Working with a Window

Windows is called Windows because it places files, programs, and dialog boxes in a window. You can have several windows open at a time, but only one can be active. The active window has a blue title bar at the top. Inactive windows have a gray title bar. Here's what you can do with a window:

Close: Click the box with the X at the upper right corner, called the close box (or button). Note: If you are in a document in a program, you'll see two close boxes. The top one is for the program, called the application close box. (An application is a program.) The bottom one is for the individual document or file you are working with. So, if you want to close the file but leave the application open, click the bottom close box.

Minimize: To hide the window, click the the box with the dash at the upper right corner, called the minimize box (or button). This hides the window but does not close it. You can display it again by clicking the window's button on the Taskbar.

Maximize: The middle of the three buttons at the top right corner is called the maximize box (or button). This displays a minimized window or reduces it's size to something smaller maximized size.

• To move window, click and drag it by its title bar at the top of the window.
• To change a window's size, move the mouse cursor to the edge of the window you want to resize until the cursor becomes a double-arrow shape. Click and drag in the desired direction.
• To switch between windows, for example, to move from one open program to another, you can choose the desired program from its button on the Taskbar. If both windows are visible (but the one you want is partly obscured), you can just click anywhere in the window you want to make it active.

Scrolling Through a Window

When a program is opened a scroll bar will appear at the left side and at the bottom of the screen. You probably see a scrollbar to the right of your browser right now. This is a vertical scrollbar. A vertical scrollbar has four parts:

Top arrow: click to move up in a file line by line. Don't use this method to scroll long distances.

Bottom arrow: click to move down in a file line by line. Don't use this method to scroll long distances.

Scroll box: click and drag this to move long distances in a long document. You can drag either up or down.

The space between one of the arrows and the scroll box: Click here to scroll up (if you click above the scroll box) or to scroll down (if you're below the scroll box) one screen at a time. Ideal for systematically scrolling through a long document.

The horizontal scrollbar you sometimes see works the same way, except it scrolls you to the left and the right.