Understanding Word's New "Ribbon"

Believe it or not, Microsoft actually used logic to organize the new "Ribbon" found in the 2007 edition of all Microsoft Office programs. In this article, I'll explain the logic behind Word's ribbon.

The file menu has been replaced by the big round button in the upper left corner of the screen with the Microsoft Office logo on it. Click this button to perform tasks related to the document as a whole (printing, saving the document under another filename, etc.).

The Home tab on the ribbon contains buttons related to working with document content. These buttons are organized into five groups: Clipboard, Font, Paragraph, Styles, and Editing. Only buttons representing commands that can be performed on the currently selected document are active (this applies to all the tabs on Word's "Ribbon").

The Insert tab holds seven groups of buttons related to all the items you can insert. The groups are Pages, Tables, Illustrations, Links, Header & Footer, Text, and Symbols.

The Page Layout tab contains five groups of buttons related to the appearance of your document: Themes, Page Setup, Page Background, Paragraph, and Arrange. Another new feature of Word is Live Preview. If you go into Themes, for example, and hover over one of the themes available, that theme will be "temporarily" applied to your document so you can preview how it will look.

On the References tab, you will find six groups of buttons related to items you can add to long documents, such as reports. The six groups are Table of Contents, Footnotes, Citations and Bibliography, Captions, Index, and Table of Authorities.

The Mailings tab has five groups of buttons related to mass mailings: Create, Start Mail Merge, Write and Insert Fields, Preview Results, and Finish. The Review tab has six groups of buttons related to proofing, commenting, tracking changes, comparing, and protecting documents.

The last tab is the View tab. It contains five groups of buttons: Document Views, Show/Hide, Zoom, Window, and Macros.

Still confused? Me too. The new Ribbon in Microsoft Office 2007 may take some getting used to. My hope is that by understanding the logic behind it, we won't have to stumble around quite as much.