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Microsoft has done a great job with the new graphic user
interface in Microsoft Office 2007. It has a brand new look and
feel. The focus behind the change is an optimized, task
oriented approach which translates to better documents
prepared in less time. Let us take a look at some of these new
features in Microsoft Word 2007:
- Office Button
- The Ribbon
- Quick Access Toolbar
- Mini Toolbar
- Shortcut Menu
Office ButtonThe Office
Button in Microsoft Word 2007 replaces the File menu available
in previous versions of Word. The new Office Button is shown
below.
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The Office
Button provides functionality common to all Office
applications, including opening, saving, printing, and closing
a file. Commands are listed on the left, and recently opened
documents appear on the right side. When I click on the
Office Button in Microsoft Word 2007, this is what I see:
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As you click on
the various commands, you will be given related options. For
example, when I selected the Print command, I was given the
flyout menu with additional print options like Print, Quick
Print and Print Preview. Here is a screen shot shown
below.
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The Ribbon:
In Microsoft Word 2007, the old Menus and the Toolbars have
been replaced by what's called the Ribbon. The Ribbon is what
Microsoft is calling the new user interface. The idea is to
give the application user a task oriented user interface where
one will spend more time working on the actual document and
less time looking for specific commands. Here is a
screen shot of what the Ribbon looks like.
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The Ribbon in
Microsoft Word 2007 is broken down into Tabs that deal
specifically with a certain task. For example if you're trying
to insert an object, you will find the related commands under
the Insert Tab. The tabs are further broken down into
logical groups. For example if you're in the Home Tab, all the
text formatting commands will be found under the Font group.
The Tab (top) and the Group (bottom) areas are
shown in the figure below and highlighted using red
rectangles.
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| Quick Access Toolbar:The next new
feature in Microsoft Word 2007 that we are going to look at is
the Quick Access Toolbar. The Quick Access Toolbar is a global
toolbar which is present regardless of what tab you are on.
Out of the box, Quick Access Toolbar has the Save, Undo, and
Redo commands. Here is what the Quick Access Toolbar looks
like on my screen.
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You can customize the Quick Access
Toolbar to add the more often used commands. Let us say that
you wanted to add the Bold command to this Quick Access
Toolbar. If you can, browse to the Home Tab and then the Font
group. Next, move the mouse over the bold icon, right click and
then select Add to Quick Access Toolbar. This will add the
Bold command to the quick access toolbar and will be
present at all times. This is shown below in the next two
figures.
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Mini Toolbar:The Mini Toolbar is
also a big time saver as it also contains commonly used
commands in Microsoft Word 2007. If you highlight some text
using the mouse, you will see a faded Mini toolbar. As
you move the mouse towards the faded area, it will become
solid and then you can select one of the commands on it.
Here is a screen shot of what I'm talking about.
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Example:
we're going to change the color of the quoted article to blue.
In order to do this I'm going to highlight text and then use
the Mini Toolbar to change the font color. This is shown below
in the illustration.
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| Shortcut Menu: The last
thing I want to cover is the Shortcut Menu sometimes known as
the Right Click Menu or Context Menu. The concept for the
shortcut menu is similar to the Mini Toolbar. The idea is to
have common commands available to you as you're working on
your document. However there is one BIG difference. The
Shortcut Menu changes depending what screen and application you
are in. On the other hand, the Mini Toolbar does not
change. Here is a screen shot of what it looks like on my
document.
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If you
notice the Shortcut Menu not only has formatting commands for
text, paragraphs settings, line numbering etc. you can also
view features such as finding synonyms, translating to
another language, inserting a hyperlink and reference features.
Also notice that on top of the shortcut menu, you will find
the Mini Toolbar for easy access and use.
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If you are
unable to find the information you are looking
for, please visit Microsoft's Word home page
