When you’re working in a long document, you’ll often need to search for a particular word, phrase, or object.

Word’s Find feature lets you quickly locate pretty much any part of a document, from a word or phrase to a special character (such as a paragraph mark), from direct formatting (such as bold) to style formatting, from text in a particular language to an object (such as a picture).

Find’s sister feature, Replace, lets you replace text, formatting, or styles, either one instance at a time or all instances in a single sweep.

Find Text

What you’ll probably want to search for first is text—for example, a word that you know occurs in the part of the document to which you want to turn your attention. Word lets you search for text on its own or text with formatting.

To find text, follow these steps:

1. If the word or phrase appears in the part of the document you’re using, select it, and then copy it.

By copying the word or phrase, and then pasting it into the Find dialog box, you can save time and avoid typing mistakes.

You might also copy the word or phrase from another source—for example, from an e-mail message or from a workbook.

2. Press CTRL-F or choose Home | Editing | Find. Word displays the Find And Replace dialog box with the Find tab foremost.

The first time you open the Find And Replace dialog box in a Word session, you see the small version without the Search Options area. Click the More button to display the rest of the dialog box.

The next time you open the dialog box, Word displays the full version.

3. In the Find What text box, type or paste the search text. To paste, right-click and then choose Paste from the context menu, or press CTRL-V.

For advanced searches, you can use wildcards—special characters that match a range of characters.

Word remembers the details of searches you’ve performed in this session. To retrieve an earlier search, click the drop-down arrow on the Find What text box and choose the search from the list. Word lists the searches in reverse order, so the latest search is first.

4. In the Search drop-down list, choose the search direction: All, Down, or Up.

Word selects all at first, which makes Find search all of the document. Normally, you’ll want to leave All selected.

If you want to search downward first, choose Down. When it reaches the end of the document, Word prompts you whether to continue searching at the beginning.

Similarly, you can search Up and have Word prompt you to continue when it reaches the start of the document. For example, you would search upward if you needed to find the previous instance of the search term.

5. Choose options for the search in the Search Options area. Word lists the options you’ve chosen under the Find What text box.

Match Case Select this check box to make Word find only instances of the search text that have the same capitalization as you entered. For example, you might want to replace all instances of “Division” with “Department” but leave any instances of “division” (all lowercase) untouched.

Find Whole Words Only Select this check box to make Word find the search text only when it’s a whole word rather than part of another word. For example, you might want to find “other” but not “otherwise,” “brother,” or “another.” Word makes this check box unavailable if the search text includes a space.

Use Wildcards Select this check box if you want to use wildcards. See the section “Perform Advanced Searches with Wildcards and Pattern Matching,” later in this chapter, for details.

Match Prefix and Match Suffix Select the Match Prefix check box if you want to find the search text only at the beginning of a word. For example, you might want to find “fast” in “fastener” but not in “breakfast.” Select the Match Suffix check box if you want to find it only at the end of a word—for example, to find “after” in “hereafter” but not in “afterward.”

Ignore Punctuation Characters Select this check box to make Word ignore any punctuation that occurs within the search string. For example, with this check box selected, searching for “oh mama” finds “Oh, Mama” and “Oh! Mama”; with the check box cleared, the search doesn’t find these two examples.

Ignore White-Space Characters Select this check box to have Word ignore spaces and tabs that appear in matches for the search string. If you clear this check box, any extra tabs or spaces prevent Word from finding instances that otherwise match the search string.

6. Start the search. For example, click the Find Next button.

Find Next Click this button if you want to make Word locate and select the next instance of the search text. (If you choose Up in the Search drop-down list, Word finds the previous instance—the next one up in the document.) You can then edit that instance.

Find In To find and select all instances of the search text, click the Find In drop-down button, and then choose which part of the document to search: Main Document, Headers and Footers, or Text Boxes in Main Document. This option lets you get an overview of how often, and where, the search text appears in the document (or in the headers and footers, or in the text boxes). Word maintains the selection when you close the Find and Replace dialog box, but as soon as you move the insertion point, the selection disappears.

Reading Highlight To make Word highlight all instances of the search text, click the Reading Highlight drop-down button, and then choose Highlight All. Word maintains the highlighting when you close the Find And Replace dialog box and move the insertion point, so this option lets you work through the found items at your leisure. To remove the highlighting, open the find dialog box if you’ve closed it, and then choose Reading Highlight | Clear Highlighting.

7. When you’ve found what you were looking for, click the Close button to close the Find And Replace dialog box.

Instead of closing the Find And Replace dialog box, you can also work in the document while the dialog box is open: Click in the document, and edit as usual. Click in the dialog box to return to it. Alternatively, press CTRL-TAB to move the focus between the dialog box and the document. Leaving the Find And Replace dialog box open can be handy, but you may find it gets in the way—and Word provides an easy way to continue the same search once you’ve closed the dialog box. When you perform the search, Word sets the Browse Object To Find, which turns the Previous and Next buttons at the foot of the vertical scroll bar into Previous Find/GoTo and Next Find/GoTo buttons. To search for the previous or next instance of the search term, click one of these buttons, or press the corresponding keyboard shortcuts, CTRL-PAGE UP and CTRL-PAGE DOWN.

You can also undo and redo actions using the Undo button and Redo button on the Quick

Access Toolbar:

To undo one change with the mouse, click the Undo button. To see which change Word

will undo, hover the mouse pointer over the Undo button so that Word displays a ScreenTip showing the change

To undo multiple changes, choose the changes from the drop-down list, as shown here.

Click the Redo button to restore a change you’ve undone.

Before you can create PDF or XPS files, you must download and install extra components from the Microsoft web site (http://www.microsoft.com). Follow these steps:

1. In Word, click the Office Button, highlight Save As, and then click Find Add-Ins For Other File Formats. Word launches a Word Help window, which displays the Enable Support For Other File Formats, Such As PDF And XPS topic.

2. Click the Install And Use The Publish As PDF Or XPS Add-In From Microsoft link. Word Help displays the page for this topic.

3. Click the Microsoft Save As PDF Or XPS Add-In For 2007 Microsoft Office Programs link. Word Help opens a browser window to the page on the Microsoft web site.

4. Click the Continue button. You will need to install the Office Genuine Advantage component if it’s not already installed on your computer. This component checks that the copy of Office you’re using is legitimate rather than pirated. To install this component on Windows Vista, you must authenticate yourself to User Account Control, and then click the Install button in the Internet Explorer Add-On Installer – Security Warning dialog box, shown here.

5. Once you’ve proved your copy of Office is genuine, click the Download button to download the Save As PDF Or XPS add-in. Click the Run button in the File Download – Security Warning dialog box (shown here). When the download completes, on Windows Vista you must authenticate yourself to User Account Control.

6. Accept the software license if you want to proceed, wait while Windows adds the feature, and then click the OK button in the message box that tells you installation is complete.

One long-standing bugbear of Word users has been the way that a document’s layout can change when someone opens it on a different computer than the one used to create it. Even small differences in the fonts available, or in the capabilities of printers used, can turn a document you’ve spent ages laying out just perfectly into a formatting nightmare. If you’ll be distributing a document to people who don’t need to edit it, the best way to keep all formatting intact is to save it as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file or an XML Paper Specification (XPS) document.

Create the PDF File or XPS Document

To save a document as a PDF file or an XPS document, follow these steps:

1. Open the document and make sure it’s fully laid out. Use Print Layout view to verify that the document looks exactly as you want it to and that the entire page breaks fall in the appropriate places.

2. Click the Office Button, highlight Save As, and then click PDF Or XPS. Word displays the Publish as PDF or XPS dialog box.

3. If necessary, choose the folder and type the filename for the document.

If the dialog box opens in its reduced form, click the Browse Folders button to display the rest of it.

Because the document will use the .pdf or .xps file extension, it will not overwrite the original document, so you don’t need to change the folder or filename.

4. In the Save As Type drop-down list, choose which type of document to create: PDF or XPS Document.

The first time you open the Publish as PDF or XPS dialog box, the Save As Type drop-down list displays the PDF item. The next time you open the dialog box, this list displays your last choice.

5. Select the Open File after publishing check box to make your PDF or XPS reader open the file open automatically after Word creates it so that you can check it immediately. If your computer doesn’t have a PDF or XPS reader, this check box is unavailable.

6. In the Optimize For area, choose the quality for the file:

Standard (Publishing Online And Printing) Select this option button if you want to create a file suitable for either printing or publishing online.

Minimum Size (Publishing Online) Select this option button if you want to keep the file size down to a minimum so that the file transfers over an Internet connection as quickly as possible. The resulting file will not look good if printed but will be fine for reading on screen.

7. If you want to use only part of the document, suppress markup, or include nonprinting information in the PDF file or XPS file, follow these steps:

Click the Options button. Word displays the Options dialog box. Figure 2-6 shows the Options dialog box for PDF files on the left and the Options dialog box for XPS documents on the right.

Page Range In this area, select the All option button to include all pages. Select the Current Page option button to include just the current page. Select the Selection option button to use the current selection (this option is available only if you’ve The Options dialog box controls PDF file or XPS document content and markup settings. You can also choose to publish only part of the document instead of the entire document. Selected part of the document before opening the Publish As PDF Or XPS dialog box). To use a range of pages, select the Page(s) option button, and then use the from text box and To text box to specify the range.

Publish What If the document contains markup (such as comments or changes made using revision marks), select the Document option button if you want to exclude the markup. Select the Document Showing Markup option button if you want to include the markup.

Create Bookmarks Using Select this check box if you want to create bookmarks in the file that allow the reader to move quickly from one item to another. You can then select the Headings option button to make Word create a bookmark from each paragraph formatted with a Heading style or the Word Bookmarks option button to make bookmarks from your Word bookmarks instead.

Document Properties Select this check box if you want to include document metadata (such as the document’s title, subject, and author) in the PDF. This metadata is sometimes sensitive, so you may want to exclude it from the document.

Document Structure Tags For Accessibility Select this check box if you want to include document structure tags (such as headings) that the document contains.

PDF Options (PDF files only) Select the ISO 19005-1 Compliant (PDF/A) check box if you want to create PDFs that meet the ISO 19005-1 standard for long-term document preservation. Such PDFs may not contain audio and video content, and all fonts must be embedded (included in the file). When you turn on this check box, Word makes the Bitmap Text When Fonts May Not Be Embedded check box unavailable. When this check box is available, turn it on to allow Word to substitute bitmap pictures of text when it cannot legally embed the fonts.

XPS Document Options (XPS documents only) select the Preserve Restricted Permissions In XPS check box if you want to carry through Information Rights Management (IRM) restrictions from the Word document to the XPS document. This option applies only if you’re using IRM in your Word documents. Usually, only large corporations use IRM.

Click the OK button. Word closes the Options dialog box and returns you to the Publish as PDF or XPS dialog box.

8. Click the Publish button. Word closes the Publish as PDF or XPS dialog box, creates a PDF file or XPS document from the Word document, and then returns you to your document. If you selected the Open File After Publishing check box in the Publish as PDF or XPS dialog box, the file you created automatically opens in your default PDF reader or XPS reader Verify that the document looks as you want it to before you distribute it.

Create a Blank Document

You can create a blank document in any of these three ways:

Use the document that Word creates when you launch it.

Press CTRL-N.

Click the Office Button, click New, click the Blank Document item in the New Document dialog box, and then click the Create button.

Create a Document Based on a Template

A blank document is useful when you want to create a whole document from scratch using Word’s standard settings. But frequently you’ll want to base a new document on a template that has a particular design or content that will help you finish a document more quickly and with less effort. For example, you can get a jump-start on creating a memo by using a template that contains a standard memo layout with “To,” “From,” “Subject,” and “Date” fields. You can also create a new document based on a template—a template that you or your company has created, one of Word’s built-in templates, or a template that you download from the Microsoft Office Online web site. See the next section for instructions on downloading templates from this site.

Create a New Document Based on a Template of Your Own

To create a document based on a template, follow these steps:

1. Click the Office Button, and then click New. Word displays the New Document dialog Box.

2. In the Template list in the left panel of the New Document dialog box, choose a template category.

Blank And Recent This category shows you the Blank Document item, the New Blog Post item, and the templates you’ve used recently. You’ll normally want to choose one from this category.

Installed Templates This category shows the templates that are installed on your computer. These templates are installed in a shared folder for all Office users and include letters, reports, resumes, and faxes.

My Templates These are the templates that you’ve created or installed. Other Office users don’t have access to these templates. When you select this item, Word displays the New dialog box (see Figure 2-2). When you first run Word, this dialog box may contain only the Normal template and the My Templates tab. Select the template you want, make sure the Document option button is selected in the Create New area, and then click the OK button.

Microsoft Office Online These categories let you access a wide variety of templates stored on the Microsoft Office Online site. Click the category to make Word load the templates in the main part of the new dialog box. For example, click the Agendas category to make Word list the available agenda templates. You can then browse the templates and choose the one you want.

3. Select the template you want to use.

4. Make sure the Document option button is selected in the Create New area.

5. Click the Create button. Word creates the document, and you can start working in it.

To get help with using  Microsoft Word, follow these steps:

1. Press F1 or click the Microsoft Office Word Help icon at the right end of the Ribbon (the question mark icon). Word displays the Microsoft Word Help window.
2. To see what topics are available, click the links in the Browse Word Help list.

3. To search for help, click in the Search box, type one or more keywords, and then click the Search button. You can confine the search to online content or offline content or to a particular help category either offline or online, by clicking the drop-down button on the Search button, and then choosing an item on the menu (shown here). Click a search result to display the related topic.

4. To control whether the Help window appears on top of other windows (such as the Word window), click the Keep On Top button.

5. When you’ve finished using help, click the Close button (the × button) to close the Word Help window.

When you open a document or create a new document, Word displays that document in a single window. But you can also display additional windows of the same document so that you can see two or more separate parts at once or so that you can work in multiple views simultaneously. To open a new window, click the View tab, go to the Window group, and click the New Window button. When you open a second window, Word adds :1 to the caption (the text that appears in the title bar) of the first window and :2 to the caption of the second window so that you can tell them apart.

For example, if you have one window open on Document 1, the title bar reads Document 1— Microsoft Word. When you open another window, the first window’s caption changes to Document 1:1 — Microsoft Word, and the second window receives the caption Document 1:2 —Microsoft Word. Subsequent windows you open on the same document receive higher numbers.

To switch from one window to another, use any of these means:

Mouse Click the window you want or click its Taskbar button.

Ribbon Click the View tab, go to the Window group, click the Switch Windows button, and then either click the window on the list or press the underlined number next to it.

Keyboard Press CTRL-F6 or ALT-F6 to select the next window. Press CTRL-SHIFT-F6 or ALT-SHIFT-F6 to select the previous window. (If you have only two windows open, these commands have the same effect.) These commands move you through the stack of all open windows, not just the windows for the active document.

When you close any but the last window of a document that contains unsaved changes, Word doesn’t prompt you to save the changes, because one or more other windows remains open: You’re closing the window rather than the document. When you close the last window, and so close the document, Word prompts you to save any unsaved changes in the document.

If you need to view or work with two parts of the same document at once, you can split the document window into two panes. Double-click the split box at the top end of the vertical scroll bar to split the window halfway down. In each pane, you can display a different part of the document, change the view, or zoom to a different percentage. To move from one pane to the other, click in the pane you want to move to, or press F6.

To create a custom split, drag the split box down the vertical scroll bar, or simply drag the split bar up or down the window from its default position. Alternatively, click the View tab, go to the Window group, and click the Split button to display a movable split bar. To position the split bar with the mouse, move the mouse pointer to where you want the split, and then click. To position the split bar from the keyboard, move the bar using the up and down arrow keys, and then press ENTER to fix it in place.

You can remove the split in any of these ways:

Mouse Double-click the split bar or drag it to the top or bottom of the window.

Ribbon Click the View tab, go to the Window group, and click the Remove Split button.

Keyboard Press CTRL-ALT-S.

Print Preview displays your document as it will print on the current printer. Print Preview hides all the Ribbon’s tabs and displays the Print Preview tab instead. You can double-click the Print Preview tab to minimize the Ribbon. Double-click the tab again to restore the Ribbon. To switch to Print Preview, click the Office Button, and then choose Print | Print Preview. Word automatically changes to Magnifier mode, in which the mouse pointer is a magnifying glass that you can click once to zoom in on the clicked point and click again to zoom out again. Magnifier mode is handy if you want to use Print Preview simply to make sure that the document is fit for printing. But if you have a high-resolution monitor, you may want to edit in Print Preview as well. To do so, clear the Magnifier check box in the Preview group. Word switches from Magnifier mode to Edit mode, in which you can edit your document as in other views. (To go back to Magnifier mode, select the Magnifier check box again.)

Full Screen Reading view reformats your document to make it easy to read on the screen and displays a minimal set of controls intended to provide only enough functionality for reading. By default, Full Screen Reading view turns each screen full of text into a “page” and displays two pages at a time. Full Screen Reading view doesn’t display the true margins or layout elements such as headers and footers. The View Options drop-down list includes commands for increasing and decreasing the text size, switching between one and two pages, allowing editing (Allow Typing), tracking changes, and viewing comments and changes. The Tools drop-down list provides access to Research tools, a Translation ScreenTip that lets you view an immediate translation of the current word in your chosen language, highlighting, commenting, and Find. Press ESC or click the Close button in the upper-right corner to move from Full Screen Reading view to Print Layout view. (Even if you were using a view other than Print Layout view before you switched to Full Screen Reading view, Word returns you to Print Layout view.)

If you want to see how the document will appear when printed, choose View Options | Show Printed Page. When you’re viewing printed pages, the Margin Settings for Actual Page submenu becomes available. Use this submenu to display the margins, suppress the margins, or let Word decide whether to display them (if the text is large enough to read with the margins displayed) or suppress them to make room to display the text at a larger size.