How things are organized

So your first question might be, why did Microsoft redesign Office? It worked fine before.

Well, the answer is, simply, to make the programs easier to use.

Of course, you can work any way you want, but the commands I use most often are right there on the page.

First, there is the right-click menu.

Then, there is something new, called the mini-toolbar, which appears when you hold the mouse pointer over a selection.

The commands I use fairly often are located on the ribbon.

The ribbon commands are organized into tabs, and tab commands are organized into groups.

The commands I use less often can be found by clicking one of these little arrows. They open up dialog boxes.

Look familiar?

Many of them are identical to the ones you used in Word 2003.

Finally, to get to the commands I use least often, go to the backstage.

And by “least often” I mean things I don’t need to get to as much. This is where you Open, Save, Share, and Export files.

For example, you click Print to see a print preview, set up your printer and print your document.

The options I use even less frequently are here in Options.

This is where you set up General Word preferences.

Options is also where you come to Customize Ribbon, if there are certain commands you want quicker access to.

So that’s basically how things are organized. Up next, we’ll take a closer look at the ribbon.