Microsoft Office Reference Guide

Mar 26, 2004

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It seems like quite a while ago that I wrote my preview of the next version of Office — it was then called Office 12 — I managed to get some screenshots of new features in an update written in September of 2006 from the Product Development Conference in Los Angeles.

At the time I remember being quite stunned by the interface changes in the new version of Office, but now with its simultaneous release with Vista, a brand new OS, it seems appropriate to welcome in the new year with a thorough introduction to the next version of Microsoft Office.

I am sure that many of you have either downloaded the beta or considered deployment while others wonder whether the cost and features will justify such an investment.

Getting Used to the Ribbon

As anyone using a PC has doubtless hear, Office 2007 promises to make the tools more accessible to users through an entirely new interface using what is known as a "Ribbon."

In many work environments where users have become proficient with previous versions it would not take a soothsayer to predict that some information workers will become frustrated their first few days after deploying Office 2007.

"Where are my menus and toolbars," I can just hear them exclaiming as they search for features that they are used to having at their fingertips.

Now that I have had occasion to work with Office 2007 for a bit, I can say with confidence that nothing of importance has been lost, and that once you get used to the work flow of the Ribbon, you will probably get to like it.

Before going any further, let's examine the Word 2007 ribbon from the final beta.

Figure 1161

The key to the Ribbon, which you will also find in Excel and PowerPoint, but not in Access, Publisher, OneNote or Outlook, are the contextual tabs at the top — which look like menus but aren't.

In the figure above, the main Home tab is active (by default) when the program opens). This has many of the familiar features of the formatting and standard toolbars.

If you continue to click through the tabs at the top, going on to Insert you can see more of the familiar formatting options along with some of the new features of Word 2007.

Figure 1162

The intent of the Ribbon is to somewhat simulate a typical work flow for an Office user, so that after opening or creating a document, he or she can insert components, like a table, which is in the Insert tab.

If you insert a table, the beginning steps are familiar, as you can quickly set the number of columns and rows.

But notice what has happened to the Ribbon — contextually it has opened the Table design tab for you, along with exposing a Gallery of quick formats to apply to the table.

As you go through the gallery with your mouse, Office 2007's Quick Preview feature shows you what the table will look like if and when that table style is applied.

Figure 1163

That's the basic idea of Ribbon 101 — as you work and select items in your document (or slide show or spreadsheet), relevant formatting options become available automatically.

But what if you forget where they are?

Surviving an Upgrade

Let's consider an office worker new to deployment of Office 2007 who is on a deadline and wants to quickly revise a document that he or she has opened from a prior installation of Office.

First of all, you should be aware that such documents will be opened in Compatibility Mode, meaning that unless they are up converted to Office 2007 format they will remain accessible to prior versions.

So in a typical scenario let's say you got a table in a document to revise and weren't comfortable with the new Ribbon Table Design tab — the key here is to use Right-Click options.

What you will find is that throughout Office 2007 you will find familiar dialog boxes and options for most tasks by right-clicking, so that as in this figure, you can take advantage of simple reformatting of a table with a right-click in a cell.

Figure 1164

Let's examine another common scenario — Styles. Styles are back in the Home tab, as you may have noticed, but clicking the Styles drop down arrow may be confusing to experienced users.

What happens typically is that you are drawn to the Styles Gallery, which has some wonderful formatting options but will not show you the styles that came with the original document.

Figure 1165

You should know that these styles can be found and applied in the Apply Styles option, or by clicking the arrow on the lower right of the Styles tab.

Figure 1166

When you open that dialog box, you will be relieved to see that the specific styles saved with the original document from a prior version of Word are still available.

What else should you be aware of?

Chances are you will be looking for a View menu to change from one view to another, like Outline for example.

If you guessed that the View tab would afford you this option, you would be correct and once again relieved.

Figure 1167

But let me direct your attention to the lower right of the foregoing figure — there are quick View icons on the lower right of the Word 2007 window, along with a Zoom scrollbar that lets you quickly zoom in and out of the document (fabulous in PowerPoint).

The Office Button

Finally, when you're ready to save, there familiar Save icon is at the top of the window next to Undo and Redo.

But where the heck are Print and Open and other similar functions?

You can find these, along with a list of Recent Documents, by clicking the Office button on the top left.

Figure 1168

Hopefully this has served to reassure and prepare some of you for a potential move to Office 2007, and specifically Word. Next time we'll look at some of the new features that will justify such a move.

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