Although Microsoft Word 2008 for Mac is the simplest program to use in the Home & Student Edition of Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac, its capabilities are vast. In its most basic format, a Word document might be nothing more than a page of text, much like you would create on a typewriter (for those of us who remember that far back). You can modify simple text by adding character formatting, such as colored fonts and bold or italic effects, and paragraph formatting, such as alignment and spacing.
The basic Word document supports content such as formatted text and graphics, lists and tables, page formatting, electronic bookmarks and hyperlinks that are available when viewing the file electronically (for example, on a computer, through a Web browser, or through a mobile application), fields displaying dynamic content, functions, and formulas. Word offers a variety of file storage and delivery options. You can save a document in a simpler format, such as a text file; in a secure format, such as a PDF file; or in a more complex format, such as a Web page.
When Word starts, a new temporary document opens: either a blank document, a blank Notebook Layout document, or a blank Publishing Layout document, depending on which you were last working in. You can create a new document of one of these types by selecting the document type from the New list on the toolbar.
A new blank document created in Word 2008 looks like nothing more than a blank page, but in reality it already contains a variety of information, such as styles, margins, and properties. Some of this information is pulled from your user information, and some is stored as part of the document template on which the blank document is based.
Note
The default document template is Normal.dotm. In the file extension, dot stands for document template, and the m indicates that it’s a macro-enabled template.
You can see the information associated with a document in various places, including the Properties dialog box, the Page Setup dialog box, and the Style dialog box.
See Also
For information about document templates, see "Manage Document Templates" in Chapter 7.
The blinking insertion point in the document window indicates the location where the next character (or image, table, or other document element) you enter will appear. When the insertion point reaches the right margin, the word you are typing moves to the next line. To start a new paragraph, you press the Return key. To start a new line but not a new paragraph, you can insert a manual line break by pressing Shift+Return.
When you are viewing hidden characters in a document, a paragraph mark indicates the end of each paragraph containing text, an image, or other content, and a bent arrow indicates a manual line break within a paragraph. These characters are visible when hidden text is shown.
The paragraph mark carries with it the formatting assigned to that paragraph. In the days before the Format Painter, a simple way of transferring multiple paragraph format settings to another paragraph was to copy the paragraph mark at the end of the source paragraph and paste it at the end of the target paragraph.
See Also
For information about paragraph formatting, see "Format Paragraphs" in Chapter 11. For information about the Format Painter, see the sidebar "Apply Existing Formatting to Other Content," also in Chapter 11.
The basic method of entering text into a document is by typing. You can also insert text that you cut, copy, or import from another file, text that has been saved as AutoText, or the document properties and other information saved with the document.
See Also
For information about saving text as AutoText, see "Word Tools and Preferences" in Chapter 1. For information about inserting images, see Chapter 12.