Objectives: After completing this course you will be able to:

1. Work with the Ribbon--the new feature that makes Word easier than ever before.
2. Find everyday, common commands you need to do your job.
3. Use the new file format for Word in the way that's best for you.

Steps:

1. Introduction to Word 2007

A. What is Word?

Microsoft Word is Microsoft's flagship word processing software. Word has its uses in the home, office, and in the educational arena for creating clean, professional-looking documents of all kinds, from inter-office memos to résumés to term papers.

B. Components of Word 2007

A number of components of Word have either been changed or improved upon.  The major difference between Word 2007 and previous editions of Word is the "Ribbon."

The Ribbon

When you first open Word 2007, those of you who are familiar with earlier versions may be surprised by its new look. Most of the changes are in the Ribbon, the area that spans the top of Word (indicated in the screenshot below by the red shading).

The Ribbon brings the most popular commands to the forefront, so you don't have to hunt in various parts of the program for things you do all the time.

Why the change? To make your work easier and faster. The Ribbon was thoroughly researched and designed from users' experiences so that commands are in the optimal position.

Each Word 2007 document is by default saved under a newly christened .docx file format. Older versions of Word save documents as .doc files, so if you need to send you document to someone with an older version of Word, make sure that it is in .doc format, which will be explained later in this documentation.

What's on The Ribbon?

The Office Button, explained in the section entitled "The Office Button", is located on the Ribbon. The Ribbon is divided into three main parts: Tabs, groups, and commands.

The Three Parts

There are three basic components to the Ribbon. It's good to know what each one is called so that you understand how to use it.

1. Tabs. There are seven basic ones across the top. Each represents an activity area.
2. Groups. Each tab has several groups that show related items together.
3. Commands. A command is a button, a box to enter information, or a menu.

Everything on a tab has been carefully selected according to user activities. For example, the Home tab contains all the things you use most often, such as the commands in the Font group for changing text font: Font, Font Size, Bold, Italic, and so on.  See the corresponding numbers in the above screenshot.

The Office Button

The Office 2007 Office Button, identified by the newly-styled Office logo, is located in the upper-left of the program window overlapping the titlebar and the Ribbon.  See the screenshot below.

The Office button in Word 2007 is similar to the File button used by Word 2003 and earlier versions; it opens up a dropdown menu (see screenshot) with a list of familiar commands such as Open and New.  You've got your Save and Save as commands here, too.  It's basically your command center for printing, changing default settings, and many other handy features which were either not present in previous versions of Office Word, or not nearly as accessible. 

The right side of the menu lists your recently opened documents. These are always conveniently visible so that you don't have to search your computer for a document you frequently work on.

Additional Tabs

When you select a picture, the additional Picture Tools tab appears, showing groups of commands for working with pictures.

In this new version of Word, certain tabs appear only when you need them. For example, let's say you've inserted a picture. But now you want to do more with it. Maybe you want to change how text wraps around it or you want to crop it. Where are those commands found?

1. Select the picture.
2. The Picture Tools tab appears. Click that tab.
3. Additional groups and commands appear for working with pictures; like the Picture Styles group.

When you click away from the picture, the Picture Tools tab disappears, and the other groups come back.

Note:  On-demand tabs appear for other activity areas, like tables, drawings, diagrams, and charts.

The Mini Toolbar

Some formatting commands are so useful that you want to have them available whatever you are doing.  See the screenshot below.

Let's say you want to quickly format some text, but you're working on the Page Layout tab. You could click the Home tab to see the formatting options, but here's a faster way:

1. Select your text by dragging with your mouse, and then point at the selection.
2. The Mini toolbar will appear in a faded fashion. If you point to the Mini toolbar, it will become solid, and you can click a formatting option there.

The Mini toolbar is great for formatting options, but what if you want other types of commands to always be available? Use the Quick Access Toolbar.

The Quick Access Toolbar

The Quick Access Toolbar is the small area to the upper left of the Ribbon. It contains the things that you use over and over every day: Save, Undo, and Repeat. You can add your favorite commands to it so that they are available no matter which tab you are on. To add a command to the Quick Access Toolbar, right click on the command and click "Add to Quick Access Toolbar." Also, by right-clicking on any command in the Toolbar, you can choose to remove it just as easily as you added it.

Temporarily Hide The Ribbon

The Ribbon makes everything in Word 2007 nicely centralized and easy to find. Sometimes, however, you don't need to find things. You just want to work on your document, and you'd like more space to do that. So it's just as easy to hide the Ribbon temporarily as it is to use it.

Here's how: Double-click the active tab. The groups disappear, so that you have more room.

Whenever you want to see all of the commands again, double-click the active tab to bring back the groups.

2. Using Word

A. Finding Everday Commands

Word 2007 is new, and that's exciting, but you have things to do. So now it's time to point out the exact locations of the most commonly used commands. You'll see that the new design of the program puts those commands right where you need them.

Where do you create a document? Where are bullets, where are styles, and how can you check your spelling? What about printing? This lesson will answer those questions and more...

Beginning With The Office Button

We talked about the Office Button earlier in this documentation. We mentioned that it is the command center for all your word processing needs in the new Microsoft Office Word. Use the Office Button menu to open a document saved to your computer or portable storage device, or click "New..." to create a new Word document.

Bullets, Numbers, And More

Once you have a document open and have typed your text, you'll no doubt want to format that text. Many familiar formatting commands are in view on the Home tab, in the Font group: Bold, Italic, Font Size, and so on. And there are several more you'll find useful here.

In the Paragraph group you have the ever-popular bulleted lists, numbered lists, and multilevel lists. You've also got your indentation and alignment commands here as well.

Remember to click that small diagonal arrow   in the lower-right corner of the group, the Dialog Box Launcher, if you don't see options that you are accustomed to using in Word. For example, clicking the arrow in the Paragraph group opens a familiar dialog box in which you can work with indentation, widow and orphan control, and much more.

Styles

If you're interested in a more powerful and efficient approach to formatting than just the bold and italic commands, you'll want to know about styles in the new Word. 

You work with styles on the Home tab, in the Styles group:

1. Quick Styles are ready-made, professional styles, quick and easy to apply; and they have a new look with this version of Word. The most frequently used Quick Styles will appear directly on the Ribbon.
2. Click this button to see several more ready to use Quick Styles.
3. Click the Dialog Box Launcher to open the Styles pane. This pane holds custom-made styles you might have made yourself in a previous version of Word, and it's where you go to create new or amend existing styles.

Quick Styles are more than convenient, good-looking outfits for your document. Using these styles throughout your document, you can create a very professional-looking, refined finished work.

The Format Painter

Another high-speed formatting command is Format Painter. It's on the very left of the Home tab, in the Clipboard group. In case you're not familiar with the Format Painter, it's a quick way of duplicating formatting from one section of text to another.

To use the Format Painter, place the cursor in the text whose format you want to copy and then click the Format Painter button. If you have more than one place to paint your formatting, make sure you double-click the Format Painter to get it to stay on. Then select the text that you want to paint on the new format.

To turn it off, you click the button again, or press ESC.

Insert pictures, hyperlinks, headers and footers

The Insert tab offers your document a wealth of added information. 

To give your text power and punch, you may want pictures, clip art, charts, or shapes in your document. The place to add these is the Insert tab.

But those aren't the only commands on this tab. You've got Tables and Hyperlink here, as well. And that's not all --- not pictured but ready to serve you are page numbers, text boxes, and WordArt.

 Zoom

After you insert something, you may need a closer look at its details. So you'll definitely want to know where you zoom.

Look in the lower-right corner. Drag the slider to the right to zoom in, and drag it to the left to zoom out.

Tips   

• Clicking the percent number to the left of the slider will open the Zoom dialog box, where you can specify a zoom percentage.
• If your mouse has a wheel, you can hold down the CTRL key and turn the wheel forward to zoom in, backward to zoom out.
• You can also find Zoom commands on the View tab.

Check Spelling & Grammar

Make no mistake --- when you've done most of the work on your document, you'll want to check the spelling and the grammar before you print or e-mail it.

TheSpelling & Grammar command is on the Review tab, because this is part of reviewing your work. Look toward the far left, in the Proofinggroup.

Page Layout

You're ready to print --- but are you? First it's smart to check how your pages are laid out for the printer. Everything you need is on the Page Layout tab. The Page Setupgroup containsSize (8.5 x 11, A4, and so on),Orientation (landscape and portrait), and Margins.
That's right: Margin settings are easily accessible, on the same level as other commands in this group. Remember how in earlier versions you had to dig deep, going to the File menu, Page setup, and so on? Not any more.

Printing

When you are truly ready to print, go back to the Microsoft Office Button. But keep in mind that now you've got options:

1. If you click the Print command, you'll get the Print dialog box. But point at the arrow on the right of the Print command instead, and you'll see three commands:
2. Print, which will open the old familiar Print dialog box.
3. Quick Print, which sends your document immediately to the printer.
4. Print Preview, which shows you how the printed document will look. If you use this command a lot you might like to add it to the Quick Access Toolbar.

B. Tips and Common Issues/Problems

Some Things I've Noticed

Since Office Word 2007 is a complex software program, a list of problems or issues would be an infinitely long work-in-progress which I'm only going to touch on a little bit, relatively speaking. I will, however, try to show you some of the problems I've seen, as well as some tips I have to make things easier, and some features that used to be hidden in the older versions of Word, but are now ready to use with only a cursory glance.

Accessing Word Options

All the features you are accustomed to using every day in Word are on the Ribbon, and much easier to find than ever before. But where are the behind-the-scenes settings that aren't about producing documents but that control how Word works? Settings like security and user information, spelling dictionaries and AutoCorrection?

In previous versions of Word, you clicked Options on the Tools menu. Now, all these settings are part of Word Options, which you open when you click the Word Options button on the menu that opens when you click the Microsoft Office Button.

 Changing the Default Font

You'll notice that the default font for Word 2007 is no longer Times New Roman, as it has been for previous versions.  If you would like to change the default font for your documents, here's how you do it.  First, go to the Home tab and click on the dialogue box launcher  in the font group.  You'll see the font dialogue box.  To change the default font settings:

1. Under "Font," select whichever font you would like to have as your default.  You can also decide whether you want the default font to be bold, italicized, etc, by changing the font style.
2. If you want the default font size to be larger, select the appropriate size.  Some fonts are naturally smaller and some are naturally larger, so adjustment based on the individual fonts is sometimes necessary.
3. When you are ready, click Default and you will be shown the following dialogue box.

You can change the default font for each different style, as well.  If you want to change the default font for a given style, select the style from the Home tab and then do the same thing we just did above.

Default Style

You'll notice that when you start typing in Word 2007, the default style is "Normal."  Unless you understand what this means, it can be frustrating.  With the "Normal" style, every time you press the Enter key, instead of going down to the next line of text, it will skip a line, even if the document is set to be single-spaced.  There are two very easy ways to take care of this.  First, pressing Shift+Enter will cause it to drop down to the next line, instead of skipping.  The second solution is probably the easiest and it gets it out of your way for the rest of the document.  In the Syles group on the Home tab, you'll see the available selections of styles.  Right next to "Normal" should be "No Spacing."  Clicking this will eliminate all the spaces between lines.

Note:  If you have a lot of formatting already established in your document, clicking "No Spacing" can erase all of it and return your document to plain text.  If you don't want to do this, then you should switch over to No Spacing before you begin creating your document.

3. The New File Format

Another Big Change: The New File Format

One more big change in the new version of Word: an improved file format. What does that mean to you?

The new file format helps keep your file sizes smaller, and it helps keep them safer. There are other advantages too.

In this lesson you'll also learn what happens when you open files that don't have the new format.

Why The Change?

The new Word document file format is based on the new Office Open XML Formats (XML is short for Extensible Markup Language). Don't worry, you don't have to understand XML; it's all behind the scenes. Just keep in mind that the new XML-based format:

• Helps make your documents safer by separating files that contain scripts or macros, making it easier to identify and block unwanted code or macros.
• Helps make your document file sizes smaller
• Helps make your documents less susceptible to damage

New Features

The new file format also gives you the ability to use features that are available only in Word 2007. One example of such a feature is the new SmartArt Graphics.

The illustration here shows you how to start such a graphic in Word. Notice how many SmartArt Graphic designs are available to choose from.

The new file format supports plenty of other new features, such as math equations, themes, and content controls.

How do I know I'm using the new format?

When you create a new document in Word 2007, and then save the document, the new file format will automatically be chosen for you.

You can make sure of this by looking closely at the Save As dialog box. Notice that the Save as type box says Word Document. This means the new file format is being used.

Compatibility Mode

You're probably wondering, "what happens when I open my older documents in the new version of Word?"

Word 2007 can open files created in all previous versions of Word, 1.0 through 2003. Word will open older documents in compatibility mode. You know this because at the top of the document "(Compatibility Mode)" appears next to the name of the file.

What's compatibility mode all about? In short, Word is telling you that the document uses an older file format. Because that file format doesn't understand some of the new features in the new version of Word, those features are either turned off or modified so that they approximate an older version of Word.

For example, if an older Word 2003 document was opened in the new version of Word, you'll notice that the title bar includes (Compatibility Mode), as we just mentioned.  If you look at the Insert tab, you'll see that the Choose a SmartArt Graphic dialog box doesn't appear at all --- the Diagram Gallery appears instead. In fact, this Diagram Gallery is just like the one in Word 2003 and has the same range of functions.

It's a good idea to stay in compatibility mode if you know you'll be sharing your documents with a lot of people who are using older versions of Word. That way, what you see is what they see. And you will be able to anticipate what they can and can't do in their version of Word.

Converting Your Old Files

Can you convert an older document to the new file format? Naturally. With the document open in Word 2007, you just click the Microsoft Office Button, then click the Convert command on the menu.

This conversion gives you the benefits of the new format (helps make files smaller, more secure, and so on) and also the new features in their full, undiminished fashion. For example, you will have all of those choices that you saw in the Choose a SmartArt Graphic box, not the smaller set.

Note:  If you have Windows configured to show file extensions, the file name changes from My Document.doc to My Document.docx. The "x" stands for XML.

Share documents between versions by using a converter

If you will be sharing documents with a lot of people, there are methods you'll want to know about. Let's go through a few scenarios that you may find yourself in as you use the new version of Word.

Suppose you are using the new file format, either by creating new documents and saving them, or by upgrading them using the Convert command on the menu that opens from the Microsoft Office Button.

Suppose your friend, John, has an older version of Word that came with Office 2000. You want to e-mail him your latest document. Will he be able to open it?

Yes, he will. When John clicks the document, if his Office 2000 installation is updated with the latest patches and service packs, he will be asked if he wants to download a converter that will let him open your document.

Now, the document John opens won't look exactly the same as the one you made, because there are many features in your new version of Word that don't exist in his version. Still, he can open it, and will be able to work with it and send it back to you.

Note   The converter works only with Office 2000 SP3, Office XP SP3, and Office 2003 SP1. It works only on the following operating systems: Windows 2000 SP4, Windows XP SP1, and Windows Server 2003.

Sharing documents between versions by saving with an older format

If you're concerned that John doesn't have his installation of Office 2000 fully updated, then you'll want to save your document with an older file format before e-mailing it to him. Here's how:

1. Click the Microsoft Office Button, and on the menu, point to the arrow at the end of the Save as command.
2. Click Word 97-2003 format on the list of options. You may get a warning that saving in the older file format will cause certain features to be lost or modified. For example, if your document contains a new diagram, Word will notify you that the diagram will be combined into a single, uneditable object. That way John can at least see the diagram. But John won't be able to edit it, because his version of Word doesn't understand how to work with this new feature.