Working with MenusThe menu bar at the top of the Word window contains nine pull-down menusFile, Edit, View, and so on. You can issue all of the commands in Word via these menus. Chances are that you'll use toolbar buttons or keyboard shortcuts for many commands, but you can always fall back on the menus if you forget the alternate methods . Menu BasicsTo display a menu, click its name in the menu bar. For example, to display the Format menu, click Format in the menu bar, as shown in Figure 1.7. Then click a command in the menu to instruct Word to carry it out. If you want to close a menu without issuing a command, click anywhere outside the menu in the text area. (If your Format menu looks different from what you see in Figure 1.7, you may be using full menus , not personalized menus . See "Using Personalized Menus" later in this hour for more information.) Figure 1.7. Click a menu name to display the menu.
Some menu commands, such as the ones shown in the Format menu in Figure 1.7, are followed by three dots (). These commands lead to dialog boxes, which you use to give Word more information before it carries out a command. If a menu command is not followed by three dots, Word performs the command as soon as you click it.
If a menu command has a small triangle at its right, it leads to a submenu. To display the submenu, just point to the command. In Figure 1.8, the Insert, Picture submenu is displayed. Figure 1.8. Menu commands with triangles lead to submenus.
When a menu command is light gray, it is not currently available. In Figure 1.9, the first three commands in the Edit menu are grayed out. Figure 1.9. Light gray commands are not currently available.
Many menu commands list keyboard shortcuts to their right. For example, in Figure 1.9, the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+A is listed to the right of the Select All command. You can use these keyboard shortcuts as an alternative to clicking the commands in the menus. See "Using Keyboard Shortcuts" later in this hour for more information. Furthermore, menu commands that have equivalent toolbar buttons show the toolbar buttons to the left of the command in the menu. In Figure 1.9, all of the commands but Select All have toolbar equivalents. Using the Keyboard to Issue Menu CommandsYou can use the keyboard instead of the mouse to display menus and issue commands in them. To display a menu, press the Alt key, and then press the underlined letter in the menu name. For example, to display the Format menu, you press Alt+O. After the menu is displayed, press the underlined letter in the command that you want to issue. For example, to issue the Paragraph command in the Format menu, press P. When a menu is displayed, you can press the right or left arrow keys to display the other menus in the menu bar. To close a menu without issuing any command, press the Alt key again.
Using Personalized MenusWord offers two choices for controlling how your menus behave: personalized menus and full menus . When the personalized menu feature is enabled, clicking a menu name displays a short menu that contains only the commands you use frequently. This reduces clutter in your menus and makes it easier to find the commands you use all the time. If you want to use a command that is not visible in the short menu, use one of these methods to expand the menu and display all of its commands:
Figure 1.10 shows the full Format menu (contrast it with the short menu shown previously in Figure 1.9). Figure 1.10. When personalized menus are turned on, you can still display the full menus.
If you display the full menu and click one of the commands that was hidden in the short menu, Word adds it to the short menu. By the same token, if you don't use a command in the short menu for a period of time, Word may remove it from the short menu. If you want to restore the default set of commands in your short menus, follow these steps:
Turning Off Personalized MenusFor some of you, personalized menus may be the best thing since sliced bread. For others, they may be an irksome distraction. If you want to turn off personalized menus and always see the full menus instead, follow these steps:
Now you will see the full menus all of the time. (If you need any help with these steps, see "Working with Dialog Boxes" later in this hour.) If you want to turn personalized menus back on at some point, follow these same steps, but clear the check box in step 3 instead of marking it.
Displaying Context MenusIn addition to using the pull-down menus at the top of the Word window, you can also use context menus (sometimes called shortcut menus ). These are menus that you display by clicking the right mouse button. The commands in a context menu vary depending on where you right-click. For example, if you right-click text, you get commands for editing and formatting text (see Figure 1.11), and if you right-click a toolbar, you get a list of available toolbars (see Figure 1.12). Figure 1.11. Right-clicking text displays a context menu with commands for working with text.
Figure 1.12. Right-clicking a toolbar displays a context menu that lists available toolbars.
To choose a command in a context menu, use a left-click. To close a context menu without choosing a command, click anywhere outside it (or press the Esc key). |