Elements of the Word Window

Learning the names of the elements of the Word window may not be the most stimulating part of learning the program, but it's essential for understanding the instructions throughout the rest of this book, and in Word's help system. Figure 1.5 labels the most important parts of the Word window.

Figure 1.5. It's a good idea to learn the names of the different parts of the Word window.

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Here is a description of these elements:

Title bar . The title bar of any Windows application lists the name of the application ”in this case, Microsoft Word 2003. Word's title bar also contains the name of the open document. As you'll see in the section "Controlling the Position and Size of the Word Window" later in this hour , you can use the title bar to move the Word window around the desktop, or to minimize or maximize the window. When the Word window is active, the title bar is colored. When another area of your screen is active, the title bar is dimmed.
Menu bar . The menu bar contains a set of pull-down menus that you use to issue commands.
Toolbars . The toolbars contain buttons that you can click to issue commands.
Rulers . The vertical and horizontal rulers show you where your text is on the page. The shaded sections at the ends of the rulers indicate the margin areas. You can use the rulers to change some formatting, including tabs, indents, and margins (see Hour 7, "Formatting Paragraphs," and Hour 8, "Formatting Pages"). Depending on which view you're using, you may see only a horizontal ruler. (You'll learn about views in Hour 4, "Viewing and Printing Your Documents.") To hide the rulers, choose View, Ruler. To display them, choose View, Ruler again.
Text area . This is the area in which you can type text.
View buttons . You can use these buttons to switch views (see Hour 4).
Status bar . The status bar tells you about the current status of your document. The left section tells you the current page number and the total number of pages. The middle section tells you the location of the insertion point (the cursor), and the right section tells you whether some special features are turned on.
Scrollbars . The horizontal and vertical scrollbars let you bring different parts of a document into view. You'll learn how to use them in the next hour.
Control buttons . These buttons let you control the Word window.
Browse buttons . You can use these buttons to navigate sequentially through your document in various ways (see the next hour).

In addition to these basic elements of the Word window, you may also see the Getting Started task pane when you first start Word (see Figure 1.6). This and other task panes are discussed in "Working with Task Panes" later in this hour.

Figure 1.6. The Getting Started task pane appears by default when you first start Word.

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Working with Menus

The menu bar at the top of the Word window contains nine pull-down menusFile, Edit, View, and so on. You can issue all of the commands in Word via these menus. Chances are that you'll use toolbar buttons or keyboard shortcuts for many commands, but you can always fall back on the menus if you forget the alternate methods .

Menu Basics

To display a menu, click its name in the menu bar. For example, to display the Format menu, click Format in the menu bar, as shown in Figure 1.7. Then click a command in the menu to instruct Word to carry it out. If you want to close a menu without issuing a command, click anywhere outside the menu in the text area. (If your Format menu looks different from what you see in Figure 1.7, you may be using full menus , not personalized menus . See "Using Personalized Menus" later in this hour for more information.)

Figure 1.7. Click a menu name to display the menu.

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Some menu commands, such as the ones shown in the Format menu in Figure 1.7, are followed by three dots (). These commands lead to dialog boxes, which you use to give Word more information before it carries out a command. If a menu command is not followed by three dots, Word performs the command as soon as you click it.

Commands that are followed by three dots are safe to click when you're exploring Word on your own, because you can always back out of the resulting dialog box by clicking the Cancel button. And just looking over the options in a dialog box can give you a sense of what the command does. If you have an important document onscreen, it's a good idea to refrain from clicking a command that is not followed by three dots, unless you know what it does. (You can undo many actions, as you'll learn in Hour 2, "Entering Text and Moving Around," but a few actions cannot be undone.)

If a menu command has a small triangle at its right, it leads to a submenu. To display the submenu, just point to the command. In Figure 1.8, the Insert, Picture submenu is displayed.

Figure 1.8. Menu commands with triangles lead to submenus.

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When a menu command is light gray, it is not currently available. In Figure 1.9, the first three commands in the Edit menu are grayed out.

Figure 1.9. Light gray commands are not currently available.

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Many menu commands list keyboard shortcuts to their right. For example, in Figure 1.9, the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+A is listed to the right of the Select All command. You can use these keyboard shortcuts as an alternative to clicking the commands in the menus. See "Using Keyboard Shortcuts" later in this hour for more information. Furthermore, menu commands that have equivalent toolbar buttons show the toolbar buttons to the left of the command in the menu. In Figure 1.9, all of the commands but Select All have toolbar equivalents.

Using the Keyboard to Issue Menu Commands

You can use the keyboard instead of the mouse to display menus and issue commands in them. To display a menu, press the Alt key, and then press the underlined letter in the menu name. For example, to display the Format menu, you press Alt+O. After the menu is displayed, press the underlined letter in the command that you want to issue. For example, to issue the Paragraph command in the Format menu, press P. When a menu is displayed, you can press the right or left arrow keys to display the other menus in the menu bar. To close a menu without issuing any command, press the Alt key again.

You can also use the keyboard to interact with dialog boxes. See "Working with Dialog Boxes" later in this hour for more information.

Using Personalized Menus

Word offers two choices for controlling how your menus behave: personalized menus and full menus . When the personalized menu feature is enabled, clicking a menu name displays a short menu that contains only the commands you use frequently. This reduces clutter in your menus and makes it easier to find the commands you use all the time. If you want to use a command that is not visible in the short menu, use one of these methods to expand the menu and display all of its commands:

Double-click the menu name.
Point to (or click) the down arrow at the bottom of the menu.
Hover your mouse pointer over the menu name for a few seconds.

Figure 1.10 shows the full Format menu (contrast it with the short menu shown previously in Figure 1.9).

Figure 1.10. When personalized menus are turned on, you can still display the full menus.

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If you display the full menu and click one of the commands that was hidden in the short menu, Word adds it to the short menu. By the same token, if you don't use a command in the short menu for a period of time, Word may remove it from the short menu.

If you want to restore the default set of commands in your short menus, follow these steps:

Choose Tools, Customize .
Click the Options tab.
Click the Reset Menu and Toolbar Usage Data button.
Click Yes in the message box that appears, and click Close .

Turning Off Personalized Menus

For some of you, personalized menus may be the best thing since sliced bread. For others, they may be an irksome distraction.

If you want to turn off personalized menus and always see the full menus instead, follow these steps:

Choose Tools, Customize to display the Customize dialog box.
Click the Options tab.
Mark the Always Show Full Menus check box.
Click the Close button.

Now you will see the full menus all of the time. (If you need any help with these steps, see "Working with Dialog Boxes" later in this hour.) If you want to turn personalized menus back on at some point, follow these same steps, but clear the check box in step 3 instead of marking it.

To keep things simple, the remainder of this book assumes that personalized menus are turned off. If you prefer to keep this feature turned on, remember that some of the commands referred to in this book may not be included in your short menus; you might have to display the full menus to see them.

Displaying Context Menus

In addition to using the pull-down menus at the top of the Word window, you can also use context menus (sometimes called shortcut menus ). These are menus that you display by clicking the right mouse button. The commands in a context menu vary depending on where you right-click. For example, if you right-click text, you get commands for editing and formatting text (see Figure 1.11), and if you right-click a toolbar, you get a list of available toolbars (see Figure 1.12).

Figure 1.11. Right-clicking text displays a context menu with commands for working with text.

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Figure 1.12. Right-clicking a toolbar displays a context menu that lists available toolbars.

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To choose a command in a context menu, use a left-click. To close a context menu without choosing a command, click anywhere outside it (or press the Esc key).

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