Office 2007 Bible

Chapter 2. Navigating in the New Office

In This Chapter

Discoverability The “results-oriented” interface Ribbons and other new things The Office button Reviewing your options Working in dialog boxes

Welcome to Oz. Whether you’re a brand-new user to the Office applications or a veteran Office user, this chapter bids you welcome to the 2007 version. If you’re new to Office 2007, this chapter provides an overview of what very likely is a user interface unlike any you’ve encountered previously.

If you’re completely new to Office and have been using other applications such as WordPerfect or 1-2-3, you’re likely more accustomed to toolbars and menus than you are to Office 2007’s Ribbons, so when I contrast Office 2007’s Ribbons with the previous interface, you’ll likely immediately grasp just how different the primary Office 2007 applications are, even if you never touched an Office 2003 program.

The Ribbon is a completely new way of presenting tools and features to users of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access. (Outlook message windows use the Ribbon, too.) Briefly, the Ribbon is a set of contextual tools designed to put what you need where you need it when you need it. When you click one of the major tabs on the Ribbon, the tools you need for specific tasks should mostly be right where you need them. The ideal result is that you don’t need to go looking for what you want.

In fact, the Ribbon might actually be considered a new kind of toolbar. Instead of a list of different toolbars accessed ...