Opening a Document

Opening an existing document is a straightforward process. You will find that the Open dialog box shares many of the attributes that you saw in the Save As dialog box.

To open an existing Word file, follow these steps:

1. Select the File menu, and then Open (or click the Open button on the Standard toolbar). The Open dialog box appears.

2. By default, Word begins showing the files and folders in your My Documents folder. If the document you need is located elsewhere on your computer, click the Look In drop-down arrow to select the drive on which the file is located, and navigate to the folder containing the document you need.

3. To open the file, click the file, and then click the Open button (you can also double-click the file). The file appears in a Word document window.

If you are working with text files or documents that have been saved in a format other than the Word document format (.doc), you must select the file type in the Files of Type drop-down box to see them.