An archeologist looking at the evolution of
Microsoft Office would no doubt divide its timeline neatly into two
eras: The Menu-Toolbar Era lasted from the early 1990s through Office
2003. The emergence of Office 2007 marked the dawn of the Ribbon Era.
In this section, we
introduce these common features and explain how to use each one. We
also describe the best ways to customize and personalize the Office
interface.
1. Using the Ribbon
Without question, the ribbon
marked a radical change in appearance for the Office interface. If your
time with Office began in 2006 or earlier, you learned how to navigate
through the program by using drop-down menus that were essentially
lists of commands under a group of headings: File, Edit, View, and so
on.
Despite the visual differences between the ribbon and the old-style menus, their basic functionality isn’t all that different. Tabs
on the ribbon function in much the same way as the top-level menu
choices do, and commands are arranged into groupings in a manner that’s
like cascading menus. One benefit of this big switch was that it
created an opportunity to reorganize the overall menu structure
into a more modern arrangement. For example, many of the commands on
the Edit and Format menus in Office 2003 are consolidated, logically,
on the Home tab in Office 2010.
The key to using the
ribbon effectively is to understand how it’s organized and learn how it
works. As we noted earlier, the ribbon is divided into tabs, each with
its own heading. Every program contains a default set of tabs that are
available at all times. Figure 1 shows the References tab from Word 2010, which contains 20 or so visible commands organized into six groups.
When a program window is
maximized on a large monitor, you can see a mix of large icons, small
icons, and labels designed to make it easier to see these groupings at
a glance. But something interesting happens to the ribbon when you
resize a program window. The order of groups (and of commands within
each group) remains the same, but the labels alongside some commands
disappear, and some commands are moved to drop-down menus to
accommodate the horizontal space available. In a narrow window, the
choices available on the Reference tab are the same, but the groups are
compressed, as shown here.
In addition to the default
tabs, context-sensitive tabs appear at the right side of the ribbon
when needed. If you insert a picture into a Word document and click to
select the picture, the Picture Tools tab appears at the end of the
ribbon, identified by a distinctive color-coded group name in the title
bar, as shown in Figure 2.
In the lower right corner
of some command groups, you might see a button that looks like a tiny
arrow pointing down and to the right. These dialog box launchers enable
access to settings that aren’t available through the ribbon itself.
Clicking the dialog box launcher below the Picture Styles command group
(shown in Figure 2), for example, opens the Format Picture dialog box.
Every Office program
includes an enormous selection of tabs, most of them dedicated to
groups of features that are specific to that program. A handful of
default main tabs are available in multiple programs and are described
in Table 1.
Table 1. Features, Tools, and Commands Available on Common Ribbon Tabs
| Tab Name | Contents |
|---|
| Home | Basic editing and formatting tools, as well as the Clipboard and find/replace functions. Outlook has seven task-specific Home tabs to cover individual item types (e-mail messages, contacts, appointments, and so on). |
| Insert | Insert and edit tables, charts, shapes, text boxes, and all types of images. This tab also provides access to tools for inserting symbols and creating and editing hyperlinks. |
| Review | Basic proofing (spelling, grammar) and reference (dictionary, thesaurus) tools, language tools, and commands to add sticky-note comments. This tab also includes file-comparison and change-tracking options. |
| View | Switch between views (Normal, Reading, Outline), show rulers and gridlines, zoom a document, arrange and switch between windows, and view or record macros. |
| Developer | Normally hidden, this tab contains tools for working with Visual Basic code and macros and managing add-ins. Tools for building custom forms in Outlook are here, as is access to document templates and the Document Panel. |
| Add-Ins | If you install a third-party add-in or template that creates its own custom tabs, they appear here. |
Most Office programs also share dedicated Tools tabs for working with equations, tables, pictures, SmartArt diagrams and charts, and ink objects (which must be created on a tablet or touch-enabled PC but can be viewed and edited on any Windows computer). The Drawing Tools tab contains tools for inserting, arranging, formatting, and resizing shapes and text boxes. A set of Background Removal tools appears on its own tab if you select a picture and click the Remove Background option on the Picture Tools tab.
Tip: INSIDE OUT Auto-hide the ribbonWhen you want to use as much screen real estate as possible for your document, the ribbon
can feel like a space hog. For those occasions, the solution is simple:
click the small, upward-facing arrow at the far right of the row of tab
names, just to the left of the Help button. (You can also right-click
any part of the ribbon and then click Minimize The Ribbon
on the shortcut menu, double-click the heading for the active tab, or
press Ctrl+F1 to achieve the same effect.) Minimizing the ribbon
hides its contents, leaving only the tab names behind in an arrangement
that looks surprisingly like the old-style Office menu bar. Click any
tab name to show the contents of that tab so you can use those groups
of commands. Click anywhere in the document to hide the ribbon again.
Click the downward-facing arrow or double-click any tab name to expand
the ribbon to its normal height.
2. Galleries and Live Previews
If the ribbon were merely
menus turned on their side, it would be mildly interesting but not
worth more than a few seconds’ thought. What makes the ribbon much more
interesting in everyday use is its ability to help you pick from
collections of defined formatting options called galleries and see the effects of those changes on your document using Live Preview.
Some live
previews are supremely simple. The Fonts list in all Office programs,
for example, displays each font name in the font it represents; when
you hover the mouse pointer over a font name, the current text
selection changes to that font. Move the mouse away, and the font
returns to its current setting; click the font name to apply it. The
same is true of font attributes, colors (for fonts or backgrounds),
tables (in Excel), styles (in Word and Excel), and transitions in
PowerPoint, among other elements.
After inserting a picture into a document, you can use the Quick Styles gallery on the Picture Tools tab to apply a preset border and shadow to it, as in the example in Figure 3.
You can see a similarly compelling effect using the galleries that apply themes (collections of colors, fonts, and effects) to an entire document, workbook, or presentation. The Themes galleries are on the Page Layout tab in Word and Excel and on the Design tab in PowerPoint.
In some (but not all) galleries,
you can tweak an existing entry or create a new one from scratch and
save the result as a custom entry in the list. If this option is
available, you see a Save option in the gallery itself, and any custom
items you create appear in a separate section of the gallery. Figure 4 shows a custom theme saved to the Word Themes gallery.
Tip: INSIDE OUT Add a gallery to the Quick Access ToolbarAlthough
the most obvious use of the Quick Access Toolbar is to save shortcuts
to individual commands, you can also use this slim strip of screen real
estate to save shortcuts to entire galleries.
The gallery appears on the Quick Access Toolbar as an icon with a small
black arrow to its right; click the icon to display the gallery’s
contents in a visual list, just as it would appear had you switched to
the appropriate tab and unfurled the gallery directly. To add a gallery
to the Quick Access Toolbar, right-click the main command button for
the gallery, and then click Add To Quick Access Toolbar. If you
right-click within the gallery itself, the command is Add Gallery To
Quick Access Toolbar. The effect is the same either way.
If you find Live
Preview annoying or distracting, you can turn it off on a
program-by-program basis. Click File, and then click Options. On the
General tab, under the User Interface Options heading, clear the Enable
Live Preview option.
3. Personalizing the Ribbon
One of the most vociferous
complaints about the ribbon when it first appeared in Office 2007 was
its inflexibility. Customization options required specialized tools and
a programmer’s skills. In Office 2010, that situation is dramatically
changed. Within each program, the ribbon can be extensively customized.
The starting point for all ribbon customizations is the dialog box shown in Figure 5.
Right-click any empty space on the ribbon, and then click Customize The
Ribbon on the shortcut menu. You can also click File, click Options,
and then select the Customize Ribbon tab. This example is taken from
OneNote, but the overall appearance and general operation of the
Customize The Ribbon page are the same in all five Office programs.
The Choose Commands
From list above the left column allows you to control which items are
shown in the list beneath it. You can choose Popular Commands to show a
filtered list, show all commands, or restrict the display to commands
that are not available on any default tab. Use one of the tabs options
(All Tabs, Main Tabs, Tool Tabs, and so on) if you want to copy an
existing tab or group.
The Customize The Ribbon
list allows you to filter the choices shown in the column on the right.
You can choose All Tabs, Main Tabs, or Tool Tabs.
Here’s what you can and can’t do with the ribbon in all Office programs:
You can change the left-to-right order in which default and custom
tabs appear on the ribbon. If you want to move PowerPoint’s Slide Show
tab to the third position, after Home and Insert but before Design, you
can do that. To move a tab, select its entry in the Tabs list and drag
it up or down; alternatively, you can use the Move Up and Move Down
arrows on the right, or right-click and then click Move Up or Move Down
on the shortcut menu.
You cannot change the left-to-right order of the contextual tabs
that appear when you select a particular type of object or switch to a
different editing mode. The move options appear dimmed and are
unavailable for the shared Background Removal tab, for example, for the
Blog Post tab in Word, and for any of the options in the Tool Tabs
group for any program.
You can
hide individual tabs. The Developer tab is hidden as part of the
initial configuration in all programs. You can banish any other tab as
well by clearing its check box in the Tabs list. If you’re confident
that you will never use Word’s Mail Merge feature, you can banish the
Mailings tab. A hidden tab is not deleted, and it can be restored at
any time.
You can change the order of groups
within any tab, including default and contextual tabs. You can, for
example, move the Themes group from the left side of the Page Layout
tab in Word or Excel to the far right or to any position in the middle.
To do so, select the group and use the Move Up or Move Down button, or
right-click and use the equivalent choices on the shortcut menu.
You can
remove groups from any tab, including built-in tabs. Right-click the
group and click Remove. You can also move groups from one tab to
another by using the Move Up and Move Down buttons.
You cannot remove commands from a default group, nor can you rearrange the order of commands within such a group.
You can create one or more custom tabs for each program. Each new custom tab starts with one new custom group, which you can fill with individual commands. You can also add groups from any existing tab to a custom tab. Figure 6 shows the settings for a custom tab in Word, assembled from existing groups and individual commands. Figure 7 shows the resulting custom tab in Word.
You can
add one or more custom groups to any tab, including default, custom,
and contextual tabs. You can then fill those groups with any commands
available in the current program and position the custom group anywhere
on the tab. Use the New Group button to create a group; click Rename to
change the default label that appears beneath the group.
You can
rename any default tab or group. The new name can contain punctuation
and other special characters and has no practical restrictions on its
length. Select the item from the Tabs list, and then click the Rename
button to enter its new name.
You cannot change the name of a command in a default group, nor can you change the icon associated with a command.
You can
rename a command within a custom group. The Rename dialog box also
gives you the option to choose an alternative icon for the command.
You can use small icons without labels for all commands within a custom group. To do so, right-click the group name in the Tabs list and choose Hide Command Labels.
Tip:
INSIDE OUT A roundabout way to rearrange commandsAs we note here, the
option to rearrange commands is not available within default groups on
a built-in tab. But you can accomplish the same goal if you’re willing
to make it a multistep process. Start by creating a custom tab using
the same name as the one you want to clone (your copy is identified by
the Custom label after it). Rename the default custom group that’s
created to match the name of the first group you want the tab to
contain. Next, choose All Tabs from the list above the left column. In
that list, select the first command from the first group on the tab you
want to clone, and then click Add. Continue clicking Add until you’ve
created a clone of the existing group. Repeat this process for each
additional group and tab, and then use the basic customization tools to
remove unwanted commands and adjust the order of other commands. Hide
or remove the built-in tab or group and move your custom clone to its
position.
If you find that you’ve made a mess of the ribbon
and you want to start over, click the Reset button beneath the Tabs
list. The two options here allow you to reset changes for a single tab
or remove all customizations. Beware, though: the latter option resets
the Quick Access Toolbar as well!
And one final word on the
subject: Just because you can tweak the ribbon doesn’t mean you should.
Using a nonstandard, heavily customized layout means that you’re likely
to be unproductive, at least briefly, whenever you sit down to work
with a PC that uses an unmodified ribbon. You’ll also have to remember
to save your customizations in a safe place so that you can apply them
if you replace your PC or reinstall Office.
