Menu Bar > Ribbon
The Ribbon at the top of the program window groups commands and presents them in the open, rather than hiding them inside drop-down menus and toolbars.
If you find it takes up too much space, you can shrink the Ribbon:
Double-click the active tab (the one in front at the moment). You can still click any tab to open it and choose a command. The ribbon closes back up after you’ve finished. Double-click the active tab again to restore the ribbon to full size.
- 7 main Tabs, holding groupings of tasks (with maybe other Developer and Add-Ins choices, as in the illustration)
- Groups: Along the bottom of each tab, showing options or commands related to a task —
groups shown above are Clipboard, Font, Paragraph, Styles, and Editing
- Commands: A button, a box to enter information, a menu, or a combination.
The Quick Launch toolbar
Next to the Office button at the top left of the ribbon, holds common commands.
By default, the icons on Quick Launch are Save, Undo and Redo.
Add to or change the commands listed by clicking the down arrow to the right of the toolbar. The Quick Launch toolbar in the Ribbon illustration has three extra commands.
The Dialog Box launcher
A right-pointing arrow in the lower right of a ribbon group.
Click it to open additional choices for the group. For instance, the arrow under Word’s and Excel’s Font group (shown in the Ribbon illustration) opens up a window (shown to the right) containing a familiar set of font options: Strikethrough, Subscript, etc.
