Bob, I like “movegating.” I agree, ribbons are nothing like file menus. However, that doesn’t make them impossible.
For me, the first stage in coming to terms with them is that familiar Word shortcuts still apply. No need to find “open” in the ribbons if you already know that control-o does the job in a single keystroke. The second stage for me was to focus on a command for which I didn’t know any shortcut. For example, how to insert page numbers in a Word document? The answer to such a question is readily available via Google, with such search terms as Word (version number), how do I start page numbers? The first search result may or may not give you an accessible method, but I’ve always found one quickly. I also have CathyAnne Murtha’s text book, where she lists many of these methods. Typically, the way to get to a command is to press a certain letter with the alt key, then one or two letters in quick sequence right after. I make a list of the methods I acquire. It isn’t by keystroke, but by feature, control or command. By the time you’ve accumulated shortcuts and other ways to get at the features you use the most, you’ll have done a little ribbon movegating as a byproduct. You’ll come to notice certain patterns. For example, if you press alt-f in Word, then arrow down, you’ll encounter one by one several broad categories. If you find a general category that may cover a feature that interests you, use tab and control-tab to navigate that particular ribbon to get a sense of the connections that Microsoft makes. It’s good to find these broad categories to minimize endless tabbing and control-tabbing, which some of these ribbons can entail. As with so much in life, following these three stages helps you pick up a sense of the ribbons by osmosis. There’s no point in figuring out and remembering all the ribbons, the way I did with the file menus. But in less time than you’d expect, you will accumulate a list of the features you rely on for each Office application you use. From: Robert Logue [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Sunday, January 31, 2016 7:26 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: buying Microsoft Office first time Actually there is a serious difference to me with ribbons. That is they are not liniar navigation. Movegating I mean navigating but I think I invented a new word combining navigating with moving.through them changes depending on where you are and what direction you go. So, exploring them is more difficult for me. However, if one can customize keyboard shortcuts, than I suppose I'd be able to use them more effectively. Are ribbons in Office customizable? I only know Wordpad ribbons which frustrate the heck out of me. Bob On 1/25/2016 6:05 PM, Brian Vogel wrote: On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 04:54 pm, Carolyn Arnold <[email protected]><mailto:[email protected]> wrote: there is no escaping the ribbons. Eventually, you learn Alt what to hit and just go there. The ribbons are sort of, in my mind, a sideways menu. Precisely, precisely, and precisely. I miss the menus, but that's because I was "raised on" the menus. There's nothing that's more intuitive about the menu system than the ribbon system, it's just that those of us who were used to the former were quite jolted by the latter. The relocation of stuff, particularly since I don't use keyboard shortcuts as my primary access method, was very jarring. The majority of "the common controls" use the same keyboard shortcuts that they have since the inception of MS-Office. Brian
