Documents and Disks
You have a lot of ways to create new documents. Most of the time, however, you select File, New to display the New Document task pane. You then can click Blank Document to create an empty Word document or select from one of the templates Word offers, such as several legal, letter, and fax templates. A template is a predefined page, sometimes with accompanying artwork, such as a standard letter format or a fax cover sheet that gives your document a predefined look.
 | If you click inside Templates on the Microsoft.com area of your task pane, you can search and select from hundreds of Word templates on Microsoft's Web site. The template you select determines how your document will look; once you select a template, just type the document's content. |
Word typically hides the task pane after you make a selection from it to give you more editing room. As you work, a different task pane might appear to help you with a different feature.
When you are ready to save your document for the first time, select File, Save and specify a location and filename before clicking Save. After the first time you save a document, you only need to select File, Save (or press Ctrl+S) to update your changes. To save the document using a different name or location, select File, Save As and enter a new name.
 | Word documents normally end with the .doc filename extension as in Proposal.doc. Filenames can have spaces in them. You don't have to type the extension when opening or saving documents; all Office products automatically attach the correct extension. |
Once saved, you can load any document into memory to make further changes or to print the document by selecting File, Open (or pressing Ctrl+O) and selecting the file you want to edit.
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If you want to work on two documents at the same time, perhaps to cut and paste information from one into the other, use File, Open to open a second (or even a third, fourth, or more) document. Press Ctrl+F6 to switch between the documents. You can also switch between documents by clicking the appropriate Windows taskbar button.
With several documents open, the taskbar can get cluttered with Word icons. You can clean up the taskbar by selecting Tools, Options, View and unchecking the Windows in Taskbar option. Your Windows taskbar at the bottom of your screen then shows only one Word session even if you edit multiple documents at the same time in that session.
If you're new to Word or to word processing, master editing with a single document before you tackle multiple documents at once. |
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