Windows® 7 for Dummies®

Chapter 5. Playing with Programs and Documents

In This Chapter

• Opening a program or document

• Changing which program opens which document

• Creating a shortcut

• Cutting or copying and pasting

• Using Windows's free programs

In Windows, programs are your tools: They let you add numbers, arrange words, and shoot spaceships. Documents, by contrast, are the things you create with programs: tax forms, heartfelt apologies, and spreadsheets listing high scores.

This chapter starts with the basics of opening programs, creating shortcuts, and cutting and pasting information between documents. Along the way, it throws in a few tricks — how to add things like © to your documents, for example. Finally, it ends with a tour of Windows 7's free programs, showing how to write a letter, calculate your mortgage or gas mileage, or take notes that you spice up with special characters and symbols.

Starting a Program

Clicking the Start button presents the Start menu, the launching pad for your programs. The Start menu is strangely intuitive. For example, if it notices you've been making lots of DVDs, the Start menu automatically moves the Windows DVD Maker icon to its front page for easy access, as shown in Figure 5-1.

Don't see your favorite program on the Start menu's opening list? Click All Programs near the bottom of the Start menu. The Start menu covers up its previously displayed icons with an even larger list of programs and category-stuffed folders. Still don't spot your program? Click some of the folders to ...