If you are wondering how to edit the Office 2000 documents you save as Web pages, the good news is that you can continue to edit in the document's native format. This is what is meant by "round-trip" ability — you can quickly return to the document's native format.

An example

Let's say you've just written a Microsoft Word document and have saved it as a Web page. You open your browser to see what the document looks like in HTML and realize that there is something you forgot to add. If you are using Microsoft Internet Explorer 5, click Edit with Microsoft Word on the File menu. Word is launched with your document open and ready to edit.

Internet Explorer can tell what type of Office document you are working on and, when you select the Edit command from the File menu, it will open the appropriate application.

If you are working in Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0, click Page on the Edit menu.

Define the default editor for your Web documents

You can also select which application will be the default editor. (The default editor is always the application in which the document was created, unless you select your own default editor.) In Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint® and Microsoft FrontPage®, to define which application you want to use as the default editor when you are working in the browser, simply complete the following steps:

1. On the Tools menu, click Options.
2. On the General tab, click Web Options.
3. On the File tab, under Default Editor, check the box if you want Office to be used for Office documents. You can also check the box to use Word as the default editor for all other documents.

If you are working in Microsoft Internet Explorer 5, you will see your default editor on the browser File menu. For example, if you have chosen Word, you will see Edit with Microsoft Word, regardless of the program you are working in. If you do not specify a default editor, you will only see Edit with Microsoft Word if you are working on a Word document and Edit with Microsoft PowerPoint if you are working on a PowerPoint presentation, etc.

Learn more about working with Web documents. You can also read about working with interactive spreadsheets and PivotTable® lists on the Web.