SharePoint 2010 : Use the Ribbon

The control that allows you to switch between ribbons is usually shown at the top of the page, listing the names of the available ribbons as tabs. For example, in most pages, you see the tab for Browse (see Figure 1). (This tab shows the navigation ribbon that contains the site title, breadcrumbs, and top-level navigation.

Figure 1. The ribbon interface, showing the Browse ribbon and buttons to switch to other available ribbons.

To switch between ribbons, click on the name of the ribbon to which you want to switch. For example, when viewing a site’s home page, you can usually switch to the Page ribbon to see buttons that allow you to e-mail a link to the page or make the page your browser’s home page.

Some ribbons have several tabs in them, with each tab presenting different buttons. An example of this is the Calendar Tools ribbon in a calendar list. This ribbon has two tabs: Events and Calendar (see Figure 2). Because these tabs are also containers of buttons and look like all the other ribbons, we refer to them as subribbons in this book. To navigate to a subribbon, simply click on the title for that subribbon, the same way you would with a regular ribbon. The only difference is that you cannot click on the parent ribbon itself; you must click on one of the subribbons.

Figure 2. The Calendar Tools ribbon, with its two subribbons, Events and Calendar.

The ribbons provide links and buttons to different functionality. However, sometimes your screen is not big enough to display all the buttons that appear on a ribbon. This is why the ribbon is split into sections, as shown in Figure 2. The sections group various buttons and controls together.

If the screen is not big enough to display all buttons in all sections, SharePoint automatically shrinks as many sections as needed so that the sections are still visible, and the buttons are accessible through a section button. Figure 3 shows an example of this, with the same page as shown in Figure 2 displayed in a much smaller screen. As you can see, the Scope section is compressed to display the buttons without their text next to them, and the Expand section is shown collapsed, as a button. Clicking on the Expand button reveals the two buttons that exist in that section, as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 3. The Calendar subribbon, in a smaller screen, showing the Scope and Expand sections compressed to save screen space.

Figure 4. The Expand section as a drop-down button, showing the buttons under it when pressed.

Note

The images in this book were taken on a small screen to make them easier to read. If you have a bigger screen, the ribbons shown on your screen will probably show more buttons, and they will be bigger.

When you want to return to the default ribbon to see the navigation toolbars, click on the Browse tab, and the navigation ribbon appears again.