Tech Talk / By Martha Knight

“I use Word at work and can do everything I need to do. I used to have Works at home because it came with my computer. Then I got this computer from my friend and it has Word on it but it is a different version and I am having trouble because it is so different. My friend said it would be easier than the Word at work and easier than Works I am just confused by it.”

I am tempted to riff a while on that email from a very earnest seeker after knowledge. There’s a whole “Who’s on first?” routine in there somewhere, about how Works works this way but Word works that, and the word processor that work bests is neither Word nor Works, but if they really wanted to make Word perfect they could… But no, that would not be helpful.

Microsoft Word in one form or another has become the word processor most people use, and is the most used part of Microsoft Office. Many users of Office never use any other part of that suite. Excel. Access, PowerPoint and Outlook are right there, and maybe even Publisher, but the workhorse program is Word.

Naturally Microsoft keeps on developing or updating Word, as it does its operating systems (Windows). Always the user is meant to find that his Word is outdated and should be replaced. Four systems I have sitting within reach are running four incarnations of Word, none of them the “latest” one.

My frustrated user of multiple Words uses one at least 10 years old, at work. I notice many business offices don’t replace everything every year or so, as the hardware and software vendors tell them they should. Many a boss has the “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” attitude. When upgrades are pressed upon them by vendors, or even their own IT people, they way, “How will this make my people more productive? What is the return on this investment?” A reply such as, “But your Office suite is seven years old” is not persuasive.

Suffice it to say that the Word she uses at work is a pre-Ribbon version. It has menus with titles she can click on to drop down the choices. Menus make sense to her. In restaurants menus have different pages, so you can find breakfast, lunch or dinner choices, or sandwiches, salads, sides and desserts.

But that Ribbon! She would like to know, can she get rid of it? Or at least make it disappear?

My answer to her has to be, “No, and yes.” (In the latest versions of Word it would be “Yes and yes.”)

She is using Word 2007, and not seeing the menus and toolbars she sees at work, but a Ribbon which seems firmly glued across the top of the screen.

Above it are some menu names, such as Home, Insert, Page Layout, etc. In fact, each one of those has a different Ribbon. Click on any menu title, and a new Ribbon appears. Each has many choices or functions on it.

Obviously a ribbon occupies a lot more room than a skinny row of menu titles (Home, Edit, View…).

The Ribbon is part of Microsoft’s “Fluent” user interface. Other components of Office have their versions of the Ribbon.

The first half day I used the Ribbon (a few years ago) I found it strange, confusing and annoying, but then it began to seem intuitive, and even a time-saver. Probably my correspondent will, too, but the fact that she has to switch back to a Ribbon-free Word over and over, at work, will slow down that transition.

Meanwhile, could she just get rid of the Ribbon on the system she uses at home? Not on Word 2007, no. But she can minimize it.

All she has to do is double-click on the title of the tab of the Ribbon that is active at the moment, such as Home. Presto, the ribbon disappears from view.

This is a toggle. That is, to get the Ribbon to reappear, she can double-click the Home title again.

This is a handy trick, because it does gain the user some extra space in that window where she is working on a document. As soon as she wants the Ribbon back to use a command, she can double-click on its title.

If this Word user wants to keep the Ribbon minimized most of the time, or by default, she can look for the “Quick Access Toolbar” at the top of her document screen, near the round Office button. It is a little black triangle pointing down, with a line or minus sign above it. A list of commands will be dropped down. One of them is “Minimize the Ribbon.” Bingo.

You know I am an advocate of using keyboard shortcuts. They work when the Ribbon is showing or when it is hidden.

So here’s your keyboard shortcut for minimizing or restoring the Ribbon: Ctrl and F1.  That is, hold a Ctrl key down and tap the F1 key, in the top row (Functions) on your keyboard. Isn’t that magical? You did not have to touch your mouse or touchpad.

Word has some shortcuts and tricks the programmers refer to as hidden features. Some of them are well worth learning. From time to time I mention some here, especially when a reader or client has asked a question that suggests to me that a hidden feature would enhance that user’s Word proficiency. Hey, whatever Works. I mean works with Word. Works is a whole nother program.