There's a lot more room in memory for a document than there is room on the screen to display it. (See Figure 2-4.)

How do you move different parts of the document under the screen "window"? With applications that use the mouse, there's a bar, like and elevator shaft, that runs along the right side of the screen window (and sometimes along the bottom of the screen window as well). As you move the "elevator" along the shaft, you scroll different parts of the document under the window.

With keyboard-controlled applications (that is, applications that don't use the mouse), you press Up Arrow to see earlier parts of the document, Down Arrow to see later parts of the document, Left Arrow to see the leftmost side of the document, and Right Arrow to see the rightmost side of the document.

Whether you move your document into view with the elevator or the arrow keys, moving the document under the screen window is called scrolling.

Figure 2-4
Document is bigger than screen

The fact that your document is stored electronically in the computer's memory means that it's a very dynamic, easy-to-edit state. It also means that if you turn off the power by mistake or change applications, you lose the document in memory. That's why it's important to save your work on a disk.

Figure 2-5
If power goes off, document is lost

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Chapter 2: Once Over Lightly