Q Given the big change of the Ribbon in Office 2007, have keyboard shortcuts been consigned to history?

Graham Block

A You will be glad to hear that Office 2007 uses keyboard shortcuts. Many shortcuts are the same, so, for example, once some text has been selected it can be emboldened by pressing the Ctrl and B keys together.

In Office 2003 it is possible to access the menus by pressing the Alt button, a key to access the menu and then another key to select the function.

If you have learnt these shortcuts they will still work in Office 2007, although there won't be any visual feedback of the shortcut until the command is completed.

The Alt key can also be used to access functions in the Ribbon. When you press the Alt key you will notice that a small label appears on the tabs showing which key activates which tab.

The shortcut icons in the Quick Access Toolbar to the right of the Office Ribbon at the top can be accessed with the number keys. Once a tab has been selected the labels then appear in the Ribbon for the different commands.

Some commands require more than one key press, in which case there will be more than one character in the label. For example, to increase the size of the current text one step, press the Alt key and then H to access the Home tab. Then press F and then G to select the Increase Font Size function.

Take a look at this 20-minute tutorial on the Microsoft Office website. The page is best viewed in Internet Explorer (we found the audio controls didn't display properly in Firefox).

There is also a quick reference of keyboard shortcuts and the changes in Office.

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