Yikes! What happens if you close a document before you've had a chance to save it and give it a name?

Word 2010 saves a draft of your document. See how you can get it back:

-- Joannie Stangeland

Wrapping text around figures, also known as graphic objects or images, can help give your documents a more polished look and help focus attention on the most important content. Last week, I wrote about the basics of inline vs. floating figures. One of the big differences between these types of images is that floating images are positioned separately from the text, allowing text to wrap around, over, and behind the images. Word has several wrapping styles that give you control over how the image integrates with the document. Today, I’ll explain the options and share my thoughts on when to use each one.

We are all familiar with this cliché by now, but it is true nonetheless. A picture conveys a lot of visual information that is open to interpretation by the viewer. The immediate benefit is that images can be used to evoke emotion or set the ambience. However, if too much is left open for interpretation, an image can distract from the point you are trying to make.

In this blog post you can see examples and learn how image editing can help your documents be more memorable, likeable, and more easily understood.

Figures can add a ton of pizazz to a document, but they don’t always behave the way you might expect, which can be incredibly frustrating. With a little behind the scenes information, you can put your figures in their place.

Theresa Estrada, a program manager on the Word team, writes today about the basics of working with graphic objects--shapes, text boxes, pictures, and more. This is the first of a series of posts about graphic objects.

Most of us are remember images and diagrams better than words. I won't bore you with the research references, but the numbers are pretty straightforward on that. Not only do we remember better, but when words are accompanied by illustrations, we even understand the content better.

Word 2010 has the right tools for you to make your documents more visual, and therefore more memorable, likeable, and understandable...

Whenever I submit a manuscript to a publisher, I need to include a table of contents. Publishers require page numbers and a table of contents.

I want that table of contents to look perfect and professional, with all the right headings and page numbers and dotted leader lines. And I can get that from the Table of Contents gallery, as long as I've applied the right styles.

But I want more.

I want to customize my table of contents to fit my manuscript's requirements. For that, I need training--and that means training ahead of time instead of 10:00 the night before my manuscript submission must be postmarked or sent in email.

For Word 2010 table of contents training, Office.com hosts a brand-new free online course, so you can understand how the styles work in your table of contents.

One of the best parts about the training course is that you can watch the videos to see how it's done. 

It's a great time to get a good understanding of tables of contents--before you're up against that next deadline.

-- Joannie Stangeland

When you're in the middle of a long document--a report, a white paper, or the next Great International Novel--where are you? It's easy to get lost.

Heading styles can help you find your way all the way through your document. Word uses those heading styles to build a table of contents. And Word also displays those headings in the Navigation Pane, where you can quickly click anywhere in your document, or even restructure your document. To see how it works, take a look at this video...

Faithful readers of the Word blog should be pretty familiar with the Track Changes feature in Word by now. We had two articles about this feature just last month:

• Track changes -- a book's worth of working together
• Turn Track Changes off or on, or hide or reveal tracked changes

Track Changes can be very handy when you're working with other writers or editors on a document. It allows you to easily view any changes or comments they've made right there in the document. The changes and comments are tracked by embedding special markup in the text.

If, however, you are not familiar with the Track Changes feature, this markup might seem a little confusing. And that might be putting it mildly.

This video provides an introduction to how the Track Changes feature works and how to remove all that potentially-confusing-but-actually-pretty-handy markup in your document.

-- Ron Owens

With graduations just around the corner, you might be thinking about ways to celebrate success--and banners do that in just the right big way.

You can make your own banner in Microsoft Word--and it's easiest if you start with a template...

Writing is fun, but learning how to write with Word 2010 is even more fun when you play Ribbon Hero 2.

Can't find that command on the Word ribbon? Don't remember the steps? Ribbon Hero 2 teaches you how to use Word 2010, but it's also a game--complete with time travel, points, and Clippy.

Doug Thomas gives you a quick Ribbon Hero 2 tour, and shows you how it's done.

You can measure your progress. You can compete against your colleagues. It's all in good--you guessed it--fun. And it's free. Just download Ribbon Hero 2 and get started.

Now, I need to rack up some points.

-- Joannie Stangeland