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What's on the Menu?
by Tim Campbell, editor —
W
ord has a whole bunch of great features but unfortunately, some of these features may not be where you expect them to be. In all honesty, the menus are pretty well organized once you understand what's in each one. Here's the lowdown.

File
This menu is very similar to those found in other programs. This menu allows you to manage your documents by opening or creating new documents, saving your work, controlling your document's size and margins (page setup) and printing your document. The bottom of this menu lists the last four Word documents used so you can easily revisit them. (You can increase the number of documents that are listed by going to Tools > Options > General.)

Edit
This menu only relates to the current active document (if you don't have a document open, you'll find that none of these options are available). This is where you'll find the Undo/Redo, Copy/Paste and Find/Replace functions. Once you've been using Word for awhile, most people end up using keyboard shortcuts for these common functions.

View
This menu concerns how things are displayed in your document and on-screen. Word offers several alternative ways to view your document. The one that's right for you really depends on the size of the document you're putting together. You'll also find options here for viewing and editing a number of useful toolbars as well as your document's headers and footers. The important thing to remember is that, no matter what view or options are visible, your document content remains the same (with the obvious exception of adding a header or footer).

Insert
When you need to add a picture, link, textbox or most anything else, this is the menu that you'll use. Each item you can add usually comes with quite a few customizable options.

Format
This menu works closely with the Insert menu. Once you've inserted an item, you can use the commands on this menu to refine them. If you've typed some text, this is where you can format it by specifying the spacing, font or by putting it into a list with bullets or numbers. This is also the menu that you can use to customize a background or use Styles.

Tools
If you want to take advantage of/customize some of Word's Auto features, you can do that here. The "Options" option at the bottom of this menu is the main way to customize much of Word.

Tables
Tables are a great way to control and present columns of data in a variety of ways. There are lots of options here as well as possibilities for "AutoFormatting."

Window
This menu's function is quite simple. If you have multiple documents open, you can use this menu to switch between them. You can also use this menu to organize them as needed.

Help
Don't like flipping through a manual or book? This menu gives you several options for finding more information about Word, including (in some versions) that annoying animated Office Assistant. Hey! Did you just wink at my wife!?!?

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