Section 1.3. Opening an Existing Document | Word 2007[c] The Missing Manual

1.3. Opening an Existing Document

If you've mastered creating a document from an existing document and creating a document from a template, you'll find that opening an existing document is a snap. The steps are nearly identical.

Choose Office button Open (Alt+F, O). In the Open window (Figure 1-6), navigate to the folder and file you want to open .

The Open window starts out showing your My Documents folder, since that's where Word suggests you save your files. When your document's in a more exotic location, click the My Computer icon, and then navigate to the proper folder from there.

Tip: When you open a document you've used recently, you may see its name right on the Office button Recent Documents menu. If so, simply click to open it without a trip to the Open dialog box.

With the file selected, click Open in the lower-right corner .

The Open box goes away and your document opens in Word. You're all set to get to work. Just remember, when you save this document (Alt+F, S or Ctrl+S), you write over the previous file. Essentially, you create a new, improved, and only copy of the file you just opened. If you don't want to write over the existing document, use the Save As command (Alt+F, A), and then type a new name in the File Name text box.

Figure 1-6. This Open dialog box shows the contents of the tale of two cities folder, according to the "Look in" box at the top. The file tale of two cities. docx is selected, as you can see in the "File name box" at the bottom of the window. By clicking Open, Mr. Dickens is ready to go to work.

Tip: Opening a file in Word doesn't mean you're limited to documents created in Word. You can choose documents created in other programs from the Files of Type drop-down menu at the bottom of the Open dialog box. Word then shows you that type of document in the main part of the window. You can open Outlook messages (.msg), Web pages (.htm or .html), or files from other word processors (.rtf, .mcw, .wps).