Ask Sam: What does the pin do?

Today's question is about the Word 2007 Recent Documents list:

What is the thumbtack for next to each document in the "Recent Documents" list? I click it but it doesn't keep my documents where I want them.

In Word 2003, the recent file list under the File menu defaulted to four entries; you could set it to a maximum of nine. Every time you opened a file, Word placed it at the top of the list. When the list exceeded its capacity, each new file would bump the last file from the list. Word 2007 introduced a longer "Recent Documents" list (default of 20, max 50) and the pin, which keeps selected documents from falling off the list.

But that's all it does. If you have ten documents in the list, and you pin the second one, it doesn't stay at number two forever. The next time you open it, it moves to the top of the list, just like it always has. If you open a dozen documents, those documents will be listed before the pinned file. However, if you open more documents than will fit on the list, pinned documents won't be removed.

I'd expect that when I pin a document in place, it stays where I pinned it. But the pin is still a handy tool that keeps you from having to hunt too hard to find documents you work with on a regular basis.