Office Word Web App – The Ribbon

The ribbon was introduced to Microsoft Word 2007 as a replacement for the file/menu system used by previous versions of Word. Team Microsoft’s vision was to bring the more commonly used commands to the front, and also to make even the most rarely used commands much easier to find. Sometimes loved, often loathed, the ribbon is still here in Microsoft Word 2010 and it’s even present in the Office Word App. OK, it’s a cut down version of the ribbon, owing to the limited functionaly that the Word Web App offers, but it still looks damn good. Here’s how the ribbon looks on entry to a new Word document:

This is only half the story though. The ribbon in the Word Web App actually displays contextual tabs like the desktop version of the program does. To illustrate, let’s insert a table into our document by clicking Insert > Table, and click on a grid square that corresponds to the number of rows and columns you need in the table. While the table is selected, the Table Tools contextual tab will display in the ribbon.

When you click on the Layout subtab within the Table Tools tab, a myriad of table related options spring out at us. This is just what we need.

To get rid of the Table Tools tab, just click anywhere else in the document.

You get a similar Picture Tools contextual tab when you insert a picture too.