box, select Advanced.

3. Scroll down to the Display heading.

4. Change the number of documents to display next to the first item, Show this number of Recent Documents.

5. Click OK.

Working in Compatibility Mode

When you open a document created in a previous version of Word, Word 2007 enters Compatibility Mode. This means that newer features of Word 2007 will be limited or disabled, but Word will enable any comparable features that are compatible. For example, clicking the SmartArt button opens the Word 2003 Diagram Gallery.

When you save changes to the document, Word automatically saves it in its native (.doc) format, preserving compatibility with earlier versions of Word.

You can downgrade a document created in Word 2007 so users of earlier versions can work in it. When you downgrade a document:

· Themes are converted to Styles.

· Equations and SmartArt created in Word 2007 are converted to graphics (and cannot be edited).

· Office Art objects are converted to Office 97-2003 objects.

· Text created using the new Citations & Bibliography tools is converted to static text in the document (and so will not be automatically updated).

· ActiveX and XML features are downgraded: ActiveX controls that get disabled through conversion to an earlier version of Word are converted to graphics and are no longer functional, and XML content bound to custom data stores is permanently converted to static text and the data stores removed.

If you’re in doubt about whether or not you should downgrade a document, you can check for compatibility issues before you downgrade:

1. Click the Microsoft Office button .

2. Click the arrow next to the Prepare command.

3. In the menu that opens, select Run Compatibility Checker.

To downgrade a document, use the Save As command:

1. Click the Microsoft Office button .

2. Click the arrow next to the Save As command.

3. In the menu that opens, select Word 97-2003 Document.

4. Browse to the location where you want to save the file, enter a file name, and click Save.

Note:

This creates a copy of the file in the earlier version of Word, even if you gave it the same file name. The original Word 2007 file remains.

Tip:

The Word 97-2003 Document menu command is a shortcut that changes the file type for you in the Save As dialog box. You can change the file type yourself any time you use the Save As dialog box:

Similarly, you can upgrade a document saved in an earlier version to the newer Word 2007 format. However, elements that were changed as part of an earlier downgrade are not automatically upgraded (that is, an equation that was converted to a graphic cannot be converted back to an equation).

To upgrade a document to the Word 2007 format:

1. Click the Microsoft Office button .

2. Select Convert.

3. In the warning box that appears, click OK.

Moving around a Document

The vertical and horizontal scrollbars at the edge of Word’s document window let you use your mouse to move around an open document. You move up and down, a line at a time, by clicking the up and down scroll buttons. To scroll up or down a screen at a time, click anywhere on the scrollbar above or below the scroll handle (box).

When you click and drag the scroll handle, Word moves up or down the document in the direction you drag until you reach the beginning or end.

The left and right scroll buttons let you scroll to the left and right when the document is viewed at a width larger than the Microsoft Word window.

You can also use keyboard shortcuts to quickly navigate to various points in your document:

• Press HOME to move to the beginning of a line, and END to move to the end of a line.
• Press Ctrl + HOME to move to the beginning of the document, and Ctrl + END to move to the end of the document.
• Press Page Up to move up one screen, and Page Down to move down one screen.
• Press Ctrl + Page Up to move to the top of the previous page, and Ctrl + Page Down to move to the top of the next page.

When viewing and editing long documents, it’s much easier to browse page by page, or to jump directly to a specific place, than it is to use the arrow keys or mouse to scroll screen by screen. Microsoft Word provides methods for browsing a document by page or item as well as for moving to specific places in a document.

To browse a document:

1. First, click the Select Browse Object button, located near the bottom of the vertical scrollbar.
2. In the menu that pops up, select the type of item you want to find in your document.

For example, select to move from page to page in your document. You can also browse comments, headings, or graphics, among other things.

1. Click the Next or Previous button to go to the next or previous item of the type you selected.

To move to a specific item (for example, page number) in the document, use the Go To command:

1. In the Browse Object menu, select Go To.

Or, in the Editing group of the Home tab, click the arrow next to the Find button and select Go To from the drop-down menu.

The Find and Replace dialog opens to the Go To tab.

1. Under Go to what, select the type of item you want to move to (for example, Page for a page number, Line for a line number, etc.).
2. Enter the item number you want to move to (for example, 14 for page 14) and click the Go To button (which appears after you enter the number). Notice that you can also move forward or backward by a certain number of items using the + and – signs (for example, +4 for ahead 4 pages or -4 back 4 pages).

Tip:

In most cases, you don’t have to enter anything into the field; you can browse item by item simply by clicking Next (or Previous to move backward).