Chapter One: Introducing Office 2007
Changes to Office 2007 common to Word, Excel and PowerPoint
Exercise One: Using Office 2007
Interfaces
The
first thing you’ll notice is the radical redesign of the interface. Most of the old icons are still available,
but they have been rearranged in different groupings. Look for a circle, called
the Office Button, in the upper left corner. Click here to access the options
that used to be found on the File menu. You can select the Options icon at the
bottom of the dialog box to customize the application. This corresponds to the
old Tools menu.
There
is one toolbar, above the Ribbon, called the Quick Access Toolbar. You can add
or remove icons from this toolbar.
The
Quick Access Toolbar is the only toolbar. Icons are organized and displayed in
a new system, called a ribbon. The ribbon consists of tabs - menus that show
icons instead of words. Tab contents are divided into sections called groups.
Groups contain individual icons or collections of related icons listed in categories.
You still have a hierarchy, as with menus and submenus, only now you’ll use
tabs, groups, categories, and icons.
The
labeling of icons has been improved. When you mouse over the icon you see the
name of the icon, the shortcut key associated with that task, and a brief
description of what the icon does.
In
the lower right hand corner of many groups you’ll see a small checkbox.
Clicking on one of these will open a dialog box similar to the ones used in
Office 2003.
The
status bar on the bottom of the screen has been enhanced. To see a list of
options, right-click on the status bar. Select options to display them in the
bar.
As
you mouse over different formatting options, you see a “live preview” of how
the document will look if you select that option. You can turn this feature
off. Select the Office Button, then
select Options, and then look for the Popular tab.
Graphics
As
you mouse over a graphic, special design and formatting tabs and groups will
open for that object. As you mouse over an icon, the graphic will change its
appearance in the document, showing how it will look if you select that option.
When
selecting a format for your graphic, one row of icons is displayed. You often
have several rows of icons to choose from. You can scroll through the
selection, or click on the down arrow to the right of the icons to see all of
them.
The
2003 version of Office had an icon that provided a choice of 6 pre-defined
charts. These charts, along with dozens
of new ones, are included in a category called Smart Art. The Smart Art icon
appears on the Illustrations group of the Insert tab. Org charts are found in
Smart Art in the Hierarchies category. Venn diagrams are found in the
Relationships category.
The
gradient fill-effect works differently; you have to select the color as a
separate task before you select the type of gradient. The colors dialog box has
changed.
The
Shapes category of the Illustrations group on the Insert tab corresponds to the
“AutoShapes” pull-down option of the old drawing toolbar. Icons for lines,
arrows, rectangles and ovals are included in Shapes
New Icons and Features
There
is a new feature that will automatically generate reference citations in MLA or
other formats. You’ll find this on the Reference tab.
There
are icons to change the height and width of a graphic. You’ll find them on the
Size group on the Illustrations tab. You can also automatically position a
picture or graphic object using icons in the Position group.
One
icon adds captions to graphics. Find it in the Caption group on the References
tab.
There
is an option to add text, automatically set up in a heading style, to quickly
build a table of contents. Look on the Table of Contents group on the
References tab.
Tables
After
you create a table, two additional tabs, Design and Layout, will open when the
table is selected. The Layout tab corresponds to the old Tables menu. The
Design tab replaces the Table AutoFormat option. This tab offers a set of
preformatted tables, called Quick Tables along with shading and borders
options. You’ll find the Borders and Shading dialog box under Table
Styles/Borders. You’ll also see the Borders icon here.
Quick Text Formatting
If you double-click in the document, or select text and move the cursor just above the text, formatting options appear.
Redefined Styles
Office
2007 styles are different from the ones used in older versions. The Web style
in the 2003 version is used as the default
Mail Merge
Mail
Merge has its own tab specifically designed for this feature.
Resizing
The
formula bar has an icon to the right of it to expand and collapse the formula
bar area, which is useful for viewing long formulas. You can click and drag,
both horizontally and vertically, to change the area of the name box and
formula bar.
The
status bar at the bottom displays a slider bar. Clicking on the end of the
slider bar causes the display to grow or shrink by 10 percentage points.
New Icons
In
the Alignment group of the Home tab there are icons to vertically align text,
to wrap text, and to control orientation...
In
the Function Library group of the Formulas tab, there are several new icons to
display different categories of functions. You can still access the old
function dialog box by using the pull-down menu next to the AutoSum icon.
In
the Formula Auditing group of the Formula tab there is an icon to Show
Formulas. This toggle switch changes what is displayed in the cell, either the
result of a formula, or the actual formula. A keyboard shortcut, Ctrl + ~,
performs the same task.
In
the Sheet Options group of the Page Layout tab there are icons to display
gridlines and to display Headings. Headings, in this context, are the letters
across the top and the numbers down the side of the worksheet.
Features
One
feature that you will either love or hate is the Formula AutoComplete. When you
start to type a formula starting with a letter, it shows you a list of
functions starting with that letter. You can turn this feature off. Select
Excel Options under the Office Button and look for the Formulas options.
The
tasks involved with formatting, inserting, and deleting of rows and columns,
have all been grouped together on the Home tab, in the Cells group.
The
“clear” options on the Edit menu in earlier versions of Excel are gone.
Dialog Boxes
The
“data sort” dialog box is different. To sort using more than one parameter, you
have to click on Add Level.
The
Alignment dialog box has been revised to add more options.
The
Format Cells dialog box is available through the Home tab by clicking in the
bottom right corner of either the Font group or the Number group. Different
tabs in this dialog box open, depending on which icon you opened it from.
Excel Charts
The
Chart wizard is gone. Both the procedures and the graphics are new, and the
process is more complicated. On the plus side, the charts look much better.
Exercise One: Using Office 2007
Preparation & Set Up
Open a web browser.
Go to www.cob.sjsu.edu/splane_m/javajuice.htm.
Press Ctrl + A to select all text. Press Ctrl + C to copy the selection. This
is a quick shortcut to copy an entire web document. You can copy and paste
across applications. Open Word 2007. Press Ctrl + V to paste the selection into
Word.
Frame Elements
The Office Button is where you find the old File
menu. Click the Office Button.
Click on the New option to see all of the available
templates. Click on the Print option. Quick Print sends your document to the
default printer. Print lets you change printer settings before printing.
Click on the Word Options textbox to customize your
application’s settings. Choose Advanced. In the Cut Copy and Paste section,
change the setting for “Insert/paste pictures as” to “Square.” The square
setting lets you click and drag graphics.
The Quick
Access Toolbar gives quick access to selected icons. You can add more icons from the
pull-down menu or by right-clicking on an icon. The Toolbar can be positioned
above or below the ribbon by right-clicking on it.
The
Ribbon Menus and Toolbars are
gone, but you can think of the new system as menus using icons instead of
words. The hierarchy is tab, group, category, and icon. The keyboard shortcut
shows in the description as you move the cursor over an icon.
Dialog
Boxes Some groups include a tiny arrow inside a rectangle.
Clicking on this icon opens a dialog box. From the Home tab, Paragraph group,
click on the dialog box icon. From the Home tab, Font group, click on the dialog
box icon.
Formatting
Options in the Text Area When you highlight
text and then mouse over a styles or graphics formatting option, the text
changes to show what it would look like if you applied that formatting. When
you highlight text and move the cursor just above the highlighted area, a box appears
containing font and paragraph icons to use for speedy formatting.
Status Bar
Options Put your cursor on the left end of the
status bar. Right-click. Examine the display options. Turn on Word Count or
something else that looks useful.
Views The status bar has several icons to change
the way you see the document.
Open “
Open “Web” View. You can save Word documents as web pages.
Unfortunately, the graphics don’t always appear in the same location in web
browsers.
Open “Outline” View. Collapse and expand a few
paragraphs by double-clicking on the plus icon. Click and drag to move the
Location section down one paragraph.
Open “Draft” View. This is what used to be called
Normal View. It doesn’t show all of the
elements that will appear when the document is printed.
I prefer to work in the “Print Layout” View. Return
to that View. You can also access the View icons from the View tab, Document
View group.
Magnification
Slide Bar Clicking on a + or - changes the size by 10
percentage points.
The Ruler Click the icon at the top of the vertical
scroll bar to show or hide the ruler.
Split the
screen into two views Position your
cursor above the triangle at the top of the vertical scroll bar. The cursor
becomes a two-headed arrow. Drag down to split the window into two windows.
Having two windows into the same document makes it easy to copy and paste
something from one section of a document to another, without scrolling. Drag on
the dividing line to return to a single window. This feature can also be turned
on and off from the View tab.