In This Chapter
✓ Opening up with Word
✓ Saving ordinary and secure files
✓ Modifying Word’s default Normal template
✓ Saving in compatible formats
Word has some pretty slick ways of dealing with a wide variety of file formats, from the known to the mysterious. As you’d normally expect, Word can open and save its own files, but Word can work with other kinds of files as well. Every once in a while you might receive a document that you just can’t get to open. Word can often help with this problem. Some file formats are widely shared, such as RTF (Rich Text Format) files. Word can open and save files as RTFs and in other formats. You also have ways to protect the information inside your Word files. And of course, Word has a master Normal.dotm template that can make styling your text a breeze.
Opening the World in Word
You’d think that opening files would be an old hat by now to most everyone who has ever touched a computer, but a lot of people still don’t know about some of the ways to open files in Word. You might use some of these meth- ods all the time, whereas you might use others once in a blue moon, but it’s good to know they’re available just in case!
Opening Web pages
Surfing the Web is great, but at times, you may want to edit those Web pages in Word. Several approaches bring all or part of a Web page into Word.
Word is all about words. Web browsers can have all sorts of content that Word can’t deal with, so don’t expect Word to faithfully reproduce a Web page. Be happy if you get the text you want.
222 Opening the World in Word Copying and pasting
Copying and pasting is a fast, easy way to get Web page content into Word.
To do so, take these steps:
1. Select what you want in your Web browser and then choose Edit➪Copy from the menu bar, or press Ô-C.
2. Switch to Word and choose Edit➪Paste from the menu bar, or press Ô-P.
If the result isn’t good enough, try the steps in the next section.
Saving and opening a Web page
Word can open Web pages that have been saved as .htm, .html, or .mht (Web archives). For example, say you’re using a Web browser and you find a Web page that you want to edit in Word. Use the Web browser to save the Web page as a file on your computer and then open the saved file in Word.
Here’s how:
1. In the Web browser, choose File➪Save As.
The Web browser’s Save dialog opens.
2. Choose a location.
Remember the filename or give the file a name of your choosing.
3. Click Save to save the file.
After you save the Web page, you need to know how to open it. To open the saved Web page in Word, follow these steps:
1. In Word, choose File➪Open from the menu bar.
The File Open dialog appears.
2. Choose All Files from the Enable pop-up menu.
3. Navigate to and select the file you saved in the preceding steps.
4. Click the Open button or double-click the filename.
Word does its best to open the Web page you saved. Bear in mind, many Web page elements (such as Flash, Silverlight, style sheets, and various scripts) are ignored by Word. Just the same, you may be able to get the content you want into Word so that you can take it from there and do your own editing magic.
If your first attempt didn’t turn out well, you can try using a different Save As format in your Web browser. Web browsers and Web pages vary widely.
In Word, a Web page saved by one browser, such as Safari, may look com- pletely different from the same page saved by a different Web browser, such
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as Opera or Firefox. Each Web browser has different Save As formats from which to choose, so don’t give up after just one attempt. Try saving the page again with a different browser and/or format.
Sometimes the results just aren’t good no matter what format or browser you choose. This is a limitation of opening Web pages in Word.
Saving a document as a Web page
Twenty years ago, the Internet was something exciting and new to most people. Everyone wondered how the Internet would shake out, and
Microsoft wanted to be a leader in the field. At that time, the best way to dis- tribute Word documents on the Web was to save them as HyperText Markup Language (HTML) files, the native file format understood by Web browsers.
The idea was to save a Word document in HTML and upload it to a Web server; then anyone with access to the server could download the file, and that Word copy would reconstruct the document exactly as it was before.
Recently, new Internet technologies have made this scenario passé. Today you have better ways to share documents online, such as SkyDrive and SharePoint, discussed in Book I, Chapter 4.
You can see approximately how a document will look when saved as a Web page by choosing View➪Web Layout from the menu bar while working on your document. Word is better at creating Web pages from scratch than it is at rendering Web pages made with other tools. To turn a Word document into a Web page, choose File➪Save as Web Page from the menu bar. In the Save As dialog is a Web Options button for advanced users. Click the Save button to make the .htm file and folder with linked content files, such as photos, movies, and sounds.
Extracting text from any file
Every so often, you might come across a mystery file and you can’t figure out what it contains or maybe even which file format it uses. Maybe the file was corrupted, or maybe it’s in a Microsoft Windows format that has no equivalent on the Mac side. Don’t worry. Even if you don’t know what appli- cation created the file, Word might be able to help. If text is in a file, Word can extract the text no matter what application created the file. To do so, follow these steps:
1. Choose File➪Open from the menu bar.
The Open dialog appears.
2. Choose Recover Text from Any File in the Enable pop-up menu.
224 Opening the World in Word
3. Select the file that you want to extract the text from and then click Open.
Alternatively, you can double-click the file you want to extract the text from.
A new Word document opens. The Word document contains the text, if any, that was in the file you selected. You might now know what the mys- tery document was, have a hint about what kind of file it was, or you may have rescued the text from a corrupt file and can now use the rescued text.
Finding files in Finder
Your file’s gone! You knew right where that file was a minute ago, but now it’s gone. Now is the time to use Spotlight. Whether you use the Word Open command or you’re browsing your files with Finder, find the Spotlight Search box with its little magnifying glass icon in the upper-right corner of the window. Type a search term into the Search box, and Spotlight instantly displays the files containing that term.
If you’re browsing in Finder, turn on Cover Flow view by pressing Ô-4. Select a document and press the spacebar to enlarge the Cover Flow preview and then scroll through your entire document with the Mac OS X QuickView without even opening the file, as shown in Figure 2-1.
Of course, you can use any of more than 20 different ways to open the file at this point, including double-clicking the QuickView window.
Figure 2-1:
Finding a missing file.
Cover Flow view
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Recovering AutoRecover files
Uh oh — the power went out, or Word crashed, and you were right in the middle of writing an important document! If that ever happens to you, and we hope it never does, all you have to do is open Microsoft Word again.
Word looks for and opens any AutoRecover files for the document(s) that you were working on when the crash occurred. Your document(s) open(s) with Recovered appended to the filename. Choose File➪Save As from the menu bar to restore the original filename and location. Word can recover files that were open because, by default, Word autosaves your document every ten minutes while you’re working on it. If you want, you can change the save time interval within the AutoRecover setting as follows:
1. Choose Word➪Preferences➪Save from the menu bar.
Word’s Save preferences are displayed, as shown in Figure 2-2.
2. Change the number of minutes in the Save AutoRecover Info Every:
[X] Minutes setting.
The default is 10 minutes. Entering a lower number saves more often, but you may notice Word is more sluggish when it saves so often.
Entering a higher number may make Word perform better, but you may lose more changes if a power outage or computer crash occurs.
You can deselect this check box if you don’t want Word to save an AutoRecover file. You might do this for extremely large documents that take a long time to save. Of course, if you experience a power outage or computer crash, you will lose all your changes since the last time you manually saved the file.
You don’t need to select the Always Create Backup Copy check box.
With AutoRecover and Time Machine, the bases are covered. The option is there only for backward compatibility.
3. Click OK when you’re finished.
Rarely, Word might not automatically display the AutoRecover file for the document(s) you were working on the next time you open Word. In that case, do the following in Word to open the AutoRecover file:
1. Choose File➪Open from the menu bar.
The Open dialog appears.
2. Type AutoRecover or type a keyword or phrase in the Spotlight Search box in the top-right corner of the Open dialog.
Spotlight lists all AutoRecover files on the selected volume. Click Computer if you don’t see one or more AutoRecover files. Of course, if you deselected AutoRecover in Word Preferences, you probably won’t have anything to recover.
226 Saving Word Documents
Figure 2-2:
Finding your Save options!
3. Double-click the most recently saved AutoRecover file, or select the file and click Open. If you did a keyword or phrase search, use the Last Opened information to help you choose a likely file to open.
If the file you want is grayed-out, choose All Files in the Enable pop-up menu, which allows you to open any file type.
You can also use Mac OS X Time Machine to recover any file that you’ve saved at least once. When you use Word for Mac, it’s nearly impossible to lose more than a few minutes’ worth of work thanks to AutoRecover and Time Machine.
Saving Word Documents
Most of the time, saving a file in Word is a very simple task. But at times, you may want to limit access to a particular file. Or maybe you want to save a document so that it’s compatible with older versions of Word; or perhaps you want to save your document in a format that’s compatible with other programs. Or maybe you want to send a document via e-mail or Microsoft Messenger, or put it online as a Web page. The Word Save As options can accommodate all these needs and more.
Just close me
This may seem somewhat obvious, but Word keeps track of whether a docu- ment’s been changed since it was opened last. If you close a document after
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making any changes at all, Word displays a dialog asking whether you want to save changes.
✦ If you click Save, Word replaces the old version of your document with the current version.
✦ If you click Don’t Save, well, Word doesn’t save your changes (and yes, at times, you don’t want your changes made and would rather start over with the original document). Word closes your document, and any changes you made since the last save are discarded.
✦ If you click Cancel, you’re telling Word that you really didn’t mean to close the window, and it keeps the document open just as it was before you tried to close the window.
Giving a document a new name, a new location
When you open a new, blank document, it starts off with a generic name, such as Document1. That’s not much help when you want to find your file again later, but it’s easy to fix:
1. Choose File➪Save As from the menu bar.
The Save As dialog appears. By default, Word uses whatever you typed in the first line of the document as the filename.
2. (Optional) In the Save As field, type in a new name.
3. Navigate to the desired location and click Save.
A good place to store documents is in the Documents folder. Save As dialogs have a New Folder button in the lower-left corner in case you want to create a new folder in which to save your document.
Making documents secure and private
Sometimes you absolutely don’t want anyone, including Aunt Millie and her 16th nephew, opening or editing a document. Different levels of security are available. A low-security method lets you control who can do what with a particular document by bringing up the Save preferences dialog, shown in Figure 2-3, using any of these methods:
✦ Choose Word➪Preferences➪Security from the menu bar
✦ Choose File➪Save As➪Options➪Show All➪Security from the menu bar ✦ Press Ô-, (comma) and click the Security button
228 Saving Word Documents
Figure 2-3:
Setting document security options.
File protection
Choose from the following file security options in the Security dialog to protect your document. Because macros to crack any password are freely available on the Internet, we consider these options to be very low security.
These options apply only to the document listed next to Security Options for [Document name]:
✦ Password to Open: Type a password to be required to open this document.
✦ Password to Modify: The password you type will be required to modify this document.
✦ Read-Only Recommended: If you select this check box, when you open the document, a dialog is displayed recommending that the document be opened in read-only mode. This helps prevent accidental overwriting of the file.
✦ Protect Document: Same as choosing Tools➪Protect Document from the menu bar and clicking the Ribbon’s Review tab, and in the Protection group, clicking Document. Requires a password to modify specified content within the document.
A document can be protected against changes for any one of the following:
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• Tracked changes (See Chapter 5 in this minibook.)
• Comments (See Chapter 5 in this minibook.)
• Forms (See Chapter 8 in this minibook.)
File privacy
Choose these privacy options, which apply only to the document listed next to Security Options for [Document name]:
✦ Remove Personal Information from This File on Save. Select this check box to remove most personal information from a file. By default, Word retains the username and certain user activity within a file. You can see and control what’s in a document by choosing File➪Properties and Word➪Preferences➪User Information from the menu bar. Of course, pri- vate information contained in the body or filename of a document is not affected by this setting.
✦ Warn before Printing, Saving, or Sending a File That Contains Tracked Changes or Comments. Select this check box when you’re working with documents that may have hidden comments or tracked changes that should not get into the wrong hands. Word can’t stop you from saying things that might prove embarrassing later, but it can warn you that your document has comments or tracked changes. You might want to make a template with this setting turned on. If you want to turn on this setting for every document you open, consider making a macro (see Book I, Chapter 12) that turns on this setting for all documents.
If you work for an organization that uses an Information Rights Management (IRM) server, you can require that your Word document be authenticated against the IRM server.
Click the Review tab on the Ribbon. In the Protection group, click the Permissions button and then choose Manage Credentials to add your credentials so that they are remembered.
The first time you access a licensing server, you’re prompted to enter your username and
password. If you select the check box to save your username and password in the Mac OS X Keychain application, you have to enter the info only once. From then on, to restrict your Word document by requiring authen- tication to the IRM server before opening, go to the Review tab on the Ribbon, find the Protection group, and click Permissions; or choose File➪Restrict Permissions➪Manage Credentials from the menu bar.
Credentials permissions
230 Changing Word’s Default Document Macro security
The Warn before Opening a File That Contains Macros check box causes the macro warning dialog to display whenever a file that contains macros is opened. Deselect this option setting at your peril. Deselecting allows macros from all documents to run. A macro can be designed to damage your system, so don’t run macros from sources you don’t trust. If you turn off macro warnings, you can turn warnings back on by choosing Word➪Preferences Security to access the settings. Choose the check box Warn before opening a file that contains macros.
Changing Word’s Default Document
Perhaps you’ve suspected that Word must have a special template some- where that you can use as a default when you create that seemingly plain, blank document. Well, you’re right; this special template is Normal.dotm, and it has all the settings that control what you see when you create a new, blank document.
The special file Normal.dotm is the template that Word uses to create new documents when you choose File➪New Blank Document from the menu bar or open a new, blank document from the Word Document Gallery. As you work, things such as toolbars, AutoText, and certain preferences can be saved into Normal.dotm.
To make a pristine Normal template, locate the file by choosing
Word➪Preferences➪File Locations➪User Templates➪Location from the menu bar. Then quit Word. Then rename or delete the existing Normal.
dotm file. The next time Word opens, it creates a new Normal.dotm file based on default settings. Do we detect new car smell?
You can overwrite the Normal.dotm template to use as Word’s default for new documents. Before starting the procedure, we suggest making a copy of the existing Normal.dotm file. You also need to know where the Normal template is located. You can find (and modify) the Normal template by choosing Word➪Preferences➪File Locations➪User Templates➪Location from the menu bar. When you know where Normal is, take these steps:
1. In Word, choose File➪Open from the menu bar.
A file Open dialog displays.
2. Switch the Enable pop-up menu to Word Templates.
3. Navigate to Normal.dotm and open the file.
4. Make the modifications you desire.