Word 2007: Getting Used to the Ribbon

The Ribbon is almost certainly the most used aspect of the Microsoft Word interface. It has the vast majority of the commands that the programme has to offer. The commands are arranged in a series of Tabs. To activate any Tab, click on its name. The commands shown in each Tab are related in some way. For example, the commands in the Home Tab are those which are most frequently used in Microsoft Word: commands such as Cut, Copy and Paste and commands for changing the paragraph and character attributes of your text.

As well as the regular Ribbon Tabs, Microsoft Word 2007 also contains context sensitive Tabs. These are Tabs which only appear in a certain context, for example, when you insert a text box. Having drawn the text box, a special tab appears for formatting text boxes. However, when you click outside the text box to deselected it, the context Tab disappears.

The Insert Tab contains commands for adding elements to your page such as tables, pictures, headers and footers.

The References Tab contains controls for adding references to longer documents such as tables of contents and indexes.

The Mailings Tab contains controls for creating mail merge documents. This involves the combination of a data document, which normally contain a list of recipients, with a main document, which is normally a letter, to produce a series of personalised mail merge documents which can then be sent out to each recipient.

The Insert Tab contains commands for adding elements to your page such as tables, pictures, headers and footers.

The View Tab contains controls for displaying the document in various ways. There are also controls for zooming in and out.

Finally, we have the Developer Tab. This contains controls for creating and editing macros and Visual Basic applications.

As well as the regular Ribbon Tabs, Microsoft Word 2007 also contains context sensitive Tabs. These are Tabs which only appear in a certain context, for example, when you insert a text box. Having drawn the text box, a special tab appears for formatting text boxes. However, when you click outside the text box to deselected it, the context Tab disappears.

The Mailings Tab contains controls for creating mail merge documents. This involves the combination of a data document, which normally contain a list of recipients, with a main document, which is normally a letter, to produce a series of personalised mail merge documents which can then be sent out to each recipient.

Another example of a context sensitive Tab is the one which appears when you insert a text box. Having drawn the text box, a special tab appears for formatting text boxes. Once again, when you click outside this to deselected it, the context Tab disappears.

The writer of this article is a developer and trainer with a UK IT training company offering Microsoft Word 2007 Classes, as well as Word VBA training in London and throughout the UK.

Microsoft Word 2007: The Ribbon

The ribbon is the most important aspect of the Microsoft Word interface. It contains the vast majority of the commands that the program has to offer. These commands are arranged in a series of tabs. To activate a tab, simply click on its name. The commands displayed in each tab are related in some way. For example, the commands in the Home tab are those which are most frequently used in Microsoft Word: commands such as Cut, Copy And Paste and commands for changing the character and paragraph attributes of your text.

The Insert tab features commands for adding elements to your page such as tables, pictures, headers and footers.

The Page Layout tab is home to commands relating to the formatting of the page as a whole, such as the orientation and margins.

The References tab contains controls for adding references to longer documents such as tables of contents and indexes.

The Mailings tab contains Word’s options for creating mail merge documents. This involves a combination of a data document, which normally contain a list of recipients, with a main document, which is normally a letter, to produce a series of personalised mail merge documents which can then be sent out to each recipient.

The Review tab has various tools for proofing your document. Here, you can check your spelling and grammar and also you have tools for reviewing a document by adding comments and then tracking these comments as the document is passed from person to person.

The View tab contains all the options for displaying the document in various ways. It also houses controls for zooming in and out

Finally, the developer tab contains controls for creating and editing macros and Visual Basic.

The controls in each tab are arranged into named groups. For example, the groups in the Home tab are Clipboard, Font, Paragraph, Styles and Editing. As always in Microsoft applications, placing the mouse over a control causes a tool-tip to be displayed. In the case of Office 2007, these tool-tips are quite extensive. They contain a description of how the control works, what it does and the keyboard shortcut which is equivalent to clicking on that control.

As well as the regular ribbon tabs, Word also has context sensitive tabs. These are tabs which only become visible in a certain context. For example, whenever you insert a table, you will notice that Word immediately displays two context sensitive tabs relating to tables: Design and Layout. As long any element within the table is highlighted, these tabs will remain visible and they have the same status as the regular tabs. However, as soon as you click outside the table to deselect it, the context sensitive tabs relating to tables will disappear.

Author is a developer and trainer with TrainingCompany.Com, an independent computer training company offering Microsoft Word 2007 training courses at their central London training centre.

Keyboard Shortcuts For Highlighting Text In Microsoft Word

As well as using the mouse, Microsoft Word 2007 contains a number of useful options for selecting text via the keyboard. Most of these options involve using the Shift key in conjunction with other keys. However, there are also some techniques which rely entirely on the keyboard.

Shift-click

One such technique is click followed by Shift-click. To use this technique, click to mark the start of the area that needs to be highlighted. Next, hold down the Shift key and click to mark the point where you want the highlighting to end. All text between the two clicks will then be highlighted.

Using Shift with the cursor keys

The Shift key can also be used in conjunction with the Control key. For example, beginning at the start of the document, if you hold down Control and Shift and press the right arrow, you will select word by word instead of character by character. Similarly if you press Control, Shift and the down arrow, you select paragraph by paragraph.

Using the Home and End keys

As well as using the cursor keys you can also use Home and End. For example, if the cursor is positioned in the middle of a line, pressing Shift and Home will select from the cursor position to the start of the line; while pressing Shift and End will select from the cursor position to the end of the line.

As well as using Shift, you can use Control-Shift. Control-Shift Home will select from the cursor position to the start of the document. Control-Shift end will select from the cursor position to the end of the document.

Making discontiguous selections

As well as using Shift, you can use Control-Shift. Control-Shift Home will select from the cursor position to the start of the document. Control-Shift end will select from the cursor position to the end of the document.

Making discontiguous selections

One final highlighting technique definitely worth mentioning is the use of the Control key in conjunction with the mouse. This enables you to make discontiguous selections: in other words, selection that have gaps. For example if we want to select just the headings in a particular document, you can drag across the first heading to select it; hold down the Control key and drag across each of the other headings. You will notice that the headings will be selected while the text between them is not. You can then change the format of your headings and none of the other text will affected.