New for Office 2007

Word
As Word is the most-used member of the suite, we’ll take a look at its new interface in detail, then move on to the new features in the remainder of Office.

A quick glance at Word 2007 shows some familiar toolbar buttons in an unfamiliar layout – grouped in blocks rather than strips – under a set of headings titled ‘Home’, ‘Insert’, Page Layout’, ‘References’ and so on. These look like menus, but they are not: they work as tabs.

Click on one of these and you’ll find that the ‘Ribbon’ – the row of buttons below – changes. The idea is that you change the interface to suit what you are trying to achieve. The Home tab shows a block of Clipboard buttons, sets of Font and Paragraph formatting buttons, another block for styles and finally an Editing block for Finding, Replacing, and navigating around a document.

Unlike the Toolbars in previous versions these are bolted down – they can’t be moved or customised. Many of the buttons work in the customary way, but there are some innovations.

Clicking on the arrow to the right of the Styles section opens a palette of styles and, as you move the mouse pointer over each of these, the selected text or current paragraph changes to offer a preview of each available style. Clicking confirms the change.

The Styles section also provides a way to change the entire palette of styles for a different set, or change only the font or colour set. This helps to visualise and create elegant documents, and is more intuitive than the old-style list or dialogue. However those who hanker for the ‘classic’ dialogues can find many of these by clicking on the tiny arrow next to the Ribbon section name.

Moving to the Insert tab changes the Ribbon to include what was previously only available by burrowing down through the Insert menu. Unlike the menu system, it is all to hand – you can add shapes, pages, tables, pictures and other illustrations, links, symbols or equations, and text-based objects such as drop caps or Wordart.

Although the Home ribbon contains the most frequently used commands, you can continue to edit text with any tab active. Keyboard shortcut fans will be pleased to learn that the old shortcuts still work – irrespective of the active Ribbon – so you can press Control and F to search a document, for example, without having to switch to the Home ribbon.

There is also a new set of keyboard shortcuts. Alt and N followed by V, for example, summons the Insert ribbon and inserts a cover page into a document. Alt and H followed by N turns to the Home ribbon and starts a numbered list. Although this might seem hard to remember, as soon as the Alt key is pressed the relevant letters appear on the ribbon as a reminder.

If you can’t find what you want, the online help includes a list of all Office 2003 commands and where to find them in 2007.