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To make it easier to find documents, you can use the default Microsoft Windows folder, or you can specify that Microsoft Word uses a different default working folder (working folder: The folder in which your documents appear when you open or save them. If you select another folder when opening or saving, that folder becomes the working folder. You can set the startup location of this folder in most Office applications.).

Microsoft Windows includes a folder named My Documents that can serve as a place to store the documents you use frequently. If you work with many documents or different types of documents, you can organize them in subfolders in the My Documents folder.

The first time you open the Open and Save As dialog boxes after starting Word, the My Documents folder is the default working (or active) folder. The My Documents folder is also the default working folder in each Microsoft Office program you install.

You can specify that Word uses a different default folder than the My Documents folder. You can also specify default locations for clip art (clip art: A single piece of ready-made art, often appearing as a bitmap or a combination of drawn shapes.), templates (template: A file or files that contain the structure and tools for shaping such elements as the style and page layout of finished files. For example, Word templates can shape a single document, and FrontPage templates can shape an entire Web site.), recovered files, tools, and startup files.