Menus, Toolbars, and Understanding the Ribbon

Menus and Toolbars

Menu

  • The menu bar is located at the top of the window and allows you to access to specific commands
  • If command is grey it cannot be used at the time
  • If command is followed by ellipsis, clicking on command opens a dialog box with further option

Toolbars

Microsoft Word 2011 has three toolbars

  • Standard Toolbar: located above the Ribbon

  • Formatting Toolbar
  • Database Toolbar

 

Understand the Ribbon

Ribbon Design Goals

  • The most frequently accessed commands are no more than two clicks away (one click on the Ribbon tab, one click on the command)
  • Arrange the commands in the logical order to use most likely when creating a document

 

Overview of the Ribbon

  • Home Tab – contains font, paragraph, styles, insert and themes groups

  • Layout Tab – contains page setup, margins, text layout, page background, and grid groups

  • Document Elements Tab – contains insert pages, table of contents, Header and Footer, citations, references, text elements, and math groups

  • Tables Tab – enables you to insert and edit tables quickly through table option, table styles and draw borders groups

  • Table Layout – contains options to format tables once they have been created

  • Chart Tab – allows you to insert and edit charts through insert chart, data, chart quick layouts, and chart styles groups

  • Chart Layout Tab – contains tools to edit chart’s layout once they have been created

  • Chart Format Tab – contains tools to format charts once they have been created

  • SmartArt Tab – contains insert SmartArt graphic, edit SmartArt, SmartArt graphic styles, and reset groups

  • SmartArt Format Tab – allows you to format SmartArt after it has been created

  • Review Tab – allows you to access tools to add comments or mark changes, also to share documents and add protection

  • Format Picture Tab – displayed when you have inserted an image into a word document, it gives you the options to adjust the image, including the option to crop an image, choose image style, and arrange image placement and sixing options

  • Header and Footer Tab – displayed when a Header or Footer is selected, contains options to adjust your Header and Footers

  • Format Tab – appears when items such as shapes or word are selected, allows you to format these objects within the document

 

Command Groups

On the Ribbon, there are certain groups which are expandable to view more options, these groups have a small diagonal arrow in the lower-right corner

  • Select these diagonal arrows, also known as dialog box Launchers, to expand
  • Not all items have expandable options and for those no dialog box Launcher will appear

 

How to Use the Ribbon

  • Moves along with the process of creating a document
  • On each tab, the commands used most frequently are at the left of the tab to less frequently used commands through the tab
  • All the commands are arranged in groups

 

Minimize/Maximize the Ribbon

  • Hide the entire Ribbon
    • Click on the currently open tab, which will hide the ribbon
    • On the right side of the Ribbon, click to minimize the Ribbon (only Command tabs appear)

TIP       To access to any commands on the hidden Ribbon, select View > click on Ribbon, a check mark will appear on the right if the Ribbon is displayed

  • To display the entire Ribbonagain:
    • Click on any tab
    • On the right side of the Ribbon, click  to expand the Ribbon to see commands in Command groups under selected tab press OPTION+COMMAND(⌘)+R to hide or to display the Ribbon