What Is The Ribbon In Microsoft Word 2007?

When Microsoft replaced menus and toolbars in Office 2007 with the Ribbon, it confused a lot of people, myself included. We didn’t want to give up the familiar look. For those of you who use Word 2007 or later, I have put together a short tutorial on what the Ribbon is all about. Hope it helps.

The Ribbon sits just below the Quick Access Toolbar and is divided into tabs. Each tab is divided into different sections, where similar commands are grouped. You can access more options by clicking on the arrow in the lower-right corner of a section, beside the section title. Look at the picture below and follow along as I explain each tab.

Home: contains formatting and editing icons

Insert: objects into the document, such as pictures, cover pages, header/footer, and page number

Page Layout: set margins, page orientation, line spacing, and indents

References: bibliographic tools, such as endnotes, footnotes, table of contents, index, and citations

Mailings: mail merge, labels, and envelopes

Review: spell check, thesaurus, comments, track changes

View: views of the document, zoom, macros, and switch windows icon to switch between open documents

The picture above is also showing you the tabs related to a table if you had inserted a table into your Word Document. Hence the tabs Design and Layout.

Did You Know There Is A Way To Boot Directly To Your Desktop With Windows 8.1

Windows 8 caused quite a stir for the average PC user when it started shipping with new PC's mid to late 2012.  When Microsoft decided to introduce a Start Screen instead of a Start Menu, it had users shaking their heads and asking "Where is my Desktop?". 

With the upgrade of 8.1, you can have your Desktop back again!  When the computer boots up to start screen, click on the tile called Desktop. This brings you to your desktop.  Look for the Taskbar. The Taskbar is the little ribbon that runs along the bottom of the screen in the Desktop.

Right click the Taskbar then click on Properties.  On the Navigation tab under start screen, check off When I Sign In or Close All Apps on Screen, Go To The Desktop Instead of Start.  Make sure everything else in the Start Screen Section is unchecked.  Then hit okay.  Next time you start your computer it will boot up yo your desktop.

Do You Know You Can Use Your Pictures As A Screen Saver?

Last week in my newsletter I talked about saving and organizing files. I am sure by now you have a collection of pictures that are your favorites; grandchildren, family members, friends, special times. I know I do. Once you have your picture files organized in folders and sub-folders, you can now display them in a slide show as your screen saver. The screen saver takes over in X-amount of time after you leave your computer, while it is still on.

To open up the Screen Saver Settings you must first left click the Start Button. In the menu on the right hand side, click Control Panel. Click on title Appearance and Personalization. This brings up a list (menu). At the top is Personalization. In that sub-menu, click Change Screen Saver.

In the Screen Saver Settings dialog box, Click the button marked Settings. This bring up a dialog box that allows you to browse for your pictures. Click Browse. Now you are in the screen to Browse For A Folder. Click on Libraries, Documents, My Documents, My Pictures. Then click on the folder you created with your pictures in it. If you didn't put them in the My Pictures folder, then click Libraries, Documents, My Documents, then the folder you created that has your pictures in it. Once you have that folder highlighted, click Okay.

With the Photo Screen Saver Settings dialog box still showing, you can control the speed and whether you want the pictures shuffled or show them in order. Once you choose, hit Save.

With the Screen Saver Settings dialog box still open, Choose the time you want to wait until the slide show starts, then hit Okay.

After the time you allotted for the Slide Show to begin, sit back and enjoy! You will impress your friends as well.

These instructions are for Windows 7 Users. If you want to know how to do this using Windows XP, e-mail me at Pic1Cathy@verizon.net and I will send them to you.