Menu & Dialog Box Options
All the commands you use to create, edit, save, and print a document are found in Microsoft Word’s menu bar, located at the top of the window.
Each menu groups together related commands, sometimes using submenus to further group commands:
- File menu – Create, open, save, print, and close documents.
- Edit menu – Perform editing functions on your document, including copying, cutting, and pasting text and objects, moving to various points in the document, and undoing and redoing actions.
- View menu – Change the document’s display size and style.
- Insert menu – Insert objects into your documents, including graphics, page numbers and other fields, symbols, AutoText, and hyperlinks.
- Format menu – Apply formatting to the text and objects in your documents.
- Tools menu – Use Word’s tools, such as the spell and grammar checker, macro recorder, and track changes, and set your Microsoft Word preferences.
- Table menu – Insert and format tables.
- Window menu – Work with multiple open document windows.
- Help menu – Access Microsoft Word’s online help.
Note:
Additional menus may appear when you install a program that includes a Microsoft Word plug-in.
To access a menu command, click the main menu to open it, and then select (click) the command. Word hides those commands you don’t use frequently, so if you don’t see a command, click the double arrows at the bottom of the menu to expand it. Word then displays all the available commands. Once you select a command, Word includes it with the others you commonly use.
Selecting a command from a menu often opens a dialog box, which prompts you to select or enter information. Dialog boxes may use a combination of tabs, text fields, menus, and preview panes to group selection choices and to display information. For instance, the Preview pane in many dialog boxes, like the Page Setup dialog, displays the changes that will result from your selections.
To navigate a dialog box like the one above, first click the tab containing the choices you want to see, and then select your choices from the list boxes or drop-down menus. Finally, click OK (or Close, in some cases) to accept the changes, or Cancel to discard them.
Word provides you with a number of ways to accomplish most tasks. Besides the menu bar, toolbars, and keyboard shortcuts, many dialog boxes include buttons that open additional dialog boxes. Although these dialogs are normally directly accessible from the main menus and the toolbars, Word lets you handle related tasks at the same time. In the dialog box above, for example, you can apply borders your page at the same time you define the other properties of the page layout, simply by clicking the Borders button.
