Basic Activities in Word 2010

1 Toolbars vs. the Ribbon

1.1 The Ribbon

If you’ve even just seen an Office 2010 window, you have encountered the ribbon. It
houses tabs with functional groupings of buttons and drop-down lists that are supposed
to be relevant to particular tasks. Some icons are bigger than others, and have been
engineered that way to add prominence to the most commonly used items. Below is the
ribbon that appears when a user has just opened a blank Word document.

1.1.1 Toggling the Ribbon

If you find the ribbon distracting or too space-consuming, toggle it out of sight using one
of these methods:

• Press CTRL-F1.
• Double-click on the current tab.

• Right-click on the row of tab labels or any item within a tab and choose
Minimize the Ribbon from the shortcut menu.

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• Use the reverse of any of the previously described methods to show the ribbon
again.

1.1.2 Using Ribbon Tabs and Groups

Instead of utilizing drop-down menus and dialogue boxes, the ribbon offers various
ribbon faces that are divided into activity groups. In the Home Ribbon tab, for instance,
users will find many of the familiar activities such as controls for the formatting of
document contents, controls for bulleted and numbered lists. Click a ribbon tab to
change the ribbon face to see other ribbons.

On each ribbon face, users will find groups of activities. Microsoft has replaced many of
the dialogue boxes that users would normally see with ribbon groups. For example the
Font group, circled above contains many of the activities that were formerly found in the
Format dialogue box. The former Font dialogue box contents are shown on the
following page.

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As you might expect, Word 2010 has many features, all of which cannot possibly be
accessed from icons on a ribbon. Many of the old dialogue boxes remain. Some of
them have been modified somewhat. Compare the new Font dialogue box with the
graphic of the old one on the previous page.

Many groups have a small arrow icon in the lower right corner of the group. When the
mouse pointer is hovered over this icon, the equivalent of a tool tip indicating the name
of the dialogue box that will be displayed appears. When a user clicks the icon, the
dialogue box is launched.

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1.1.3 Other Tabs

When a user is performing some specialized activity such as inserting an AutoShape,

other contextual tabs will be displayed to assist the user with the work at hand. In the
graphic below, the user is working on a graphic and Word is now displaying the Picture
Tools tab. The Picture Tools tab has many of the tools previously offered in the Picture
toolbar in version 2003. Users will also find a large number of additional features.

1.1.4 Even More Choices

Many contextual tab groups offer drop-down arrows that offer many more choices
about the activity currently being performed. For example, in the Picture Tools | Picture
Styles group, users will find a drop-down that allows them to choose a large number of
different styles for the picture on which they are currently working. These groups of
formatting and style choices are referred to as galleries.

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Many galleries also exhibit a feature called Live Preview. To use Live Preview, users
can activate a gallery and then hover their mouse over a choice offered in the gallery.
The work will quickly take on the new style or formatting. Live Preview gives users a
better chance to choose appropriate displays without returning repeatedly to the list of
choices.

Users will find the galleries offer a large, sometimes overwhelming number of choices
to change, enhance and produce professional looking work in Word.

1.2 Where have all the Tools Gone?

1.2.1 The File Ribbon Tab

In this version of Word most of the familiar and most commonly used tools have
disappeared from the working screen. Users are often confused by the lack of a Print,
Save, Open, New and other regularly used icons. All of these can be found under the
File ribbon tab. There really isn’t a file ribbon, however. Microsoft calls this the
Backstage View. In the backstage view, users can save, print, open and share
documents.

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1.3 How do I change my Options?

In the old Word, we could click the Tools menu choice to find the Options dialogue box
control. To perform the same types of activities, and more, in the new Word, click the
File tab and then Options choice as indicated below.

The Word Options dialogue box contains the functionality we were used to in the
previous version. We will explore a couple of the features below.

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1.3.1 Setting New Document Defaults

Use the Proofing button to edit the AutoCorrect Options and other basic options.

1.3.2 Default Saving Location and Format

Efficient users will cause their copy of Word to save in the correct location, such as on
a shared network drive or in a specified folder. The new version of Word also saves
files in a different format than previous versions. If workbooks are to be shared with
other users, they must also be using Office 2007 software to open and edit workbook
contents. If other users are working with previous versions of Word, the workbooks
must be saved in a format that is suitable for their software.

These activities can be controlled from the Save group in the Word Options window.

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1.4 The Quick Access Toolbar

To facilitate even more efficiency, Office 2010 products have the Quick Access toolbar
as illustrated below.

The default components of the Quick Access toolbar are the Save, Undo and Redo
controls. To add additional controls such as Open, Print, Print Preview and so on, users
can use the settings included in the File tab | Options I Quick Access Toolbar choices
or they can simply right-click on the Quick Access toolbar and choose Customize Quick
Access Toolbar.

For example, at times, we would like to see how our work would look if we printed it out.
This can be accomplished by using the Print Preview activity. Unfortunately, Print
Preview is not easy to get at in Office 2007. Since we intend to do this on a regular
basis we should customize the Quick Access toolbar to add the Print Preview icon to it.

1) Click the drop-down at the right end of the Quick Access toolbar.

2) Click Print Preview.

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3) The Print Preview icon will be added to your toolbar.

1.4.1 Removing an Icon from the Quick Access Toolbar

To remove an unwanted icon from the Quick Access toolbar, right-click on the icon and
click Remove from Quick Access Toolbar.

1.4.2 Additional Modifications to the Quick Access Toolbar

If the activity you need to add to the Quick Access toolbar is not shown on the quick
access list, it likely can be added from the Customize choices.

1) Click the drop-down at the right end of the Quick Access toolbar.

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2) Click More Commands.

3) Locate and double-click the command you wish to add.

4) Use the Move Up or Move Down arrow to adjust an entry’s position left to right on
the toolbar.

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5) Click OK to close the window and see the result of your work.

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