Microsoft® Access® 2010 24-Hour Trainer

5

The Access 2010 Ribbon

The Ribbon was introduced originally in Access 2007 at the same time it was released in the other core Office products, such as Word and Excel. The Ribbon is a replacement for the Windows-style toolbar menu system and custom command bars that are standard in most Windows programs. More importantly for Access users, the Ribbon is a menu system that is proprietary to the Microsoft Office applications and supplies much of the functionality for building database applications in Access 2010.

Ribbons are context driven and change depending on the state of the program or what action has been taken. In theory, this design puts the commands needed to perform common tasks just a mouse click away. The Ribbon can also be customized by the developer of a database application and, using VBA code or macros, can provide custom functionality right in place with the standard Access menu commands, or even all alone on separate Ribbons.

If you are not familiar with the Ribbon, finding items on it may seem awkward. As you continue using it, navigating Access using the Ribbon becomes second nature. In this lesson, you learn about the basic parts of the Access 2010 Ribbon and use some of the commands it provides in the examples.

LESSON SETUP

In this lesson you become familiar with the Ribbon's basic features. This lesson describes how the Ribbon is organized, its functions and features, and how to use the keyboard shortcuts. You should be familiar with Access database files and ...