The 2010 Layout
Quick Access Toolbar
This gives quick and easy access to regularly used commands. You can add and remove commands from the Quick Access Toolbar.
The Ribbon
The Menus and Toolbars from earlier versions of MS Office have been replaced by ‘The Ribbon’. The Ribbon organises the buttons into Tabs and Groups. The Tabs are the headings across the top – for example File, Home and Insert. The Home tab is where all the commonly used buttons are located. Within each Tab, the buttons are organised into groups and the name of the group is below the controls. For example, all of the commands relating to changing the appearance of text are grouped together in the Font group.
There are also boxes where you can type a value directly into the Ribbon.
Look out for split buttons. When you hover over a split button you’ll see horizontal line splitting the big button into two. The top half works as a button. The bottom half works as a menu.
Contextural Tabs
“Contextual tabs” appear and disappear as you work. If you click in a table, two extra Table Tools tabs appear: one for Design and one for Layout. You’ll see similar contextual tools if you click on a picture, edit a header or footer, or click in a text box.
Watch out for these tabs, because they contain the controls you need to format items like tables, pictures and text boxes.
