Microsoft Word Tips, Tricks & Templates » Microsoft Word

Use AutoCorrect To Write Documents Faster in Microsoft Word

Editor — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 10:55:41 +0000

If you’re reading this post, you’re probably looking for some way to get those business ocuments written that little bit faster, get those emails finished, and get the newsletter out the door before you go home.

Say Hello to AutoCorrect

To automatically detect and correct typos, misspelled words, and incorrect capitalization, use the AutoCorrect feature in Microsoft Word.

How’s it work?

I’m a terrible typist. I always type moeny instead of money.

To save me time fixing this by hand, Autocorrect does it automatically. When I type in a mistake it knows how to enter the correct word.

For example, if you type erport plus a space, then AutoCorrect replaces what you have typed with “report.”

Or if you type ‘Teh Executrie summary states’ with a space, AutoCorrect replaces what you have typed with “The Executive Summary states.”

Note: Text included in hyperlinks is not automatically corrected.

To autocorrect your Word Documents, follow these steps:

1. On the Tools menu, click AutoCorrect Options.

2. In the Replace box, type a word or phrase that you often mistype or misspell – for example, type Micorsoft.

3. In the With box, type the correct spelling of the word – for example, type Microsoft.

4. Click Add.

You can also use AutoCorrect to quickly insert symbols that are included in the built-in list of AutoCorrect entries. For example, type (c) to insert (c).

What’s your favorite Microsoft hack?

How To Insert Your Chapter & Paragraph Titles into MS Word’s Footer

Editor — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 12:37:00 +0000

I use the Header and Footers in my documents to add information that helps readers navigate through the report, see when it was written, and also its date, status, and page count.

You can add an incredible amount of information into the Header and Footers. Here are some ways to add in the Document Title, for instance, My Shiny New Annual Report, into the footer.

One way to make your Microsoft Word documents more professional is to use the Header and Footers to include information that helps the reader.

Today, I’ll show you how to add some useful information to the header/footer areas.

How to Get Started

A simple example is to include the Document Name or Chapter title in the footer. This helps the reader if they print out the document and also gives me a better sense of what they’re reading.

What you put in the header and footer can be used to remind the reader of what their reading and also to guide them through the document, especially with business proposals and marketing plans.

Something I’ve found very useful is to add the Chapter title to the footer. As the reader moves from one chapter to the next, the header or footer is updated dynamically.

It’s a small point but it looks well. It also reinforces to the reader that you know how to prepare a professional-looking business document.

How To Put Chapter Title In the Header or Footer

1. Open Microsoft Word.

2. On the View menu on the main toolbar, click Header and Footer. If you can’t see this, click the small arrows at the end of the menu to show this option. They may be hidden by Word.

3. Click inside the header or footer that you want to change.

[Optional] On the Header and Footer toolbar, click ‘Same as Previous’ to break the connection between the header and footer in the current section and the previous section.

4. On the Insert menu, click Reference, and then click Cross-reference.

5. In the Reference type box, click Heading.

6. In the For which heading box, select the heading that contains the chapter number or title. In this example, it was My Book Title.

7. In the Insert reference to box, select what you want to insert in the header or footer.

For example:

Click Heading number to insert the chapter number, and then click Insert.

Click Heading text to insert the chapter heading, and then click Insert.

This adds the document name to the header or footer.

How to Update Headers and Footers?

If you want to change the document title, update it in File, Properties and then open the footer again.

1. Click on the field you want to update.

2. Right-click and then select Update Field.

Did it work?

Why Format Microsoft Word Docs?

Think of it from the reader’s perspective.

You get a business proposal, white paper, or marketing plan that you’ve been waiting for and… it looks terrible.

The content may be fine but… why is the layout so poor, why didn’t they make more effort, why are the fonts different throughout the document?

You get the idea, right?

Over the next few weeks, I’ll show you how to improve the appearance of your business documents.

How do I?

If you have other questions about Microsoft Word, drop me a line.

As most readers use Microsoft Word 2003, these steps will apply to this version of Word. If there is any confusion, please let me know.

About the Author: Ivan Walsh shares small business tips for smart people on Klariti. Ivan also shows how to make a fulltime living working online his Web Plan blog

How to Reduce Huge Microsoft Word Documents

Editor — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 10:41:00 +0000

Last week we showed you how Bullet Lists can crash MS Word documents, especially if you cut and paste from several different documents. We outlined some techniques to reduce the file size, mostly by creating pre-formatted bullet lists and re-creating bullet lists the correct way.

How to fix Corrupt & Damaged MS Word files

But what happens if you’re given a document that’s already oversize and looks like it will damage your Word settings?

Here’s what to do.

Open the document in Microsoft Word.
Cut and paste every graphic from the document into an image-editing tool, such as Snagit. Create a naming convention, (e.g. Page1-A.gif, Page1-B.gif etc) and name each graphic using the same naming convention.
WARNING: DON’T SAVE THE FILE YET!
In Word, select File, Save As HTML.
Name the file with an HTML extension, e.g. Proposal.html and then Exit Word.
Re-open Word.
Select File, Open and open the Proposal.html file.
Now, save the file using File, Save As. In other words save Proposal.html with a .doc extension, e.g. Proposal.doc.
TIP: This process of converting the Microsoft Word file into HTML and back into Word, removes unnecessary (usually corrupt) code in the file and will significantly reduce the file size.
Insert the images back into the document.

I’ve seen Word files larger than 20 MB reduced to less than 3MB in less by using this technique.

Might be worth a try!

The reason you don’t save the file at Step 2 is because this would trigger Word into action (e.g. I WILL now save this file etc) and as it.

Did this work for you?

Post by Ivan Walsh. Follow me on Twitter.

How to Convert Word Tables into Plain Text

Editor — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 01:35:15 +0000

Let’s say you have a table that you want to convert back into text. How do you do it?

I write technical documents for a living. Part of my work is extracting text from excel files and other documents where technical information is located. Sometimes this is text inside tables that I need to get out and reformat. What’s the quickest way to do this?

1. Open Word and select the Table you want to convert to Text.

2. When you do this, the Layout tab appears in the ribbon.

3. Click the Layout tab

4. Click Convert to Text.

The table is magically converted into unformatted text where you can play with it.

If you want to convert the text back into a table, click CTRL + z

If you want to convert new back into a table, read this article here.

How to Convert Boring Text into Stunning Tables

Editor — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:23:01 +0000

Let’s say you have a large block of text that you want convert into a table. How do you do it?

I write many technical documents. This means that many times I need to reformat text so that it is more attractive and easier to read. One way to do this is to place the text in tables. This lets the reader see the information in a more structured format. You can also do this by pasting the text in Excel but you then have to bring it back it Word, which defeats the purpose.

How to convert text to a table

1. Before you start insert separator characters — such as commas or tabs — to define where you want to divide the text into columns. For example, in a list with two words on a line, insert a comma or a tab after the first word to create a two-column table.

2. Select the text that you want to convert.

3. On the Insert tab, in the Tables group, click Table, and then click Convert Text to Table.

4. In the Convert Text to Table dialog box, under Separate text at, click the option for the separator character that is in your text.

5. In the Number of columns box, check the number of columns.

If you don’t see the number of columns that you expect, you may be missing a separator character in one or more lines of text.

6. Select any other options that you want and click OK.

If you want to undo what you’ve done, click Ctrl-Z.

Next week, how to convert a table into text!

How to Create Keyboard Shortcuts in MS Word

Editor — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 16:03:25 +0000

Want to know how to Create Keyboard Shortcuts in MS Word?

In MS Word you can assign frequently used commands to a keyboard shortcut. To create a shortcut, follow these steps:

1. Right-click in the toolbar area.

2. Select Customize and click the Keyboard button.

3. To auto fix a table’s content, highlight Table on the Categories list, and then click AutoFixContent in the Commands window.

4. Type the keyboard combination into the Press new shortcut key box.

5. Click Assign.

If this combination is already in use, Word will advise you to find another combination or replace an existing one.

Did this work for you?

Why you MUST learn how to create a macro in MS Word 2002/2003/2007

Editor — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 08:25:59 +0000

One of the hidden features in Microsoft Word is macros. These are small mini-programs that you can create to automate tasks, for example, formatting a document, changing the layout or updating styles.

What is a macro? A macro is a series of commands and instructions that you group together as a single command to accomplish a task automatically.

Read why you MUST learn how to create a macro?

Why create a macro?

It makes your life that much easier. You can setup a macro to:

Automate a complex series of tasks
Combine multiple commands — for example, to insert a table with a specific size and borders, and with a specific number of rows and columns
Make an option in a dialog box more accessible
Speed up editing and document formatting

To do this, you can use the macro recorder in Word to record a sequence of actions, or you can create a macro from scratch by entering Visual Basic for Applications. The Visual Basic Editor contains a complete debugging toolset for finding syntax, run-time, and logic problems in your code.

If it sound’s intimidating, don’t be alarmed. If I can do this, you can.

How to create macros in Word 2007

To work with macros in Office Word 2007, you need to have the Developer tab displayed. This is turned off by default.

Here is how you turn it on.

To show the Developer tab in Word 2007:

1. Click the Microsoft Office Button (top left corner in Word) and then click Word Options.

2. Click Popular.

3. Select the Show Developer tab in the Ribbon check box.

The Developer tab is now displayed to the far right of the ribbon.

How to record a macro

1. Click on the Developer tab, then in the Code area, click Record Macro.

2. In the Macro name box, type a name for the macro.

Careful! If you name the new macro the same as a built-in macro in Word 2007, the new macro actions will replace the built-in macro.

3. In the Store macro in box, click the template or document where you want to store the macro.

Maybe you want to apply the macro to one document only or maybe to all documents. It’s up to you.

4. In the Description box, type a description, for example, Change Fonts to Verdana.

5. Do one of the following:

To save the macro — without assigning it to a button on the Quick Access Toolbar or to the keyboard — click OK.

Otherwise…

To assign the macro to the Quick Access Toolbar:

1. Click the Button icon.

2. Under Customize Quick Access Toolbar, select the document (or all documents) you want to add the macro to the Quick Access Toolbar.

3. Under Choose commands from dialog box, click the macro you’re recording, and click Add.

4. Click OK to begin recording the macro.

To assign the macro to the Keyboard

1. Click Keyboard.

2. In the Commands box, click the macro that you are recording.

3. In the Press new shortcut key box, type the key sequence you want (e.g. A + F4) , and then click Assign.

4. Click Close to begin recording the macro.

5. Perform the actions that you want to include in the macro.

6. When finished recording, click Stop Recording in the Code group.

How to use Visual Basic for Applications

If you need to update the macro, you can go directly into the code and change it through the Visual Basic for Applications editor.

Note that this is not the Visual Basic software that developers use to create applications but is an editor —that is already inside Microsoft Word — which uses a scripting language to update the macro.

If you’re familiar with any scripting language, then you’ll soon figure this out.

1. On the Developer tab, in the Code group, click Macros.

2. In the Macro name box, type a name for the macro.

Tip: If you give a new macro the same name as a built-in macro in Office Word 2007, the new macro actions will replace the built-in macro. To view a list of built-in macros, click Word Commands in the Macros in list.

3. In the Macros in list, click the template or document in which you want to store the macro.

4. Click Create to open the Visual Basic Editor.

How do I run the macro in Word 2007?

You have a few choices.

If you created the macro to run from the menu bar, click the Button you added there.

If you created the macro to run from your keyboard, click the numbers
and/or letters you assigned to the macro, for example, I use F4 to run a formatting macro and F5 to run a macro that changes all the text to US English.

If you setup neither of these, you can run the macro as follows:

1. Click on the Developer tab.

2. Click Macros.

3. Select your macro.

4. Click Run.

This activates the macro. It runs through the actions as per your instructions.

How to create a macro in Word 97/2000/2003

Open a new Word document, and type a few words.

1. Click Tools.

2. Scroll to Macro, and click Record New Macro.

3. Type Test in the Macro Name: window and click OK.

An activity box appears which shows that you are now in Record mode. You can use shortcut keys for the commands you want or you can use your mouse.

4. Select one of the words that you typed before starting the macro.

5. Now (with the word still highlighted) change the font style (example: “Times New Roman” to “Verdana”) and the font size.

6. Remove the highlight from the word by pressing your right-arrow key.

7. Click the square in the CommandBar to close it and stop the Macro recording.

8. Click Tools, Macro, Macros, click Test, and then click Run.

The commands you made while recording your macro will take place when you run the macro!

9. Next, click Tools, Macro, Macros, Test, Edit, File, and then click Save Normal.

You’ve now saved the macro and added it to the list of macros in Word.

Finally, close the Microsoft Visual Basic editor and assign a shortcut key to your new macro, for example, if you want to use it in the future. This is optional. You don’t have to. When you re-open the Macro Editor, you’ll see that the Test macro is still there.

How to test your new macro?

1. Using the example above, click to the right of any word in a document and then run your macro.

2. The font and font size will change automatically, e.g. it will change from Times Roman to Verdana.

You can use the macro recorder to record a sequence of actions, or you can create a macro from scratch by entering Visual Basic for Applications code in the Visual Basic Editor.

My macro doesn’t work?

There could be a few reasons for this.

1. Check if the macro is setup to run in all active templates.

You might have setup the macro to run in the current document only or maybe in the
Normal.Dot file only. Open the macro, check this setting and then re-run.

2. When you record a macro, you MUST use the mouse to click commands and options on Word’s menu bars. You can’t select text.

You MUST use the keyboard to select text.

3. You didn’t assign the macro to a button or to the keyboard.

If you didn’t do this, then you need to go into the Developer tab (far right on Word menu bar
in 2007), click Macros and then select the macro from the list.

Want to learn more?

You MUST read this book on Mastering VBA for Microsoft Office 2007.

Also, try this here and this here and here.

Did your macro work?

I hope so!

If not, let me know what went wrong and we’ll try to fix it.

PS: Where are the built-in macros in Word 2007? To see a list of built-in macros, click on the Developer tab, then Code group, Macros, and Word Commands.

MS Word 2010: Is the new Find re-design better or worse?

Editor — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 10:39:04 +0000

In the new version of Word 2010, there is a new ‘integrated flavor of the Find feature’.

Scott Walker, Lead Program Manager, for Microsoft Word explains that ‘Rather than a modeless dialog box that jumps about on the screen to get out of the way, the basic Find experience now sits conveniently at the top of the navigation pane.”

Note: The Word 2007 Find dialog is still available by clicking the dropdown at the right-hand edge of the search box.

So, what is the new Find user experience?

Scott runs through how it works:

Type in the Search Document box at the top of the navigation pane to start.

As you type:

All matches within the document highlight yellow. Word scrolls the document to the first match (and continues to scroll as you refine the term).
If you’re on the headings tab of the navigation pane, any tab corresponding to a heading whose content contains the term you searched for is highlighted yellow
If you’re on the pages tab of the pane, the thumbnails for the pages that don’t contain the search term are filtered out, leaving you with just the list of pages that have what you’re looking for
If you’re on the search results tab, you’ll see the list of matches with a small snippet of context. Note that this list grows and shrinks as you refine your search
Hit Enter is the same as clicking Find Next.
The dropdown menu to the right of the search box also offers many of the popular object types you might want to search for, including graphics, tables, equations, footnotes/endnotes, and comments (by author).

Other features

You can turn off the incremental search mode, and in the search options you can change settings such as match case, whole word only, etc.

The New Find Experience in Microsoft Word 2010: http://blogs.msdn.com

MS Office 2010, New Mini Translator feature

Editor — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 10:16:52 +0000

Microsoft have introduced a Mini Translator in Office 2010 that provides on-the-fly translation as you select a word or phrase and provides dictionary definitions of individual words.

How it works

Point to a word or selected phrase with your mouse, and the translation will display in a small window.
The Mini Translator also includes a Play button so you can hear an audio pronunciation of the word or phrase using a text-to-speech engine.
The Copy button lets you paste the translation into another document.
You can use the Mini Translator in Word, Outlook, OneNote and PowerPoint.

There is a nice tutorial and more screenshots over here:

http://blogs.technet.com/office_global_experience/archive/2009/07/31/using-the-new-mini-translator-in-office-2010.aspx

How to extend the Ribbon in MS Office / Open XML SDK

Editor — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 10:04:53 +0000

The Fluent UI, or as it’s better known the Ribbon, was introduced in Office 2007.

The Fluent UI technology, like the Open XML formats, is based on XML, which allows for a richer extensibility story for developers.

Erika Ehril’s blog post describes several tools and resources related to Fluent UI extensibility. Brian Jones extend her post by showing you how the Open XML SDK can be used to extend or actually control custom UI within documents.

As is the case with other features in Open XML files, the Open XML SDK 2.0 for Microsoft Office supports Fluent UI through strongly typed access to the custom UI xml part as well strongly typed access to the underlying xml contained within the custom UI xml part.

In other words, you can easily add, remove or modify custom UI for a particular document or set of documents using the SDK.

In this post, Brian show’s you how to add custom UI to a set of documents within a directory.

http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2009/08/03/the-open-xml-sdk-and-fluent-ui-extensibility.aspx

FYI: You can also download this solution here.

Microsoft Word 2010: How to open Word files online in Protected View

Editor — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 09:48:37 +0000

Vikas on the Microsoft Office Trustworthy Computing security team explains how a new feature in Microsoft Word 2010 called Protected View.

In his article he discusses how hackers have discovered ways to manipulate Office binary files so that when they are opened and parsed, they cause their own code embedded within the file to run. To address these binary file parsing attacks in Office 2007, several new XML based file formats were introduced.

One of the new features in Microsoft Word 2010 is the Protected View, which lets you open a Word/Excel file over the web — via Microsoft’s intermediate sandbox — and then display it for you if it’s deemed to be safe to open.

What is Protected View?

Protected View is a new security defense-in-depth features added in Office 2010.

In Office 2010 when a file appears to be from a potentially risky location, such as the Internet, it is opened in Protected View.
Protected View appears like any other read-only view.
When the file is opened in Protected View, it is being opened in the new Office 2010 sandbox.
Office 2010 sandbox is the “next version” of the MOICE sandbox, thought no file conversation takes place.
What happens is that the file is opend within a sandboxed instance of the application (e.g. Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and if there was malicious code present in the file, the code will not be able to tamper with your documents; change your profile or other user settings.

When is Protected View used?

Microsoft’s goal when designing this feature was to only use it in high risk scenarios:

1. Files opened from the Internet.

When a file is downloaded from the web, the Windows Attachment Execution Service places a marker in the file’s alternate data stream to indicate it came from the Internet zone.

When a Word, Excel or PowerPoint file is opened — and has this marker — it opens in Protected View until the user decides to trust and edit it. To do this, press Enable Editing.

Attachments opened from Outlook 2010

When an attachment is opened from Outlook 2010 it opens in Protected View. Administrators can configure if they want all attachments to open in Protected View or just those sent from senders outside their Exchange environment.

Files opened from unsafe locations

For example, files opened from your Temporary Internet Files folder. You can extend this list to include directories you feel are also unsafe.

Files blocked by File Block Policy.

Microsoft introduced File Block in Office 2007 which lets administrators define file types that should not be opened.

In Office 2010 these blocked files can now be opened in Protected View and you can set policy to indicate if the user should be allowed to leave Protected View (by editing the file) or force them to stay in it.

Office File Validation failures

This scans an Office file when it is being opened and validates it against a well-known schema. When there are inconsistencies between the file and the schema, the file will fail validation and opens in Protected View.

File Open Dialog

You can open files in Protected View explicitly by using the Open button.

As Vikas discussed, Protected View is one of the new security defenses in Office 2010.

For a malware to be able to run in Protected View, it will need to find a way around DEP, ASLR, GS and the 2010 Office File validation checks. And after all that, the malware would need to find a way to break out of the sandbox.

For sure, this is a step in the right direction from Microsoft. The next time you received a ‘scary’ Word file, you can open it in Protected View and read it without having to worry that something bad could happen to your computer.

Microsoft Office 2010 Engineering: http://blogs.technet.com/office2010/archive/2009/08/13/protected-view-in-office-2010.aspx

Error Messages when Starting Microsoft Word

Editor — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 06:55:06 +0000

Over the years Microsoft Word has crashed on me several times. What’s interesting is that the error message I get tend to vary but the result it always the same – I can’t get Word to start.

Here are some common error messages, the reason why they appear, and what you can do to re-start Word. 9 times out of 10, if you delete the Normal.dot file and re-start, you’ll be fine. If that doesn’t work, please read on.

Error Message when Starting Word

When you start Microsoft Office Word, you may receive error messages that are similar to the following error messages:

run-time error.
subscript out of range.
Compile Error in hidden module module name.
Visual Basic Error – Object doesn’t support this property or method.
Cannot display the template add in template is not valid template name.
Word cannot open this document template template name.
module name cannot be found.
Command cannot be performed because a dialog box is open.
Cannot open this file file name.
The file cannot be opened.
Microsoft VisualBasic – The macros in this project are disabled.
The add-in template is not valid.

Why am I getting this message?

This behavior occurs because an add-in in one of the startup folders is not compatible with Word.

How to fix this?

To identify the add-in that may be causing the behavior, follow these steps:

1. Quit all Microsoft Office programs, including Word and Microsoft Outlook.

2. Open the following folder for depending on your version of Word.

For Microsoft Office Word 2007:

Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\Startup

For Microsoft Office Word 2003:

Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\Startup

For Microsoft Word 2002:

Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office10\Startup

For Microsoft Word 2000:

Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Startup

3. Move any files that are located in that folder to your desktop.

4. Open the following folder:

Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\Word\Startup

5. Move any files that are located in that folder to your desktop.

6. Restart Word.

For more information about how to use the Support Template, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 820919 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/820919/ )

Did that work for you?

If not, please tell me what version of Word you’re using, what happened when you tried to re-start it, and any other information that may help diagnose this problem.

How to add Line Numbers to Word 2007 Documents

Editor — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 02:21:30 +0000

Microsoft Word can automatically count the lines in a document and display the appropriate number next to each line of text. This is useful if you need to refer to specific lines in a document, such as a legal contract. By default, Word numbers every line in a document (except those in tables, footnotes, endnotes, text boxes, frames, and headers and footers).

However, you can choose which line numbers to display. For example, include line numbers in all or part of the document. Or include line numbers at intervals, such as every tenth line (10, 20, 30, and so on).

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Adding Line Numbers to Word 2007

Adding line numbers to Word 2007 documents is basically the same as in Word 2003.

In Word 2007, Line Numbers are found under Page Layout. 3rd tab on the menu bar.

The only difference is that as the user interface is different, the menu options are in different places.

Adding Line Numbers to Word 2003

To add line numbers to an entire document:

On the File menu, click Page Setup, and then click the Layout tab.
In the Apply to box, click Whole document.
Click Line Numbers.
Select the Add line numbering check box, and then select the options you want.

How to add line numbers to a selection of text:

Select the text you want to number.
On the File menu, click Page Setup, and then click the Layout tab.
In the Apply to box, click Selected text.
Click Line Numbers.
Select the Add line numbering check box, and then select the options you want.

To skip line numbers for specific paragraphs:

Select the paragraphs for which you want to skip line numbers.
On the Format menu, click Paragraph, and then click the Line and Page Breaks tab.
Select the Suppress line numbers check box.

If you don’t want Word to count specific lines, such as a heading or a blank line, you can skip line numbers for these items and continue numbering the following lines.

You can make it easier for people to find information in your Word document by adding lines.

These run down the left hand side of the page. Instead of saying something is on page 5, paragraph 3, just tell them the line it’s on.

Microsoft Office 2010 – How OneNote will work with Shared Notebooks

Editor — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:56:25 +0000

How can you capture the benefits of brainstorms when your group is spread across locations and time zones?
In Microsoft OneNote 2010, shared notebooks let anyone “on the network” make changes, add content, or comment—and all changes are tracked and highlighted so you can easily see what’s new.

Full report here: http://www.microsoft.com/officebusiness/office2010/

How Word 2010 will be different than Word 2007

Editor — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:51:16 +0000

Microsoft has published an introduction to how Word 2010 will work. Interesting concepts here for technical writers and others who use Word for document creation.

: Image by Ivan Walsh via Flickr

Microsoft starts by saying that:

In the past, individuals worked on relatively simple, local documents, from their office.
Today, it is common for groups to work on rich, shared documents, from anywhere.

With this in mind, it has focused Word 2010 on improving document collaboration, graphics, and navigation.

It also plans to take this one step further and put Word into the browser and onto mobile phones.

“With Word 2010, you can co-author right within Word. You don’t need to hassle with email attachments, or documents with names like TSP_final_2_reallyFinal_FINAL.docx. Instead, just open your document, and start co-authoring. You can see who else is working with you, and where they are editing.”

Read about Word 2010 from 30,000 Feet: http://blogs.msdn.com