Microsoft Office/Windows Version Differences

You might be using Microsoft Office on either Windows 7 or Windows 8 (or possibly Windows Vista or even Windows XP). This book also covers using Microsoft Office on the Mac (specifically, on OS X version 10.9, often referred to as “Mavericks”). Unfortunately, many techniques differ greatly between those operating systems. OS X looks and works nothing like Windows. However, Windows 7 and Windows 8 (or Windows 8.1, which looks and works very much like Windows 8) are very, very different, so much so that this book will sometimes discuss them if they are different operating systems.

In this book, information and instructions that are specific to one operating system will be placed in a subpage named with the appropriate operating system. Pages without an operating system in the name contain only information that applies to all platforms. For example, the page Logging In & Out contains a conceptual discussion of logging in and out, while the pages Logging In & Out (Windows) and Logging In & Out (OS X) contain step-by-step directions specific to Windows and OS X, respectively.

Finally, sometimes step-by-step instructions for Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 are so different that they have separate subpages. Other times, the differences are so minor that the different versions of Windows will be discussed together. In the latter case, look for the boxes at the beginning of each section that say “This section applies only to version 7 of Windows” (or whatever version is being discussed).

But I Don’t Know Which Version I’m Using!

If you don’t know which version of Windows you’re using, there is a simple way to determine. Open the Run dialog (to do so, press the Windows key and R at the same time) and type winver.exe, then press Enter. This command opens a dialog box that tells you the version of Windows you are using.