The Backstage view has been introduced in Word 2010 and acts as the central place for managing your documents. The backstage view helps in creating new documents, saving and opening documents, printing and sharing documents, and so on.
Getting to the Backstage View is easy: Just click the File tab, located in the upper-left corner of the Word Ribbon. If you already do not have any opened document then you will see a window listing down all the recently opened documents as follows:
If you already have an opened document then it will display a window showing detail about the opened document as shown below. Backstage view shows three columns when you select most of the available options in the first column.
First column of the backstage view will have following options:
| Option | Description |
| Save | If an existing document is opened, it would be saved as is, otherwise it will display a dialogue box asking for document name. |
| Save As | A dialogue box will be displayed asking for document name and document type, by default it will save in word 2010 format with extension .docx |
| Open | This option will be used to open an existing word document. |
| Close | This option will be used to close an opened document. |
| Info | This option will display information about the opened document. |
| Recent | This option will list down all the recently opened documents |
| New | This option will be used to open a new document. |
| Print | This option will be used to print an opened document. |
| Save & Send | This option will save an opened document and will display options to send the document using email etc. |
| Help | You can use this option to get required help about word 2010. |
| Options | Use this option to set various option related to word 2010. |
| Exit | Use this option to close the document and exit. |
Document Information:
When you click Info option available in the first column, it displays the following information in the second column of the backstage view:
Compatibility Mode: If the document is not a native Word 2007/2010 document, a Convert button appears here, enabling you to easily update its format. Otherwise, this category does not appear.
Permissions: You can use this option to protect your word document. You can set a password so that nobody can open your document, or you can lock the document so that nobody can edit your document.
Prepare for Sharing: This section highlights important information you should know about your document before you send it to others, such as a record of the edits you made as you developed the document.
Versions: If the document has been saved several times, you may be able to access previous versions of it from this section.
Document Properties:
When you click Info option available in the first column, it displays various properties in the third column of the backstage view. These properties include document size, number of pages in the document, total number of words in the document author etc.
You can also edit various properties. Just try to click on the property value and if property is editable then it will display a text box where you can add your text like title, tags, comments, Author.
Exit Backstage View:
It is simple to exit from Backstage View. Either click on File tab or press Esc button on the keyboard to go back in word working mode.
