First of all:

I don't think you even've given office a fair chance to start with. You made an opinion, and didn't even bother asking for help. Though I understand you are having a horrible day, which we all do, that's no excuse for the language, nor for the outburst. I'm not offended, as I know how frustrating it can be to learn a completely new interface, but come on! It'll take some getting used to, but it isn't that bad.

Let me try to explain the ribbon to you in very simple terms. A lot of time is fixing to go into this e-mail, so I say now, bark at me, it'll be the end of me ever helping you. You got it? good! I sure hope so!

OK, think of the ribbon as a multi tabbed dialog box. In other words, you have two parts to the ribbon. You have the top ribbon, and the lower ribbon. I know this doesn't make sense. I don't yet expect for it to, so don't give up yet. Stick with me on this, please! I promise if you do, by the end of this e-mail you'll have the basics to get going.

ok, look. you have in word for instance, several different catagories in the ribbon.

OK, if you was to take a ruler, and horizontally slide it up to the very very very very top of your screen, you would have the title bar. This is what you hear when you hit your ctrl+shift+T, and hear untitled Microsoft Word, or whatever.

OK, just below this is your toolbar. Your toolbar is going to have things in it such as your copy, cut, paste, undo, redo, save, open, etc.

For now, we're not going to concern ourselves with the toolbar, but! just FYI: that is where it is.

Below this is the ribbon bar. Remember: the ribbon is divided into two hierarctical levels. Think of it like this:

You have a multi tab dialog box. At the top most level, are your tabs which you can ctrl+tab, or ctrl+shift+tab between. So, in other words, you may have things in the top level like general tab, settings tab, advanced tab, etc. Then, under these tabs, you have the different configurations located within! that tab.

OK, the ribbon bar can be thought much the same way. It's not exactly the same, no, that, I'll give ya, but it's darn cloce, in some respect. When in word, for example, if you press the alt key all by itself, you will land in the top level of the ribbon bar. I can't tell you where you're going to land, as this depends where you last were in the ribbon.

Just to play it safe, after pressing the alt key, use your left and right arrow keys until you find Home. It'll be the very first tab on your upper ribbon. This has things such as your file menu had in Word 2003. Things like open, save as, exit, new, close, print, print setup, etc. Obviously, the same shortcut keys that worked in 2003 would work here. for instance:

ctrl+N=New
Ctrl+O=Open
Ctrl+F4: or: Ctrl+W=Close
alt+F4=Exit
Ctrl+S=Save
Ctrl+P=Print

Etc. Etc.

So, if you know those basic commands, you can! still use 'em.

Notice too: when you landed on the home tab in the ribbon, W E should! have said alt H. So if you hit the alt key, release it, then hit the letter h, I didn't say alt+H, be aware. Do these as two different keystrokes. alt, let up, then hit h, and let up. You'll land in the home tab. I don't have word opened this second on my pc to tell you the order of the ribbon bar, but that's ok. Hear me out.

To move across the ribbon, press the left and right arrow keys. When you reach the part of the ribbon you want, say, for example, insert... Then to move to the lower ribbon, and see what options are under! insert, in this particular example, Press the tab key. So, in other words, when in the top level of your ribbon bar, pressing tab, will move you to your lower ribbon. Obviously, yep? You guessed it! Shift+Tab will move you back to the top ribbon, assuming of course that you were focused on the lower ribbon when you press it. If you're on the upper ribbon and hit shift+tab, I'm not sure where it would go. Anyone know? There are quick navigation keys for everything. So for instance, alt followed by h would give you the help ribbon, then I believe, don't quote me on this, x would be exit. So alt followed by h, followed by x would exit the program. Or, of course, you always could do it the more easy way, and hit alt+F4. My point however is, get real familiar with your quick navigation ribbon keys as they'll help you in the long run tremendously. Another thing you can do is to put items you use frequently on what is called the quick access toolbar, but, I'm not gonna cover that right now. I want to give you just enough to get started without confusing you too too much. When you find the option in the lower ribbon that you wish to select, press the enter key. If you land in an edit box field within your lower ribbon, you'll have to tab to reach the next control in the ribbon. Likewise, shift tab would move you to the top rribbon, unless of corse you was to hit shift+tab whilst in a text edit field, such as your font size, etc.

Another thing I want to show you is: on occasions, in your lower ribbon bar, you may have heard things called split buttons. Basically, a split button visually is divided into two seconds. In other words hince: the button is split in half. For example: take the copy split button. If all you wanted to do was the same as ctrl+C to copy text to the clipboard, you could press enter on this split button, and the default action, which is copy, would be performed. Now, let's say we wanted, however, to get to the not? so common options that this split button can offer. Instead of pressing the enter key, if you hit the space bar, you'll be presented with a menu, which you can obviously just up and down arrow through. When you find the option you need, same as any other menu, hit enter to select the menu option.

You also were asking about single and double spacing.

If you hit ctrl+1, any selected text will be single spaced. If you hit ctrl+2, you'll be double spaced. BTW, this is num row 1 and 2, not? num pad. Sorry, I should have clarified that a second ago.

One thing I need to warn you though. do an alt followed by f as in foxtrot, followed by p, as in papa. This will get you to the paragraph formatting settings. Some needs to refresh my memory here as it's been so long sense I've had to do this, but you wanna change your line spacing in here from double to single. Then, set it as default.

I'll let Raul, or maybe someone else from GW Micro staff talk you through doing this, as I don't exactly remember where the setting is, aside it being under paragraph. that? I do! remember./

The reason you wanna do this though, is, if you don't, it's gonna double space everything you do.

So, in other words, let's say you have a single paged document

You type a line of text, then go to the next line, and type a second line of text, go to the 3rd line, and type one more final line of text.

OK, this is all good and all, but here's the problem.

When you go to print the document in print? God knows if braille would do this, but I'd think it would, what you're gonna get is:

the first line of text will be filled. then, you'll have a blank line. Then you'll have another line of text, followed by a blank line, followed by your 3rd line of text.

In other words, Word is very unwillingly adding an extra line space that is un needed. This will make things run off your pages onto other pages. You may have a document with one whole page, then a second sheet of paper with only one line of text. So, with this example watch how this can be a major! issue.

Let's say you create a document, then select all text, and hit ctrl+num row 2 to double space.

Well?  Oops!

Guess wuhtcha just? did.

Now when you print, you got one line of text two blank lines, next line of text, two blank lines, next line of text. See? in other words, it's gonna double everything!

Then is why I say, before you do anything! you need to go there under formatting/paragraph, and change the line spacing to single, not? double then set it as default for all future documents.

This wasn't an issue in Word o3, but it is in o7, believe me.

It's ok, I wouldn't of expected you to know about this. that's why I'm telling you.

Anyway, Mike, as you can see, it works gr'r'r'r'rate!

You just gotta be a bit patient to learn it. I promise! You? will? get it! It just takes some time, just as anything new will. Stick with it though! I think in the long run, you'll grow to really like it. The ribbon bar had to grow on me, too, but now that I know how to use it, I actually in some ways, prefer it.

Also know: for $25, payable via PayPal, I do! offer hourly graining on Office 2007 as well as pretty much any other pc based fundimentals.

If you or anyone else would like to take advantage of this, either e-mail me at:

[email protected]

Or call me at:

704-904-0009

and we'll try to set something up.

Thank you kindly.

Chris.

----- Original Message ----- From: <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, April 30, 2010 2:17 PM
Subject: I have something to say


Hello,
First of all, I'd like to say thanks to everyone, who has taken the
time to answer my question. I haven't had a chance to read your emails
yet, but I intend to do so as soon as possible. Secondly, I don't think
I offended anyone on the list with my aggravated sounding post, (at
least I certainly hope I didn't), but I want to sincerely apologize to
all my fellow list members and to Gw Micro, if I have. I generally
don't send angry posts like that, but today has just been one of those
days. You know, when you wake up grouchy, and for at least part of the
day, you go around saying silly things, and talking to people in manors
you know you shouldn't.  I went to school to have a meeting with my
advisor this morning, and thankfully, I did not take my bad mood out on
her or anyone else today. So again, I apologize for the outburst,
thanks for your help, and for putting up with me.
Mike
Rochester, NY.

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