The Ribbon Speeds Common Tasks (Outlook 2007)

If you've been following the development of Outlook 2007 at all, you probably have heard that there are lots of changes to the user interface. One of the most prominent changes is the replacement of menus and toolbars with a new feature called, the Ribbon.

The Ribbon replaces some of the menus and toolbars in Outlook 2007.

The Ribbon is the tabbed area at the top of the message window with groups of icons of various size. It is designed to make it easy to find and use commands that are relevant to the task at hand. The Ribbon appears whenever you are creating or editing Outlook items, such as writing mail messages or creating Tasks.

If you look at the figure, you can see that icons for commands you're likely to use when creating an email message appear on the Ribbon. They vary in size, and are grouped together by function. The Send and the Accounts options are both related to sending messages, so are grouped together. The bigger the icon, the more commonly-used is the command or option it represents. That's why, for example, the Send icon is so large. Some sections of the Ribbon have little icons in the bottom right-hand corner that allow you to expand them.

Some sections of the Ribbon can expand.

If you hover the mouse pointer over one of these little icons, Outlook tells you what it will display if you click.

Each tab on the Ribbon represents a different kind of activity. In the message example we're looking at, the tab are:

Message - basic message editing options.
Insert - lots of commands for inserting stuff into a message.
Options - the most widely-used message options.
Format Text - dozens of formatting commands.

The tabs that appear are called contextual tabs. That is, they only appear when they are needed. The Meeting tab doesn't appear when you are writing a message, only when you are scheduling a meeting. The idea is to make the commands you are most likely to use as easy as possible to find and work with.

There are a lot of good points to the Ribbon, particularly if you are new to Outlook. If you are a power user, or have learned all the keyboard shortcuts, well, you've got some significant relearning to do to become as good with the Ribbon as you already are with the old user interface.

Return to the Outlook 2007 Introduction page.