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Jan's Working with Words
Interface: Office Button/File Tab
The left end of the ribbon is different in Office 2007 from what was on the toolbar in older versions of Office. It changed again with Office 2010. This time it is not really change for the sake of change! They figured out a better approach to use for Office 2010 and later versions.
Word
2007: 
Office
button
Word 2010/13/16: File tab
Word 2007:
Office Button
The
Office button opens a wide menu that is actually quite similar to the
File menu in older versions of Word. The button itself covers the area
that held the control icon and the File menu command in older versions. It may be a little hard to get used to
if you have experience with those versions. You may automatically look
for the word File when you want commands
that were on that menu, like Open, Save As, Print.
The Office button opens a list of commands, similar to the File menu in previous versions of
Word. The list of Recent Documents can be much longer than before. That's an improvement.
Control
menu: In case you wondered, in Office 2007 you get to the
control menu by right clicking the title bar.
Word 2007 Office Menu:
All of the choices on the old File menu are on the new Office menu
somewhere. Some commands have a right arrow
. Clicking one of those commands opens a list of related commands. In Word
2007 those show up at the right, where you see Recent Documents at
first. For example, the Print command opens a list containing the commands Print, Quick Print, and Print Preview. The list of recently viewed documents has room for many more documents than in previous versions.
Word 2007: Office menu and Print submenu
Pin a document: You can pin a document to the list of recent documents. That keeps it from moving off the list as you work with more documents. Just click on the pushpin icon at the right of the document's name to pin it or unpin it. You can set the number of documents allowed to be pinned in the Word Options dialog in the Advanced page.
Word Options: At the bottom of the Office menu, the button Word Options opens a dialog for all of the ways you can customize the way Word behaves
Exit Word vs. Close: The button Exit Word closes all open documents and shuts down the program. The Close button at the bottom left of the menu closes the current document without closing Word itself.
Word 2010, 2013, 2016: File Tab
In all Office 2010, 2013, and 2016 programs, at the left of the ribbon there is a colored File tab. Each program in Office has a different color for this tab. Word uses a dark blue.
Clicking the File tab opens the Backstage view. This view covers your document and has two or three panes. The left pane is a list of commands. These apply to the document as a whole - like Print, Save, Open, Close, New. Most commands show information and a list of further choices in the right pane.
The designers have attempted to put everything you need to manage the document itself here in the Backstage view. You must switch back to the ribbon to change what is IN the document.
Example: In the illustrations the Print command is selected on the left. The middle pane lets you choose how and where the document will print. The right pane is a print preview.
How to get back to the document from Backstage View
Word 2010: Click on one of the ribbon tabs.
Word 2013/2016: Click the Back arrow at the top left 
.
What shows up when you click the File tab? It depends!
A document is open
File > Info
Shows information about the current document like word count, author,
number of pages. There are also buttons for managing the file, like permissions and versions.
Word 2010 includes a thumbnail of the Word window at the top but Word 2013 and 2016 do not.
No document is open:
Word 2010: File > Recent
Shows
recently viewed documents in the center pane and recent places, that is, folders in the right pane.
Word 2013: File > Open
The middle pane lets you select Recent Documents (the default) or from a short list of locations if you need to browse to the document you want.
Recent Documents lets you pin documents to the top of the list. Below the pinned documents, it lists other documents you have worked on, with the most recent one placed at the top of the list.
OneDrive is Microsoft's online file storage service. At some point references to SkyDrive will change to OneDrive. But it may take an update of your software. Microsoft wants you to use OneDrive as your usual location for Documents.
Computer or This PC is the computer you are working on. Clicking this choice shows a list of recent folders in the right pane and a Browse button if you need to get to a different location.
The Add a Place command will let you add a SharePoint site or a OneDrive account easily. These places also appear when you select Save As in Backstage View.
Other cloud storage places like Dropbox and Google Drive can be added to the list with some effort (see more info below).
Word 2016: File > Open
Recent files in the right pane are now shown in groups, like Today, Yesterday, Last Week, Older. You can still pin documents to the top of the list.
This PC (on a Windows 10 computer) or Computer (on earlier versions) opens a list in the right pane of what is in the Documents folder for the current user.
The Browse button opens a File Explorer window if you need to navigate to a file that is not in OneDrive or in Documents.
SharePoint is a program that is used by many companies and schools to manage their intranets (internal networks). Your school or workplace may give you storage space for your documents on a SharePoint site. Ask your teacher or IT department.
OneDrive is an online file storage service by Microsoft. A free account comes with 5 GB of permanent storage. It used to come with 15 GB. An Office 365 subscription comes with 1 TB of OneDrive storage, which lasts as long as the subscription does. Microsoft sometimes offers extra storage for things that may be time-limited like letting your phone's Camera Roll automatically upload to OneDrive. You can also add storage by paying for it. 100 GB is $1.99 a month. [Dec. 2015]
You must log into your Microsoft account to save files the first time. Then Office will remember for you. A Windows Live ID or an XBox ID is the same thing as a Microsoft account.
To Add Other Cloud Storage Places: Microsoft does not make it easy! In the future, these other cloud services may decide to link to Office automatically. For now, you can just click the place Computer or This PC and navigate to the folder that synchronizes to the cloud storage.
Google has an Plug-In 
to get Google Drive accepted as a Place. Download the plug-in and run it. The program will walk you through a few steps. You must, of course, already have a Google account. Once finished, you will see Google Drive in the list of places in Open, Save, and Save As in Backstage view. You will also have a Google Drive tab on the ribbon. You can hide that if you wish. Just right click on a ribbon tab and choose Customize the Ribbon. Uncheck the box for Google Drive in the right column.
[Dec. 11, 2015 - I tried this plug-in with Office 2016 on Windows 10 and it worked smoothly. When I tried it again, Dect. 31, 2015, the icon for Google Drive did not show in Backstage View, but there was a blank space of it. Go figure!]
Batch file: If you really want a shortcut to your local copies of cloud-stored files in the Places list, someone else has written some batch files to make the changes in the Registry needed. The How to Geek web site has an explanation and download links to the batch files that will let you add Dropbox or another cloud storage place that synchronizes with a local folder. You will need to know the path to the local folder for the cloud storage service. Link to explanation and batch files
[Sept. 25, 2013 - I added Google Drive and Dropbox to Office 2013 with no problems using the batch files, once I typed the path correctly!]
[Dec. 3, 2015 - The batch file has been updated to work with Windows 10 but does not say that it is compatible with Office 2016 yet.]
[Dec. 11, 2015 -
Dropbox does not have a desktop plug-in yet but is already compatible on mobile devices. That is, you can open an Office file stored on Dropbox and edit it in a mobile Office app and save it back to Dropbox without any special effort.]
What do the commands do?
Some commands in the left pane of Backstage view work very much the same in all recent versions but there are differences that might surprise you. The order of the commands in the list is different in each version.
Save
Previously saved document: Immediately saves to the same location with the same name and file type.
Document has never been saved: Treated as a Save As command
Save As
Opens the Save As dialog for you to pick a location, a file type, and a file name.
Word 2013 and 2016 make you pick a location before this dialog appears.
Word 2013: Pick a place in the middle column and then a recent folder in the right column or click the Browse button on the right. Then the Save As dialog opens. Now you can navigate to a different folder if you wish. Then you must enter a name and pick a file type.
Word 2016: Pick a place in the middle pane and then a recent folder in the right column or click the Browse button in the middle pane and navigate to the folder you want to use. Only after picking a folder can you enter a name and pick a file type.
The illustration shows Word 2016 on Windows 10.
Close
Closes the current document without closing Word or
other open documents. You are prompted to save if the document has been
changed since the last time it was saved.
New
Shows templates for various kinds of documents such as brochures, calendars, contracts, and letters. The Blank document template is selected by default. You can search for a template or view templates by categories. Each version is a bit different in how the templates are grouped and displayed.
A template may not be installed yet even though you can see a thumbnail of it. If you select one of those, you will need to be online to download the template.
Word 2007: The New Document dialog lists categories of templates on the left with icons in the middle and a preview of the selected template on the right. A number of templates are installed on the hard disk. The search box looks at Microsoft Office online. Templates that you created or saved yourself are in the category My templates...
Word 2010: The New command opens a list of categories of templates in the middle pane and a preview of the selected template at the right. Templates that you created or saved yourself are in the category My templates. The category Recent templates is a new and helpful addition.
When you open a category,
and then, if necessary, a folder, you will see thumbnails of templates
in that category. The illustration shows certificate templates in Word
2010.
Word 2013, 2016: The New command opens to thumbnails for the FEATURED templates by default.
Word 2013 and 2016 expect you to be connected to the Internet to search for a template. Very, very few come pre-installed!
Templates that you created or saved yourself are in the PERSONAL category, which is not the same as searching for 'personal'.
The line in the illustration, FEATURED PERSONAL, won't show unless you have saved a custom template.
Templates can be pinned, starting with Word 2013! Hover over a thumbnail and the pin icon 
appears below it. Click the icon to pin that template so that it will always show in this pane at the top.
or 
Options
The Options button or command opens the Options dialog, which has several pages. This is where you change how Word itself behaves, such as whether the Mini-Toolbar will show or not, or whether AutoCorrect as You Type is turned on or off. We will check out some of these options later.
Exit Word:
Word 2007: 
Word 2010: 
Exit
Word 2013, 2016: 
Closes Word. You will be prompted if there are open documents that you have not saved since you made changes.
Info
Word 2010, 2013, 2016:
The Info pane is full of useful facts about the
current document, like its size, number of pages and words, the author,
the date created and when last modified.
There are buttons to open other areas, such as about sharing the document and what actions you will allow viewers to perform (permissions). You can also check out older versions of the document, if any exist.
The information and choices took a lot of digging around to find in earlier versions.
Word 2016: Previous versions are no longer available in the Info pane. There is a History link if you are working on a Sharepoint or Office 2016 for Business document. If the document is in OneDrive, then the online interface can show previous versions. Otherwise, you need to have File History turned on. Then you can find previous versions by right clicking the document in File Explorer and selecting Properties. Open the tab Previous Versions.
Word 2010: File > Recent
In addition to recent documents, the pane in Word 2010 shows recent places that documents came from or were saved to. Word 2007 shows lots of recent documents but does not show the recent places. Word 2013 tucks the list of recent documents into the Open and Save As pages.
Examples of places:
A folder on the hard disk
A folder on a networked computer named SHUTTLE-FT62
A folder on an online storage server. This one is SkyDrive.
Open
Word 2007, 2010: Opens the Open dialog where you can navigate to the
file that you want.
Word 2013, 2016: Shows the Places list and Recent Documents.
You can navigate to a document that is not in the list.
Word 2013: Click on a place and then on the Browse button.
Word 2016: Click on Browse in the list of places.
[March 2016: Office 2016 - At some point recently a new History item showed up on the File tab. It is only available if you are saving files to SharePoint or OneDrive for Business.]
Pin Recent Documents
The list of recent documents can only hold so many documents. To keep documents that you work with often on the list you can pin a document to the list.
Just click on the push pin icon 
at the right of the document's name. (If a pin does not show, hover over the document name.)
The pin changes its 'pinned' look: 
.
The name stays in the list, no matter how many other documents you view,
until you unpin it by clicking the push pin again. In Word 2010, 2013, and 2016 the pinned documents move to a section above the unpinned ones.
Print:
Word
2007: 
Word 2010, 2013, 2016: File > Print
Word
2007: Opens a short list of three items:
- Print - Opens the Print dialog.
- Quick Print - Immediately prints using the last settings.
- Print Preview - Opens a preview of the document.
Word 2010, 2013, 2016: Shows the Preview and Print pane.
This pane has everything you need to control how the document will print, such as which printer to use, the number of copies, and which pages to print. These were scattered in different places in previous versions.
At the far right of the pane
there is a preview of the document, which you can zoom to show multiple pages at once.
Problem:
You spot an error in the preview and want to correct it.
Solution:
Word 2007: Click the Magnifier check box in the Print Preview ribbon to turn on
editing while in Print Preview.
Word 2010, 2013, 2016: The preview cannot be edited. You must return to your document, make your
changes, and come back to the preview.
Send or Share:
Word
2007: Send, Publish
Word 2010: Save
& Send
Word 2013, 2016: Share or Export
Offers choices of how to send or share the document and in what format, such as sending by email or uploading to the Web or creating a PDF version to email. The three versions have different choices in different places.
Word 2010: File > Help
The choice Help in the Backstage view is only available in Word 2010.
(All three versions have a Help
button 
at the far right of the ribbon.)
There are choices in the middle pane for what kind of help you want. The right side shows exactly what version of Office you are using.
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Last updated: September 23, 2018