---

 

Over the summer, the Technology Department went through and upgraded the Microsoft Office 2003 suite of software (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.) to the newest version, Microsoft Office 2010. Many things are the same as the old version, however the biggest difference is what Microsoft calls the “Ribbon”, a task-based way of accessing options versus the “menu” style of previous versions. Instead of digging through menus and submenus, Office 2010 has tabs that present a series of icons with the most commonly used actions and settings.

 

 

Although it appears “busy” at first, many have commented that, after using it for a short period of time, the Ribbon become a more efficient way of finding options and settings than the menus and sub-menus of old.

Microsoft has provided a great deal of training materials for moving from Office 2003 to 2010 in self-paced, downloadable PowerPoint presentations that include helpful instructional videos for more in-depth use of the new Office suite:

TIES also offers Office 2010 training sessions at their office in St. Paul that are free to attend for district employees.

View the current schedule of classes at this link.

 

The icons for these programs are on your desktop. When you click on it, you are presented with a window showing you what type of document you would like to open, along with a list of available templates (additional templates can be downloaded from the Office.com site here as well):

 

The File tab will open up the Backstage view, which allows you to save a document, open a document and print. In additon, it will show you information about your document (who created it, last time it saved, etc.) and allow you to go back to previously saved versions of it as well.

 

There are two ways to print a document:

 

1. Use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-P, which will bring up the Print window.

2. Go to the File tab > Print.

 

The Print window gives you a preview of your document, page and formatting settings and which printer to select. Additional printer options can be found under the selected printer under “Printer Properties”.

 

You can save a document in three ways:

 

1. Use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-S

2. Go to the File tab>Save

3. Click on the small floppy disk icon above the File tab

 

Additional, you can also now save a document as a PDF by going to the File Tab>Save & Send and clicking “Create PDF/XPS Document”:

 

The Help menu in Microsoft Office is much more useful than in the past, updated continuously from the Office.com website. The Help menu can be access by the blue ? icon below the three minimize/maximize/close buttons in the top-right of the window.