New user - clueless

There are a number of free word processors available to download. Or you can try Pages (part of iWork that should be on your laptop as a trial version). Microsoft Office is probably the most obvious answer is you're willing to pay or you could try some free word processors such as Neooffice.

As for the other 2 questions, command+f is the search function. Cannot help you with your Mail issue unfortunately.

Hope that helps somewhat.

Here are two Word processing solutions for you.

iWork by Apple
http://store.apple.com/ca/product/MB624Z/A?fnode=home/shop_mac/software/apple&mc o=MTQ2OTA0MA

Microsoft Office for Mac
http://store.apple.com/ca/product/TQ744LL/A?fnode=home/shop_mac/software/product ivity&mco=MTQ5OTQ4NQ

Shauna,

The only built-in word processor is Text Edit, in your "Applications" folder (accessible from the Finder sidebar, or at the top level of your hard drive). It is a plain text editor, and it will only create files of that type or as "Rich Text." However, it can open and display many Microsoft Word documents.

You'll need some other solution for any real word processing. One outstanding, and free, alternative to iWork or Microsoft Office is NeoOffice. NeoOffice is a free open source application designed to duplicate the function of the Microsoft Office suite. It does so very well. It will open any Word documents you may have or come across, and it will save new files in the same format (.doc or .docx). It is completely compatible with Office. Look on versiontracker.com for a free download of NeoOffice.

At the right end of your Menu Bar (at the top of your display), you will see a magnifying glass icon. This is called "Spotlight." Click this icon to open a text entry field. Type your desired search term into this field. The results will display immediately, as you type. If you don't see your target right away in the list, click "Show All." This will open a Finder window with all the results from the search, not just the "top hits."

Scott