Find Office Documents faster

The My Places feature in Microsoft Word and other Office applications makes it easy for you to find documents quickly by adding the folder that they're stored inside as a link on the left hand bar of the File Open and File Save dialogs.

So, when you’re working on a project even a short-term one, navigate using the File Open or File Save dialog to the folder that the files for the project will be stored in. With the folder selected (don’t open the folder), in Office 2003 and earlier click the Tools button on the toolbar and choose Add to My Places. In Office 2007, right-click the left sidebar and click Add folder name.

This adds the folder at the bottom of the list in the left sidebar making it easy for you to navigate to that folder by simply clicking its name in the list.

If you’re using a combination of Office 2003 and Office 2007 you will notice that the left hand panel of each of the File Open and File Save dialogs are different. However, if you're working in Word 2003, for example, the same sidebar appears in Excel 2003.

If you have lots of links in the sidebar - I have around 20 - right-click the panel and select Small Icons to make the links smaller so that everything fits better.

Working between Office 2007 & 2003

If you're using Office 2007 in a workgroup with others who are 2003 users, then you'll encounter problems with them not being able to read your 2007 documents.

The simple solution is to change the default save format in the Office 2007 applications so they save automatically in the older formats. To do this, click the Office button and choose the Word Options button (for example), and click the Save option. In the dropdown list, Configure the Save files in this format option to the 97-2003 format.

You'll need to do this separately for each application you want to change the default save format for.

Of course, this doesn't stop you from saving in the new format or any other supported format. It just ensures that the default save format is backwardly compatible with other users.