The College of St. ScholasticaMicrosoft Office 2007

The Office ButtonMicrosoft has dramatically redesigned the look and feel of the Office suite.

One of the most noticeable changes is the File menu has been replaced with Office 2007 button . Standard operations like Open, Save, and Print are located within this menu along with new additions like the ability to change the color scheme. In addition the commands Prepare and Publish are now available. Program options previously found under the Tools menu are now conveniently located in the Office button menu.

Spell CheckMany of the Spell Check options are now global meaning if you add a word

into the Word dictionary, it will be added to the Excel dictionary as well.

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HelpThe help functions within the Office suite

have also changed. The Help icon can now be found in the upper right hand corner of any Office program. Clicking this button pulls up a new window specifically designed for the program in which you are working. Furthermore, Super ToolTips have been created so when you hover over an icon a short paragraph description of the function preformed by that button appears. This easy to use help feature allows users to become familiar with new tools and commands without all of the complex steps in Office 2003.

The RibbonThe Ribbon replaces the standard menu and toolbars for quicker

discoverability and accessibility of frequently used tools. Each command is located within a tab grouped by functionality. Within the Office programs each set of tabs are different and some tabs are shown only when needed.

There is no way to delete or replace the Ribbon with the toolbars and menus from earlier versions of Office but you are able to minimize the Ribbon to create a large workspace by following a few easy steps:

To Always Keep the Ribbon Minimized:1) Click the Customize Quick Access Toolbar located next to the Microsoft Office Button2) In the list, click Minimize the Ribbon3) To use the Ribbon while it is minimized, click the Tab you want to use, and then click the option or command you want to use

To Keep the Ribbon Minimized for a Short Time:1) To quickly minimize the Ribbon, double-click the active Tab2) Double-click the Tab again to restore the Ribbon

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Commands are organized into groups by their purpose which are then placed into the tabs. There are a number of commands used over and over so Microsoft has highlighted these for users.

Contextual TabsThese tabs only appear when certain objects are selected. For example, the

picture options are not relevant when dealing with text so they only appear when working with a picture. Options that normally were a bit difficult to find are highlighted when working on certain objects. Contextual tabs remain hidden until they are needed to work on a specific object.

Additional CommandsEven more commands can be found by clicking the arrow at the bottom of

each grouping of commands. For example, by clicking the arrow on the font grouping a window will appear with more options.

Mini ToolbarThis toolbar appears automatically when text is selected. This feature

provides easy access to commonly used formatting. This toolbar remains semi-transparent until the mouse pointer is situated on the control in order to still view what is underneath. This menu is not customizable at this time.

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Quick Access ToolbarLocated on the title bar, the most commonly used functions (such as save,

undo, and print) can be found in each program of the Office suite. The Quick Access Toolbar is completely customizable. The most common commands can be added or removed using the drop-down list on the right side of the Quick Access Toolbar, or any command can be placed here by right clicking the command you wish to add and selecting "Add to Quick Access Toolbar”.

Galleries Office 2007 incorporates more themes and styles for use in a variety of

documents. The themes include everything from fonts to colors to graphic effects within the document. These themes are consistent over all the Office 2007 programs. The menu below can be found by clicking the Page Layout tab and then selecting the Themes icon.

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FilesThe 2007 Microsoft Office Suite uses a new file format to save files smaller

so you can have more files on your computer. The new file extensions end with an ‘x’, such as .docx, .xlsx, and .pptx. If desired, you can save documents in the old format to be compatible with older versions of Office and WebCT. Note that all campus computers with Office 2003 installed have an add-in which will allow them to access files in the 2007 format, so saving in the old format should not be necessary.

NetStorageIf you use NetStorage, there is a minor issue with the Internet Explorer

browser and Office 2007 files. If you download an Office 2007 file by double-clicking on it, the file extension will be changed to a .zip file. There are several ways to work around this issue. When using IE, check the checkbox by the file you wish to download and then right click and choose download. The Firefox browser does not have this issue.

Creating a PDF File? A new feature for Office 2007 is the capability of saving your document as a

PDF file right in the Office application. Start by clicking the Office button and selecting Save As. A new sub-menu will appear (as shown below). To create a PDF document, select PDF or XPS.

A Save As window will be displayed. Select your desired destination for the

file and the type of file you would like to save the document as. Click Save and a PDF document will be created.

Still have questions? Please contact the Computer Help Desk at x5911 or view the support website at www.css.edu/x22193.xml complete with interactive tools.

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