Searching for Documents

Beth notes that in Word 2003, if she did not recall the name of a document or where it was filed, she could search for it by specific text that she knew was in the document. She could do this either from the Tools menu or from the Open dialog box. Beth wonders if there is a way to do this in Word 2007.

The short answer is yes, there is a way. If you display the Open dialog box you'll see a search box at the upper-right corner. Type in what you want to find and click the small icon that looks like a magnifying glass. Word goes to work trying to find documents that match your search criteria.

The longer answer is no, there is not as "full featured" of a search available in Word as there used to be in older versions of the program. Instead, more in-depth searching has been abandoned in Word itself in favor of the search capabilities of Windows. If you haven't used Windows' search capabilities, you may want to check it out. They will out-perform anything you used to be able to do in previous versions of Word.