Nancy Conner - Office 2013: The Missing Manual

• Windows 7 . Click the lower-left Start button to open the Start menu. If the menu shows the program you want, bingoclick that program to open it. If you dont see the program in the Start menu, select All ProgramsMicrosoft Office 2013, and then click the name of the program, such as Excel 2013 or Word 2013.

• Windows 8 or Windows RT . When you start up your computer or tablet, you should see tiles for the Office apps already pinned to the Start screen. (If you dont see a tile for the program you want, scroll or swipe from left to right to see more.) Click or tap a tile to open its program. You can also open Office programs in the following ways:

  • Right-click or swipe vertically from the top or bottom edge of the screen. Select All apps, and then choose the program you want.

  • Move your mouse pointer to the upper-right or lower-right corner of the screen; on a touchscreen, touch the right side of the screen and swipe inward. Select Search to open a search pane. Type the name of the program you want into the search box, and then select it from the results list.

  Tip

  You can add Office programs to the taskbar permanently, so youll always know where to find them. On the Windows 8 or RT Start screen, right-click the tile for the program you want. If youre using a touchscreen, swipe downward on the tile. Select Pin to Taskbar to make the program stay put. If youre using Windows 7, you can right-click the programs icon and select Pin to Taskbar from the shortcut menu oreven easierdrag the icon to the taskbar and drop it there.

Outlook 2013 is a little different from the other Office programs. Instead of showing you a Start screen when you open it, it displays your email Inbox.

What can you do from the Start screen? Any of these productivity-boosters:

Figure 1-1. The Start screen, shown here in Word, lets you get right to work, whether youre opening a recent file or creating a new one.

Tip

Not a fan of the Start screen? You can set Office programs to open to a blank file, just as they did in earlier versions. Open the program whose Start screen you want to nix, and then select FileOptions. In the General tabs Start up options section, turn off the Show the Start screen when this application starts checkbox, and then click OK. You have to do this separately for each program. If you change your mind later, simply turn the checkbox back on.

Working with the Ribbon

Before the ribbon made its debut in Office 2007, the commands you needed to work with your files were hidden away in menus. That meant you had to either memorize which commands were on which menus or waste time clicking around trying to find the command you wanted.

The ribbon, shown in , stretches across the top of each programs workspace and lays out those commands in plain sight. The top of the ribbon consists of a series of tabs that serve as categories to organize common tasks. Click a tab, and the ribbon changes to a bunch of buttons, each one showing a command related to the tab. The open layout makes it easy to find the button you want.

Figure 1-2. The ribbon in Word. Click any tab, and the ribbon displays commands related to that tab. The Home tab (shown here) gathers together some of the most common actions, keeping them easy to find.