Overview of Menus and Toolbars  

Activity 1: Overview of Menus and Toolbars  

1. Start Word by clicking on the Word icon in the Start-Programs menu.

2. Explore the buttons and menus. Notice that when you point to a button Word presents a yellow tool tip box giving you the name of the button or feature.

Click on the Help menu, then click the "What's This" tool. Whenever you point and click at something on the screen, a yellow definition box appears.

When you are through with the "What's this?" tool, go back to help and click on it again to put it up.

Menus

Activity 2: Menus 

1. Explore the options listed under the File, Edit, and View menus. When you click on a menu, Word shows an abbreviated list of options available (if an option is "grayed out" it is not available at that time.) 

2. To see all options in a menu, click on the double down arrows at the bottom of the menu list.

What are menus and toolbars?

You can use menus and toolbars to give Microsoft Word instructions about what you want to do.

A menu displays a list of commands. Some of the commands have images next to them so you can quickly associate the command with the image. Most menus are located on the menu bar at the top of the Word window. Shortcut menus are available when you right-click text, objects, or other items.

Toolbars  

Activity 3: Toolbars

1. Use the View-Toolbars menu to look at other toolbars that are available to Word users. To display a toolbar, click on it-to hide the toolbar, remove the check.

2. Floating vs. Docked toolbars: To dock a floating toolbar, click and drag on the blue title bar. To undock, click and drag using the toolbar handle.

 A toolbar can contain buttons with images (the same images you see next to corresponding menu commands), menus, or a combination of both. Word includes many built-in toolbars that you can show and hide as needed. By default, the Standard and Formatting built-in toolbars are docked side by side below the menu bar.

Floating and Docked Toolbars

Working Views 

Activity 4: Working Views 

1. Click on the View menu and wait a few seconds for the menu to expand. In the first section of the View menu you will see four Working Views - Print Layout is selected by default. 

2. Experiment with the different working views listed in the menu. These view buttons are also available on the Views toolbar on the bottom left of your page.

In addition to these Working Views, two Previews are available from the File Menu:

In print preview, you can display multiple pages of a document in a reduced size. In this view, you can see page breaks, hidden text, and watermarks, and you can make editing or formatting changes before you print the document. You may also switch to print preview by clicking the Print Preview button on the Standard toolbar.

In Web page preview, you can see how your document will look in a Web browser. Microsoft Word saves a copy of your document and then opens it in your default browser. If your Web browser is not already running, Word starts it automatically. You can return to your document in Word at any time. 

To switch to Web page preview, click Web Page Preview on the File menu.

Print Layout View: Work in print layout view to see how text, graphics, and other elements will be positioned on the printed page. This view is useful for editing headers and footers, for adjusting margins, and for working with columns and drawing objects.

Normal View: Work in normal view for typing, editing, and formatting text. Normal view shows text formatting but simplifies the layout of the page so that you can type and edit quickly. In normal view, page boundaries, headers and footers, backgrounds, drawing objects, and pictures that do not have the In line with text wrapping style do not appear.

Web Layout: Work in Web layout view when you are creating a Web page or a document that is viewed on the screen. In Web layout view, you can see backgrounds, text is wrapped to fit the window, and graphics are positioned just as they are in a Web browser.

Outline View: Work in outline view to look at the structure of a document and to move, copy, and reorganize text by dragging headings. In outline view, you can collapse a document to see only the main headings, or you can expand it to see all headings and even body text. Outline view also makes it easy to work with master documents. A master document makes it easier to organize and maintain a long document, such as a multipart report or a book with chapters. In outline view, page boundaries, headers and footers, graphics, and backgrounds do not appear.

You have now completed this module. Take a few minutes to review and practice what you have learned. If you are through for this session, close all programs, being sure to save any work. You may now begin the next module by clicking on the Back to Index link on this page and then clicking on the next module on the homepage of this course.