Microsoft® Word 2007 Bible

Chapter 1. Brave New Word

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Discoverability

• The "results-oriented" interface

• Ribbons and other new things

• The Office button

• Reviewing your options

Welcome to Oz. Whether you're a brand-new user to Word or a veteran Word user, this chapter bids you welcome to Word 2007. If you're new to Office 2007, this chapter provides an overview of what very likely is a user interface unlike any you've encountered previously.

If you're completely new to Word and have been using another Windows word processor such as WordPerfect or OpenOffice, you're likely more accustomed to toolbars and menus than you are to Word 2007's ribbons, so when I contrast Word 2007's ribbons with Word's previous interface, you'll likely immediately grasp just how different Word 2007 is, even if you never touched Word 2003.

The ribbon is a completely new way of presenting tools and features to the Word user. Briefly, the ribbon is a set of contextual tools designed to put what you need where you need it when you need it. When you click one of the major tabs on the ribbon, the tools you need for specific tasks should mostly be right where you need them. The ideal result is that you don't need to go looking for what you want.

In fact, the ribbon might actually be considered a new kind of toolbar. Instead of a list of different toolbars accessed from the View menu, however, the different parts of the ribbon are organized into tabs and groups. The result is that more of the tools are exposed to you, making it more likely ...