7 Standard Ribbons in Excel 2007

There are seven standard Ribbons (Home, Insert, Page Layout, Formulas, Data, Review). Some additional Ribbons can be added in the Excel Options Area while are "Context-Sensitive Ribbons" (also known as "Contextual Ribbons") that show up depending on where the cursor is located (for example, if a chart is selected, the context sensitive Ribbons for charts appear).

To move between the visible Ribbons you can click on any tab name to access that particular Ribbon. If you want to temporarily hide the Ribbons because of space requirements, use the keyboard Shortcut Ctrl + F1 (This is a toggle that will successively hide and unhide the Ribbons) or double click on the ribbon tab.

The seven Standard Ribbons are Home, Insert, Page Layout, Formulas, Data, Review and View.

The Home Ribbon, the first of the seven standard ribbons, consist mainly of functions that are available to you when you select Format or Edit in the Menu bar.

The Insert Ribbon presents the functions that are available to you in the Insert Menu as well as the Drawing toolbar. 3 functions in the Insert Ribbon are not found the Insert Menu: Pivot Table, Table and Header & Footer for printing.

The Page Layout Ribbon replaces the page setup function found within the File Menu. The theme help you quickly select a template with a set of fonts and colors which you could use to paint the cells and font. One function which I think is not in the right place is the header and footer.

The Formulas Ribbon makes it easier for users to access to the more than 300 functions in Excel. In the previous version of Excel, users can access the list of functions in the Insert Menu-> Functions or click on the fx icon on the left of the formula bar.

Named Range which can enhance the power of the formulas (as demonstrated in our Sales Performance Analytics with Excel course) are grouped together in the ribbon. And naturally, formula auditing which is used to track which cells is dependent on the formula or which cells the formula is dependent on is shown in this ribbon too.

The Data Ribbon which is to manage data is similar to the Data Menu in previous version of Excel.

The Review Ribbon incorporates the 1st half of the functions found in the Tools Menu. The purpose of the menu is to help users review the worksheets, track changes made to the worksheet, protection and inputing comments.

The View Ribbon which is the last of the 7 standard ribbons combines most of the functions from the View Menu as well as the Windows Menu. The only obvious function that is out of place in the View Ribbon is the macro function.

With this overview, I am sure you are able to orient yourself quickly to the new interface. If you did not go through this lesson, I am sure you would be lost just like me when I started using Excel 2007.