Chapter 8
In This Chapter
Understanding terms
Creating a new document
Saving documents
Updating (resaving) a document
Opening a document
Inserting one document inside another
Retrieving a lost document
I like the word document. It’s elegant. It’s much better than saying “a file” or “that thing I created with my word processor.” A document could include everything from a quick shopping list to a vast cycle of medieval fantasy novels you keep reading despite knowing that your favorite protagonist will die a sudden, horrific death.
Regardless of size or importance, a word-processing file is called a document. It’s the end result of your efforts in Word. You create new documents, save them, open up old documents, and close documents. That’s the document cycle.
File: A Word document is a file. A file contains information stored for the long term, which can be recalled again and shared with others. Windows manages files and their storage, backup, copying, moving, and renaming.
Folder: Files dwell in containers called folders. A folder is nothing more than storage for various files, although folders play a role in how files are organized.
Local storage: The file crated when you save a document must be kept somewhere for the long term. When it’s saved on your computer’s hard drive, it’s kept on local storage. Because some computers use a solid-state drive (SSD) instead of a hard drive, the term local storage is used instead of hard drive or disk drive.
Cloud storage: Also available for saving documents is storage available on the Internet, commonly referred to as cloud storage. Specifically, Word is integrated to use Microsoft’s OneDrive cloud storage. Files saved to cloud storage are available to your computer and also to any computer connected to the Internet. Yes, you need to log into the cloud storage; not just anyone can pilfer your files.
You can use other cloud storage services with Word, such as Dropbox or Google Drive. These locations are accessed through their shadow copies on local storage.
To summon a new document, click the Blank Document template thumbnail found on the Word Start screen. Or if the Start screen has been disabled (per the directions in Chapter 33), Word starts by displaying a blank document.
After Word has started, you can summon a new document by obeying these steps:
Click the File tab.
The File screen appears.
Choose the New command from the left side of the window.
The New screen lists the same templates that appear on the Start screen. Category tabs are Featured and Personal for Word’s templates and your own templates, respectively.
Click the Blank Document thumbnail.
A new Word window appears and you see a blank page, ready for typing.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re writing the next Great American Novel or you’re jotting down notes for tonight’s PTA meeting, the most important thing you can do to a document is save it.
Save! Save! Save!
Saving creates a permanent copy of your document, encoding your text as a file on the computer’s storage system. That way, you can work on the document again, publish it electronically, or have a copy ready in case the power goes poof. All these tasks require saving.
Don’t think that you have to wait until you finish a document to save it. In fact, you should save almost immediately — as soon as you have a few sentences or paragraphs.
To save a document for the first time, follow these steps:
Choose the Save As command.
The Save As screen appears, similar to the one shown in Figure 8-1. This screen is part of Word’s Backstage, which is an alternative to the traditional Windows Save As dialog box.
Choose a location for the document.
To use local storage, choose This PC.
To use cloud storage on OneDrive, choose OneDrive.
A list of recent folders appears on the right side of the screen. Click a folder to choose it as the storage location.
After choosing a location, the traditional Save As dialog box appears. Or you can quickly summon that dialog box by clicking the Browse button, as illustrated in Figure 8-1.
If the specific folder you need wasn’t shown on the Save As screen, use the Save As dialog box to navigate to that folder — or create a folder by clicking the New Folder button in that dialog box.
Type a name for your document in the File Name box.
Word automatically selects the first several words of your document as a filename and places that text in the File Name box. If that’s okay, you can move to Step 5. Otherwise, type a better name.
Be descriptive! The more concisely you name your document, the easier it is to recognize it by that name in the future.
Click the Save button.
The file is now safely stored.
The document doesn’t close after you save. You don’t need to quit Word. You can keep working.
Saving a document involves working with both Word and the Windows operating system. This process doubles the chances of something going wrong, so it's high time for an error message. One such error message is
The file whatever already exists
You have three choices:
Choose the middle option and click OK. Type a different filename in the Save As dialog box.
Another common problem occurs when a message that’s displayed reads something like this:
The file name is not valid
That's Word's less-than-cheerful way of telling you that the filename contains a boo-boo character. To be safe, use letters, numbers, and spaces when naming a file. Check the nearby sidebar, “Trivial — but important — information about filenames.”
As you continue to work on your document, you should save again. That way, any changes you’ve made since the last time you saved are recorded on the computer’s storage system. Saving a document multiple times keeps it fresh.
To resave a document that has already been saved, follow these steps:
Choose the Save command.
You get no feedback, and the Save As dialog box doesn't show up. That's because you already gave the file a name; the Save command merely updates the existing file.
The fastest, and most common, way to save or update a document is to press the Ctrl+S keyboard shortcut. You can also click the Save button on the Quick Access toolbar.
When you’re done writing in Word, you close the document, close the window, or quit Word outright. No matter how you call it quits, when your document hasn't yet been saved, or was changed since the last save, you're asked to save one last time before leaving.
The warning dialog box that appears when you attempt to leave before saving features three options:
Save: Click this button to save the document and close. If you've been bad and haven't yet saved the document, the Save As screen appears.
Don’t Save: When you click this button, the document is closed without saving. It might still be available for later recovery. See the later section, “Recover a Draft.”
Cancel: Click this button to forget about saving and return to the document for more editing and stuff.
I recommend that you choose the Save option.
Saving a document means nothing unless you have a way to retrieve that document later. As you might suspect, Word offers multiple ways to open a document either on local storage or on cloud storage.
Open is the standard computer command used to fetch an existing document. Once you find and open the document, it appears in Word's window as though it had always been there.
To open a document in Word, follow these steps:
Choose the Open command.
The Open screen materializes, similar to what’s shown in Figure 8-2.
Choose a location where the document may lurk.
Your choices are Recent Documents, which is shown in Figure 8-2, cloud storage such as OneDrive, or local storage titled This PC.
If you spy the desired document lurking in the Recent list, click it. The document opens on the screen. Congratulations — you’re done.
Click a document when you find it.
The document opens, ready for editing.
If you can’t find the document, or you just yearn to use the traditional Open dialog box, click the Browse button.
The traditional Open dialog box appears, which you can use to locate the file you want to open: Click to select the file, and then click the Open button.
The file you open appears in the Word window. Word may highlight the last location where you were writing or editing, along with a Welcome back message.
After the document is open, you can edit it, look at it, print it, or do whatever you want.
It’s possible in Word to open one document inside another. Doing so isn’t as odd as you’d think. For example, you may have your biography, résumé, or curriculum vitae document and want to add that information to the end of a letter begging for a new job. If so, or in any other circumstances that I can’t think of right now, follow these steps:
Position the insertion pointer where you want the other document’s text to appear.
The text is inserted at that spot.
The Object button is shown in the margin. After clicking the button, you see a menu.
Choose the menu item Text from File.
The Insert File dialog box appears. It’s similar to the Open dialog box.
Locate and select the document you want to insert.
Browse through the various folders to find the document icon. Click to select that icon.
The document’s text is inserted into the current document, just as if you had typed and formatted it yourself.
When you've finished writing a document, you need to do the electronic equivalent of putting it away. That electronic equivalent is the Close command: Press Ctrl+W.
When you forget to save a document, or the computer crashed, or the power went out, you can recover some — but perhaps not all — of an unsaved document. Valiantly make this attempt:
Click the Recover Unsaved Documents button, found at the bottom of the list of recent files.
You may have to scroll the list of recent files a bit to locate the button
The Open dialog box appears, listing the contents of a special folder, UnsavedFiles. It’s Word’s graveyard of sorts. Actually, it's more like a morgue in a county with a lousy EMS.
Click to select a document to recover.
The document may have an unusual name, especially when it has never been saved.
The document you recover might not be the one you wanted it to be. If so, try again and choose another document.
You might also find that the recovered document doesn’t contain all the text you typed or thought would be there. You can’t do anything about it, other than remembering to save everything in the first place!
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