Checks the document for spelling and grammar errors; if Word finds any questionable items, pops open the “Spelling and Grammar” window to give you the opportunity to correct them. Keyboard shortcut: Option-⌘-L.

Opens the Reference Tools palette, which lets you find synonyms or antonyms for the selected word.

Hyphenates the currently active Word document, which gives better spacing between words in individual lines (see Manual Hyphenation).

Opens the Reference Tools palette, where you can view the selected word’s definition (see Open).

Flags selected text as being in a given language. The advantage of doing this is that Word will thereafter apply the appropriate language dictionary for spelling checks and AutoCorrect entries.

Counts up the statistics for the currently open Word document: the number of words, lines, characters, and paragraphs.

Tries to summarize the currently open Word document down to its salient points, as described on Unloading a global template.

Opens the AutoCorrect window, where you can determine what Word tries to automatically correct when it thinks it sees an error in your typing (see AutoCorrect). It also lets you enter AutoText items that will fill in automatically as you type, and it lets you set the automatic formatting that’s applied to your Word documents both as you type and if you select the AutoFormat command.

The Track Changes menu controls how word keeps tabs of changes to documents. This menu has three submenu options: Highlight Changes and Accept or Reject Changes.

Merges changes that have been tracked in the currently open Word document into another document of your choice.

Keeps people from making the kinds of changes that you specify to a document. You can optionally enter a password to protect the currently open document from those changes.

Opens the “Flag for Follow Up” window, where you can set a reminder attached to the currently open Word document. That reminder will pop up at the time you specify to remind you to do something with that document.

Opens the Mail Merge Manager palette, which you can use to take control over your mail merge operations (such as mail merges for mass mailings).

Helps you create an envelope, including things such as the delivery address and return address. It also has an option to do a data merge, so that you can draw addresses for your envelopes from a data file.

Lets you use Word to create mailing labels of all kinds. This command takes advantage of Word’s plethora of mailing label templates, and it lets you format those labels for either dot-matrix or laser printing.

Opens the Letter Wizard, which walks you through the process of creating a letter suitable for mailing to businesses, friends, or even writing crank letters to the government.

Opens the Office Address Book window (which looks suspiciously like the Entourage Address Book), where you can quickly look up contact information.

This menu used to open a window of VBA macros, which Office 2008 doesn’t use. Instead, in the misleadingly named Macros window, you’ll find a long list of what are actually Word’s commands—the commands that are triggered by menu commands or keyboard commands, or by selecting one from this list and clicking Run.

Opens the “Templates and Add-ins” window, where you can attach a different template to the currently open Word document, plus, you can use this window to turn on or turn off various Add-Ins for Word. Add-Ins are conceptually similar to Photoshop plug-ins.

Opens the Customize Keyboard window, where you can create and modify Keyboard combinations (see Chapter 20).