Creating a New Document

Creating a New Document in Microsoft Word 2007®

Learning Objectives:

• Learn to use the menu and toolbar to create a new document
• Introduction to keyboard shortcuts

Target Audience:

Complete beginner/novice

Pre-requisites:

Starting Word course or know how to access and open Word

Introduction

With most tasks when using a computer there are several methods of achieving your desired objective. In this free on-line tutorial I will show you how to do the same task in two different ways. It is then your choice

which method is best for you. Once you learn to create a new document in Word you will be able to create a new spreadsheet in Excel, create a new publisher document in Microsoft Publisher and create new documents in most other software applications.

Let's get started

Exercise 1: Using the file menu

Open Microsoft Word 2007®. You will now see a window open similar to figure 1. This is the Word interface. Don't worry about all the different menus and button options - there are thousands of them, many of which will be covered in later tutorials.

Click on the Office Button (see figure 2) to show the submenu, then click on the first option in the submenu - 'New'. This will open the 'New Document Window' (see figure 3).

The 'New Document' window displays all the available templates on your computer. I will not be covering templates in this on-line lesson as it is covered elsewhere. Click on the 'Create' button on the bottom right side of this window to open a new Word document.

Exercise 2: Using keyboard shortcuts

If you want a simpler and therefore quicker method of creating a new document then you need to learn some keyboard shortcuts. Open up Word again and press and hold down the Ctrl keyboard key, now click on the 'N' key on your keyboard and a new document is opened. Gop ahead and try it a few times to see how much quicker this method is.

The more windows you have open, the more resources they need to run. A good habit to get into is to close any unused windows.

Summary

You should now be able to create a new document in Word 2007 and therefore in most other software applications using two different methods.

Where next

Try the following on-line computer courses for seniors:

• Opening Windows - opening, closing, minimizing and maximizing those windows
• Scrolling