The Office Button is located in the upper left hand corner of your screen. By clicking on it you can create a New document, or Open, Save, Save As, Print or Close a current document. There are three additional options on the drop down window, Prepare, Send and Publish. Recent Documents lists the most recent documents you have had open. At the bottom of the window are two additional buttons, one for Word Options and one to Exit Word.

New, Open, Save, Print and Close are functions that are pretty much self-explanatory. Print, however, has three options. Print, opens the print dialogue box where you can select which printer to use, number of copies, paper type, orientation, etc. Quick Print will print your document to the default printer bypassing the print dialogue box. Print Preview shows the document on the screen as it will print. Previewing your document before it prints allows you to catch any formatting errors before printing on paper.

Recent documents are listed with the most recent document at the top of the list. Selecting a document from the list will open that document without having to look through folders to find it. Next to each document listed is an image of a pushpin. If there was a document that you wanted to keep on the list clicking on the pushpin will keep the document from dropping off the list as additional documents get added. Up to 17 documents can be on the list.

Save As allows you to save your document with a different name, as a template, an earlier version of Word, and a variety of other file formats.

When sharing your document with others, Prepare allows you to check your document in a variety of ways to be sure your information is not only secure, it also allows you to restrict what changes others can or cannot make to it. The image shows the options available under Prepare and the description of what each option allows you to do.

Send allows you to email your document as an attachment, either as a document, a PDF or XPS file. In order to use the email function you need to have Outlook setup for sending and receiving your emails. Send also allows you to fax your document via the Internet. However if you have a 64-bit operating system this feature will not work.

Publish allows you to share your document several ways. The first way is by posting the content of your file directly to your blog. If it is your first posting you will have to register your blog with Word or if you have not created a blog, Word can guide you to setting one up. The second is on a document management server that will allow others to access your document and third a document workspace online where you and others can work on the document and be able to see the changes being made. By selecting each of these options additional information and/or directions will be provided to assist you.

These are the main functions available under the Office Button. Word Options are another article in itself. In writing this article I discovered the pushpins. They have been there all along and I never gave them any thought. Now I can pin documents to the list that I frequently use and not have to search for them again!