Please note: not all the menu options listed here exist in all word processors.

You hear a lot of criticism of Microsoft, but one of the best things it did was standardise the way programs look in terms of menus and, to almost the same extent, icons. That's good to know because it means that there are rules governing where commands and features are located. Once you know these rules, changing word processors is much less of a nightmare than it might otherwise have been. There are, it has to be said, variations between programs, some of which don't seem to make much sense, but on the whole transferring from one word processor to another is fairly painless.

Let's take a simple example. When you want to save your work, the option to do so will almost certainly be found in the File menu. Knowing that, even if you've never used the program before you should have no trouble saving your work.

Let's look into the File menu in greater depth.

The File menu

This is where any commands to do with the filing aspects of the document are to be found. The main commands you will find are these:

New

You can start a new document simply by clicking on the new document icon on the toolbar. Nine times out of ten this is the better option because it's quicker. However, going through the File-New route usually gives you access to more options in the form of templates. These are documents which have been set up in a certain way. They may include tables (for invoices), a special layout (such as for a newsletter), pre-entered text (such as the To and From headings in a memo), different fonts, and so on. In some word processors, these options are presented even when you click on the icon instead of going through the menu.

Open

This is the option to select when you want to open a previously-saved document. A quicker option, if you have been working on the document fairly recently, is to look at the list of files above or below the Exit command in the File menu. You will normally find between 4 and 9 recently-used files there, and you can open the one you want just by clicking on it. Yet another option is to look at the list of recent documents. Yet another way of opening a document, which is not widely known, is to drag a document from a folder into the workspace of the word processor, as long as no other documents are open at the time. If your word processor allows you to have more than one file open at the same time, you can open several files at once in this way.

Close

On many word processors you will find a Close command. Use this if you want to close the current document but not close the word processor. If there is no such command, it probably means that the word processor can only have one document open at a time -- a bit of a limitation if you want to easily transfer text from one document into another, or if you need to keep switching between two or more documents.

It's a good idea to close documents that you're not using, both to reduce the amount of system resources you're forcing the computer to use, and to make it easier to find the documents you want. To switch from one document to another, go through the Windows menu in all word processors. This lists all the open documents, and also gives you options to view more than one on the screen at a time. If you use Word, Ctrl-F6 will take you to the next document (this also works on some other word processors), and Shift- Ctrl-F6 will take you to the previous document.

Close All

Some word processors also have a command that will close all current documents but will leave the word processor running.

Save

Well, this is a fairly obvious option. What isn't obvious is the fact that the first time you use it you will see, not the Save dialog box, but the Save As dialog box, which we'll come to in a moment. It's important to realise that if nothing appears to happen when you click on Save, or the Save icon, it almost certainly means that it's all happened too fast for you to notice. When you click on the Save icon, watch the bottom left hand side of the screen: you may see a message telling you what's going on.

Save As

Use this to change the file type, the location of the file, or its name. You may want o change the file type for any number of reasons. A common reason is to be able to use it in a different program, or even on a different computer. If, for example, you use Lotus Word Pro at work, and Word at home, you may want to save a document at work in Word format, in order to continue working on it at home. Another reason for changing the file type is to save the file as a template, so that you can use it as the basis for other similar documents in the future.

You may want to change the file's name. Why? Well, you may want to make minor changes in order to update it, but still retain the original. Or you may want to experiment a bit with fonts or wording, but not want to risk ruining the original. Each time you save your document with the Save option, you over-write the previous version, which is then lost unless you have a back-up or if you are operating a document back-up system as part of the Save routine. When you use Save As, however, the original file is kept, so you will, in effect, have two versions of the document.

Save All

There are sometimes other save-related options too, such as a Save All option.

Save as a Web Page

This is a handy option to have, because it means you don't have to worry about re-creating your document in HTML format. The word processor will do that for you.

Page Set-up

The File menu also contains the Page Set-up commands. This is where you tell the word processor what size margins to use, whether to print landscape or portrait, and sometimes other things too, such as which paper tray to use when printing, or whether to have a header and footer on the first page of the document.

Print Preview

Rather than wasting reams of paper, use the Print Preview option. This will show you what the printed document will look like -- and will alert you to the fact that the last page of your 5 page document contains just one word!

Print

This is what you click on if you want to, er, print. But seriously, why use this when you could use the print icon? The answer is that the print icon command will simply print the whole document. If you want more control over the printing, go through the File-Print option instead. For example, you may want to print pages 2, 4 and 5 only, or just the current page, or in reverse order.

So that's the File menu. Take the time to explore the other menus in your word processor. Make sure you're not working on a document that is too valuable to lose, though! Exploring the menus can be an excellent investment of time -- and who knows what hidden goodies you may discover!

A variation of this article first appeared in PC Mart magazine.