Office 2008 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual

Navigating Your Documents

Word 2008 gives you a bunch of ways to navigate your document, some of which aren’t as immediately obvious as the scroll bar.

Tip

Using the scroll bar has its own reward: As you drag the blue “elevator” scroll-box handle up and down, a pop-out screen tip balloon identifies the major headings in your document as you scroll by. By scanning this readout, you’ll know exactly where you’ll be when you stop scrolling.

What the Keys Do

It’s by far one of the most frequently asked questions among new (and even some veteran) Mac fans: What on earth are all of those extra keys for on the standard Mac keyboard?

In many cases, the answer is “nothing.” In most Mac programs (games excluded), such keys as the F-keys on the top row and the Num Lock key don’t do anything at all. In Office, however, there’s scarcely a single key that doesn’t have a function. For example:

• Esc. Short for “Escape,” this key provides a quick way of dismissing a dialog box without having to click the Close or Cancel button. It also closes a menu you’ve pulled down, once you decide not to use it.

• Home. This key moves the insertion point to the beginning of the line it’s currently in. (You were expecting it to take your insertion point to the top of the document, weren’t you? It’s a trick; to do that, press ⌘-Home.)

• End. The End key, if you have one, takes you to the end of the current line. The ⌘-End combination takes you to the very end of the document.

• Ins. The Ins key (short for Insert), if you have ...