 The big button on the upper left-hand corner of the screen replaces the old File menu from previous versions of Word. You'll find familiar features for opening files, saving files, printing files and so on, but there's a lot more here as well, as you'll discover later in this guide.
Just to the right of the Office Button is the Quick Access toolbar, with buttons for using Word's most common features, including Save, Undo, Redo, Print Preview and more -- but you can add and remove buttons for any functions you please. More on that later.
Love it or hate it, the Ribbon is the main way you'll work with Word. Instead of old-style menus, in which menus have submenus, submenus have sub-submenus and so on, the Ribbon groups buttons for common tasks together in tabs on a graphical interface. So, for example, when you click the Insert tab, a Ribbon appears with buttons for items that you can insert into a document, such as clip art, a hyperlink, a picture or a table. Even if you hate the Ribbon, it can be your friend; check out the section "Learn to Love the Ribbon" for details.
This is largely unchanged from previous versions of Word; use it to scroll up and down. There are a couple of minor changes -- at the top, there's a small button that looks like a minus sign that lets you split your screen in two, and just below that, there's a small icon that displays or hides a ruler when you click it.
The View toolbar, which used to be on the lower left-hand side of the screen in earlier versions of Word, moves over to the right in Word 2007. It lets you choose between print layout, full screen, Web layout, outline and draft views, just as it did in earlier Word versions. There's also a nice addition -- a slider that lets you zoom in or out on your document.
This is in the same place as in earlier Word versions and has the same function -- to display information such as the number of pages in your document. It has one nice little extra: It displays the word count of your document as well. If you highlight an area of text, it will display the number of words in the highlighted area.
At first, the Ribbon may be offputting, but the truth is, once you learn to use it, you'll find that it's far easier to use than the old Word interface. It does take some getting used to, though. The Ribbon, by default, is divided into seven tabs, with an optional eighth one (Developer) that you can display by clicking the Office Button and choosing Word Options > Popular > Show Developer tab in the Ribbon.
Here's a rundown of the tabs and what each one does:
- This contains the most-used Word features, such as changing fonts and font attributes, customizing paragraphs, using styles, and finding and replacing text.
- As you might guess, this one handles anything you might want to insert into a document, such as tables, pictures, charts, hyperlinks, bookmarks, headers and footers, WordArt ... well, you get the idea.
- Here's where you'll change margins, page size and orientation, set up columns, align objects, add effects and so on. There are some gray areas between this tab and the Home tab. For example, on the Page Layout tab you set paragraph spacing and indents, while on the Home tab you set paragraph alignment and can also set spacing between lines.
- This tab handles tables of contents, footnotes, bibliographies, indexes and similar material. It also lets you insert a "Table of Authorities," which sounds like something straight out of a Soviet bureaucracy but in fact is a list of references in a legal document.
- As the name says, this is where you'll go for anything to do with mailings, from something as simple as creating labels to the more daunting task of mail merges.
- Need to check spelling and grammar, look up a word in a thesaurus, work in markup mode, review other people's markups or compare documents? This is the tab for you.
- Here's where to go when you want to change the view in any way, including displaying a ruler and grid lines, zooming in and out, splitting a window and so on.
- If you write code or create forms and applications for Word, this is your tab. It also includes macro handling, so power users might also want to visit here every once in a while.
Each tab along the Ribbon is organized to make it easy to get your work done. As you can see below, each tab is organized into a series of groups that contain related commands for getting something done -- in our example, handling fonts. Inside each group is a set of what Microsoft calls command buttons, which carry out commands, display menus and so on -- in the example, the featured command button changes the font size. There's also a small diagonal arrow in the bottom right corner of some groups that Microsoft calls a dialog box launcher. Click it to display more options related to the group.
When you’re working on a Word document, it often helps to see formatting marks. The formatting marks will show you spaces, returns, tab characters, and more. You can enable formatting marks in Word 2007 from the Home ribbon. In the Paragraph section, simply click the paragraph symbol. Clicking it again will disable the formatting marks. You can also have greater control over the formatting marks you see. For example, you can display just the spaces or tab characters, if you’d like. Simply follow these steps:
- Click the Office button
- Click Display
- Select the formatting marks you’d like to display
- Click OK
To disable the formatting marks, open the options again and deselect the formatting marks you want hidden.
Like previous versions of Microsoft Word, Word 2007 lets you divide your document into columns. This can enhance the formatting of your document. It is particularly useful if you’re creating a newsletter or similarly formatted document. To insert column in your Word document, follow these steps:
- Position your cursor where you would like to insert the columns
- Open the Page Layout ribbon
- In the Page Setup section, click Columns
- From the drop down menu, select the number of columns you’d like to insert
- Word will automatically insert the columns in your document.
Additionally, you may decide that you’d like to make one column shorter than the other. This can be done easily by inserting a column break. To insert a column break, follow these steps:
- Position your cursor where you would like to insert the column break
- Open the Page Layout ribbon
- In the Page Setup section, click Breaks
- From the drop down menu, select column
- Any text typed will begin in the next column. If there is already text following the cursor, it will be moved to the next column
You may not want the entire page to contain columns. In that case, you can simply insert a continuous break in your document. You can insert one before and one after the section that contains columns. This can add a dramatic effect to your document. To insert a continuous break, follow these steps:
- Position your cursor where you would like to insert the first break
- Open the Page Layout ribbon
- In the Page Setup section, click Breaks
- From the drop down menu, select continuous
- You can apply separate page setup formatting to different sections as you desire.
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