Office Button – The office button replaces the “File” menu in previous versions of Office. This button allows access to basic functions such as New, Open, Save, and Print. In addition, you can configure each application by clicking Options from within the Office Button window.

Quick Access Toolbar – This area of the ribbon is a great place to put all the actions you use the most frequently. In order to add or remove items from this toolbar, click on the down arrow on the right side of the toolbar. You can add items from the Office Button, as well as any icon located within and Tab, Group, or Dialog Box within the application.

Tabs – The screenshot above shows the ribbon items for the Home tab. The Home tab includes the most essential (or often used) groups of actions for each different application. While most of the common actions are located within a group in the Home tab, you will need to venture into other tabs to discover more groups of actions. For example, in order to insert a picture or table into your document, you will need to click on the Insert tab and find the appropriate group of icons.

Groups – Each tab includes several Groups, which are sub-categories within the tab and delineated by a thin border line. Each group contains several icons or interactive elements, pertaining to that group. In the screenshot above, the Font group includes icons for bold, underline, and italics, font size, color, etc.

Dialog Boxes – If you cannot find the desired icon within a Tab and Group that corresponds with your task, open the Dialog Box for that Group. To open a Dialog Box, click on the small square and arrow icon at the bottom right corner of the group.

Contextual Tools – Contextual tools are simply special Tabs that appear only when you need them. For example, if you insert a picture (from the insert tab) and then click on the inserted picture, the “Picture Tools” Contextual Tool will appear. As illustrated above, a corresponding Format tab appears beneath the Picture Tools… tool. Clicking on either Picture Tools OR Format will open the picture formatting tab.

Office 2007 Keyboard Shortcuts:

If you are a keyboard shortcut expert, and you use the menu shortcuts in Microsoft Office regularly (eg: ALT + E to open edit menu), please be advised that the menus (and thus menu shortcuts) are no longer visible.

While most of the previous menu shortcuts still work, Office 2007 employs a new system for keyboard shortcuts, which may take some time to learn.

In previous versions of Office, pressing ALT + E opened the Edit menu, after which you could press the underlined letter in a command on the menu. In Office 2007, pressing ALT + E will no longer open a menu; instead, a message will appear, notifying the user that an Office 2003 access key was activated, and to press ESC to cancel. If you know the key sequence you want, continue as you would normally in previous versions of office. Please note: you will not see any visual feedback or help, so you must perform these shortcuts from memory.

In Office 2007, the keyboard shortcut system appears by pressing ALT alone. At this point you can select a Tab or Quick Launch item (indicated in green below), using the corresponding letter or number. After selecting a Tab (eg: H for Home), all commands within the Home Tab will now contain keyboard shortcuts (indicated in red below). Pressing ESC will return to the previous level of keyboard shortcuts (eg: return to the green shortcuts from the red shortcuts below).

Additional Keyboard Navigation:

In addition to using the old and/or new keyboard shortcut methods, you can also press F6 to cycle through different sections of each application. Moreover, you can cycle through each icon within the Ribbon, using the Tab key (as illustrated below).

For a complete list of keyboard shortcuts (for example CTRL + B for bold), click the Help Button in the upper-right corner of each Office 2007 application, and search for “Keyboard Shortcuts”