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Support and Feedback Technical Resources Additional Resources | Warning: You are viewing this page with an unsupported Web browser. This Web site works best with Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or later, Firefox 1.5, or Netscape Navigator 8.0 or later. Learn more about supported browsers. 9 ways to get ready for Word 2007
Applies to: Microsoft Office Word 2007
Tags compatibility; file format; formatting; personal information; summarize; themes; upgrade; what's new  What are tags? Microsoft Office Word 2007 Step by Step Joyce Cox has over 20 years' experience in the development of training materials about technical subjects for non-technical audiences, and is the author of dozens of books about Office and Windows technologies. Joyce is the Vice President of Online Training Solutions, Inc. (OTSI). She was President of and principle author for Online Press, where she developed the Quick Course series of computer training books for beginning and intermediate adult learners. She was also the first managing editor of Microsoft Press, an editor for Sybex, and an editor for the University of California. Joan Preppernau is the author of over a dozen books about Windows and Office. Having learned about computers literally at her father's knee, Joan's wide-ranging experiences in various facets of the computer industry contribute to her enthusiasm for producing interesting, useful, and understandable training materials. Joan is the President of Online Training Solutions, Inc. (OTSI) and an avid telecommuter. The power of the Internet and an obsession with technology have made it possible for Joan to live and work in New Zealand, Sweden, Denmark, and various locations in the US during the past 15 years. To learn more about other books on the 2007 Microsoft Office system, visit Microsoft Press. In this article
Microsoft Office Word 2007 is a sophisticated word processing program that helps you quickly and efficiently author and format all the business and personal documents you are ever likely to need. For its 2007 release, Word has been extensively overhauled and updated. You'll notice some obvious changes as soon as you start the program because the top of the program window has a completely new look. But the improvements go way beyond changes in appearance. This article summarizes nine of the key differences between the old and new versions of Word and how they will affect you, as well as how to find out about them in the quickest possible way. 1. Working in the Word environmentIf Word is the first program in the 2007 Microsoft Office system that you have used, you are in for a surprise! The look of the program window has changed radically from previous versions. The new Word environment is designed to more closely reflect the way people generally work with the program. This environment introduces the following elements:
The goal of the redesigned environment is to make working on a document more intuitive. Commands for tasks you perform often are no longer hidden on menus and in dialog boxes, and features that you might not have discovered before are now more visible. For example, when a formatting option has several choices available, they are often displayed in a gallery of thumbnails. These galleries give you an at-a-glance picture of each choice. If you point to a thumbnail in a gallery, an awesome new feature called Live Preview shows you what that choice will look like if you apply it to your document.
2. Preparing documents for distributionWhen a document is complete and ready for distribution, you typically perform several final tasks. These might include inspecting the document for any remaining private or inappropriate information, restricting access, or adding a digital signature. Word 2007 includes a tool called the Document Inspector, which finds and removes all extraneous and potentially confidential information. You can instruct the Document Inspector to look for comments, revisions, and annotations; for any personal information saved with the document; and for hidden text. The Document Inspector displays a summary of its findings and gives you the option of removing anything it finds. Word also includes another finalizing tool called the Compatibility Checker, which checks for the use of features not supported in previous versions of Word. After you have handled extraneous information and compatibility issues, you can mark a document as final and make its file read-only, so that other people know that they should not make changes to this released document.
3. Quickly formatting text and paragraphsWord 2007 includes a number of new features, as well as enhancements to existing features, that make the process of formatting content effortless. For example, buttons for changing the font size, color, and other character attributes have been gathered in the Font group on the Home tab so that they are all easily accessible. And many common formatting buttons are available on the Mini toolbar that appears when you point to selected text. However, you don't have to apply attributes one at a time. You can easily change several attributes at once with a couple of mouse clicks by using the Quick Styles galleries available in the Styles group on the Home tab. All of the Quick Styles in a particular gallery coordinate with each other, lending a clean, consistent, professional look to your documents. You can switch from one set of styles to another by selecting from Quick Styles galleries with names like Traditional, Distinctive, Modern, and Elegant. To help you choose the style you want, you can point to the name of the set to see a preview of how your document will look with a particular set of Quick Styles applied to it. After you have applied one set of Quick Styles, you can easily change the look of the entire document by selecting a different set of Quick Styles from the Change Styles list.
4. Changing a document's themeYou can enhance the look of a document by applying one of Word's pre-defined themes. A theme is a combination of colors, fonts, and effects that project a certain feeling or tone. For example, the Flow theme uses a palette of blues and greens, the Calibri and Constantia fonts, and understated effects. You apply a theme to the entire document by clicking the Themes button in the Themes group on the Page Layout tab, and then making a selection from the Themes gallery. If you like the colors of one theme and the fonts of another, you can mix and match theme elements. First find the theme that most closely resembles the look you want, and then in the Themes group, change the colors by clicking the Theme Colors button or the fonts by clicking the Theme Fonts button. If you create a combination of colors and fonts that you would like to be able to use with other documents, you can save the combination as a new theme.
5. Formatting table informationFormatting a table to best convey its data is often a process of trial and error. With Word 2007, you can quickly get started by creating a quick table, a preformatted table with sample data that you can customize. You can then apply one of the table styles available on the Design contextual tab, which include a variety of borders, colors, and other attributes to give the table a professional look. To customize the appearance of a quick table or a table you have created from scratch, you can use the buttons on the Design and Layout contextual tabs. You can also format table text by clicking buttons in the Font and Paragraph groups on the Home tab.
6. Inserting symbols and equationsSome documents require characters not found on a standard keyboard. These characters might include the copyright (©) or registered trademark (®) symbols, currency symbols (such as € or £), Greek letters, or letters with accent marks. Or you might want to add arrows (such as You can insert mathematical symbols such as π (pi) or ∑ (sigma, or summation) the same way you would insert any other symbol. But you can also create entire mathematical equations in a document. Clicking the Equation arrow in the Symbols group on the Insert tab displays an Equation gallery of commonly used equations, including the Quadratic Formula, the Binomial Theorem, and the Pythagorean Theorem, that you can click to insert in your document. If you need something other than the standard equations that are pre-defined in Word, clicking the Equation button inserts a blank area where you can build your own equations using a library of mathematical symbols. After building your equation, you can add it to the Equation gallery so that it is readily available the next time you need it.
7. Creating and modifying a diagramWhen you need your document to clearly illustrate a concept such as a process, cycle, hierarchy, or relationship, you can create a dynamic, visually appealing diagram by using SmartArt graphics, a powerful new tool available in Office Word 2007, Office PowerPoint 2007, and Office Outlook 2007. You start the process of creating a diagram by clicking the SmartArt button in the Illustrations group on the Insert tab. After selecting the type of diagram and inserting it into the document, you add text either directly in its shapes or from its text pane. After creating a diagram, you can add and remove shapes and edit its text. You can also customize the diagram by using the options on the SmartArt Tools contextual tabs. On the Design contextual tab, you can switch to a different layout of the same type or of a different type, add shading and three-dimensional effects, change the color scheme, and change the hierarchy of shapes. On the Format contextual tab, you can change an individual shape (for example, you can change a square into a star); apply a built-in shape style; or change the color, outline, or effect of a shape. Tip You can see a preview of the effects of a change before you apply it. If you apply a change and then decide you preferred the original version, you can click the Reset Graphic button in the Reset group on the Design tab.
8. Inserting ready-made document partsLonger documents typically include elements such as a cover page and headers and footers to provide identifying and organizing information. To reinforce key concepts and also alleviate the monotony of page after page of plain text, they might also include elements such as sidebars and quotations pulled from the text. To simplify the creation of professional visual text elements, Word 2007 introduces building blocks. Some building blocks are available from the Ribbon. For example, you can add headers and footers from the Header & Footer group on the Insert tab. Others are available only from the Building Blocks Organizer. The names of the building blocks that come with Word indicate the graphic theme of the element—in most cases, an entire family of building blocks is available in a theme including a number of page elements. To insert a building block, you simply select it in the Building Blocks Organizer and click Insert. You can then customize its placeholders with your own text. If you frequently use a specific element in your documents, such as a formatted title-subtitle-author arrangement at the beginning of reports, you can define it as a custom building block. It is then available from the Building Blocks Organizer.
9. Creating documents for use outside of WordThe Office 2007 system introduces a new file format based on XML, called Office Open XML Formats. By default, Word 2007 files are saved in the DOCX format, which is the Word variation of this new file format. The DOCX format produces a smaller files size, makes recovery of damaged files easier, and provides greater security. If you want to send a Word 2007 document to someone who does not have Word 2007 installed on his or her computer, you can save the document in a different file format. In addition, you can create the following types of documents: Blog PostsWord 2007 makes it easy to create posts that you can upload to your blog. After setting up a blog space with a blog service provider, you register your blog space with Word the first time you create a blog post. Thereafter, Word uses your registered blog account information when you create or publish a post. XML DocumentsCreating sophisticated, multi-purpose XML files can involve highly technical processes that are designed by experienced systems analysts and application developers. However, with Word 2007, anyone can participate in these processes by creating a Word document and then saving it as an XML file. During conversion, Word tags the file based on its styles and other formatting and saves it with an .xml extension. If you want more control over the tagging of a document, you can attach an XML schema to it. The schema is an additional file that describes the structure allowed in the document, including the names of structural elements and what elements can contain what other elements. Generally, companies employ a specialist with in-depth knowledge of XML to create custom schemas, but anyone can use an existing schema to tag a Word document and save it as an XML file. PDF FilesYou might want to check the Microsoft Downloads Web site for a free add-in that converts Word documents to PDF files. With the same add-in, you can save documents in the XML Paper Specification (XPS) format, which is the new XML-based format for delivering documents as electronic representations of the way they look when printed.
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or 
) or graphic icons (such as 
or 
). Word gives you easy access to a huge array of symbols that you can easily insert into any document. Clicking the Symbol button in the Symbols group on the Insert tab displays a Symbol gallery of commonly used symbols. From this gallery, you can also open the Symbol dialog box, where you can select from hundreds of symbols and special characters in a variety of fonts.
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