Customize the “Ribbon”

When the “Ribbon” was introduced in the 2007 version, it was cursed by some and praised by others.

Initially, I was among the first group although after several months of working with “Excel” 2007, I began to appreciate it.

One thing that did bother me was that you could not customize the “Ribbon” to your own need, however, we can now do that in the 2010 version.

In order to customize the “Ribbon”, we have a number of ways.

One way is to open “Backstage” view, click “Options” on the left, which opens the “Power Point Options” dialog and select the “Customize Ribbon” option.
A second way is to right-click on the “Ribbon”, no matter where and select “Customize the Ribbon” in the drop-down menu.
In both cases, this opens the following dialog.

 

On the left (a) we find all the commands that we can add to the “Ribbon”.
On the right side, we find the structure of the “Ribbon” (b) as it would look at the present time.
You will see, for example, under main tabs (1), the different groups (2) and the various command buttons (3) under them.

To view the contents of a main tab, group, or command button, click the plus (+) icon.
To hide it back again, click the minus (-) icon (4).

 

What you should know and remember.

You cannot remove a main tab from the “Ribbon” but, you can hide it. Just click the checkmark for the main tab.
You can only add commands to custom groups. So the first thing you do when you want to add a command to a tab is adding a new group with the help of the “New Group” button. Then select the button in the left column of the dialog and click the “Add>>” button.

 

What you should know is that only groups higlighted in Bold in the list, can be removed from main tabs. Additionally, you can delete items from main tabs only when the “<<Remove” button (5) is in bold.
You can rearrange the default order of tabs by editing the main tab and selecting the up and down arrow buttons in the dialog box (6). You can also change the name of a main tab, select the tab and the click “Rename” (7) button.

 

Now that you know how to hide a main tab, it’s a small effort to make your own tabs containing your own groups and your own command buttons.

In this example, I hide all the main tabs except for the main tab “Home”:

I click the “New Tab” button to add a custom tab.
I give this tab a name as “my tab”. Very original, not?
I select the newly created tab in the list, click the “New Group” button and give this group the name “my group”.
Next I select this group, select the command button I want to add from the list on the left of the dialog box and click the “Add>>” button.

When I am done adding I click the OK button and this is the result. Your own “Ribbon” with only two tabs. Four command buttons in “my tab”, and only one group, “my group”.

 

If you want to reset the “Ribbon”back to its initial values, click the “Reset” button and select “Reset All customizations” in the drop-down menu.

You can always remove custom tabs, groups, and command buttons in a group.

 

Contextual tabs

Besides the regular tabs, when you insert any objects there appear contextual tabs at the end of the “Ribbon”.

As the name suggests, a contextual tab gives access buttons that you may need, such as a table tools, when we have inserted a table.

Contextual tabs are always on the right of the “Ribbon”. The name of the tab, in this case “Chart Tools”, appears on the title bar. This is done to make room for the (sub) tabs, which stand on the row of tabs that appear by defalut. These (sub) tabs are all under the contextual tab.

 

The various groups that appear when a (sub) tab is selected are all related to the selected object in our imagination.

You can hide the Contextual tabs by ‘de-selecting’ the object

 

“Compatibility Mode”

When we open a “PowerPoint” presentation in the 2010 version, which was created in a version of “PowerPoint” 2007, the file opens in “Compatibility Mode”. This is listed next to the name of the presentation, in the title bar.

When we work in “Compatibility Mode”, we can not use the new features of “PowerPoint” 2010 in 2007.

This is useful when there are people who still do not have the latest version of “PowerPoint” but, have the opportunity to work with the presentation.

When you are sure that everyone has the 2007 or 2010 version of “PowerPoint”, you can convert this old version of your presentation to the 2010 version.

Go to the “Backstage” view (more about this in the next lesson), select the “Info” tab and click the “Convert” button (1).

This action can also be done conversely when supposedly you work with the 2007 or 2010 version of “PowerPoint” and your colleagues are using an earlier version. In this case, you have the opportunity to save your presentation as a “PowerPoint” 97-2003 presentation. Just click the “File” in the menu bar, choose “Save As …” and click the “PowerPoint 97-2003 Presentation” button. Of course, you will lose all the features that are new in “PowerPoint” 2010. You are warned of this through a dialog box.

 

Open “PowerPoint” 2010 in earlier versions

If you want to open a “PowerPoint” 2010 file in a “PowerPoint” version earlier than 2007, you must have the “Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack”.

This converter adds the possibility to open, edit, and save “Office” 2000, “Office” 2003 and “Office” XP software for “Office” 2007 files .

You can find this on the “Microsoft” site, if you search for “Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack” for “Word”, “Excel” and “PowerPoint” 2007 file formats.

 

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