Introduction to Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Power Point )

Purpose

The purpose of this training module is to provide basic skills to the learners about office automation system using computer.   

Specific Outcomes

Learners will be able to work on office documents like: 

• Letters, reports, drafts, Envelops Forms, invitations, labels, newsletters (MS Word),  
• Budgets, calendars, Inventory, Schedule, invoice (MS Excel),  
• Award Certificate, Greeting Card, Plan, Presentation (MS Power Point) etc. using different features of MS Office. 

Introduction

MS Office helps you work more efficiently and effectively. Office offers integrated software tools that are powerful, yet easy to learn and use. Large and small offices can use Office – based applications for many of their day-to-day computer needs, families and home based businesses can also needs simple and analysis tools for their computers   

One of the most helpful features of Office is its capability to adjust different tools according to the users requirement, for examples, Word dose not display all menu commands in a particular Menu, it display the commands used most often by the user. So we can say that Office is fully integrated.   

Why MS Office

MS Office is a package suite of  

1. MS Word (A Word Processor),  
2. MS Excel (A Spreadsheet),  
3. MS PowerPoint (A Graphic Presentation Program),  
4. MS Access (A Relational Database),  
5. MS Outlook, 
6. MS Publisher and  
7. MS FrontPage.   

Research showed that most of the work done by most of the people could be categorized into 4 (MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint, MS Access) -7 (MS Outlook, MS Publisher and MS FrontPage) major categories. 

Features in MS Office    

1. User Interface: - The new result oriented User Interface (UI), officially known as MS Office Fluent, is featured in the core applications of MS Office: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access and Outlook. According to the Microsoft, the new UI centers on the principle of helping people focus on that they want to do, rather than the details of how to do it. You can check the preview effect of the command after moving on the required icon.   

2. The Office Button: - The Office Button, located on the top-left of the window, replaces the file menu and provides access to functionality common across all Office applications, including but not limited to opening, saving, printing and sharing a file. User can also choose color schemes for the interface.  

3. Ribbon: - The Ribbon, a panel that groups the command buttons and icons, organizes commands as a set of tabs, each grouping relevant commands. Each application has a different set of tabs which expose the functionality that application offers. For example, Excel has a tab for graphing capabilities but Word dose not feature the same. The Ribbon is designed to make the features of the application more accessible with fewer mouse clicks as compared to the menu based UI in earlier versions of Office.   

4. Contextual Tabs: -Some tabs appear only when certain objects are selected, called Contextual Tabs. Contextual tabs expose functionality specific only to the object with focus. For example: Selecting a picture opens the Pictures tab, which presents options for dealing with the picture.  Similarly, focusing on a table exposes table related options in a specific tab. These tabs remain hidden when the object is not selected.   

5. Mini Toolbar: - Mini Toolbar, which pops up near the selected text, provides easy access to frequent used formatting commands. When the mouse pointer is away from it, the toolbar become semitransparent. But when the mouse pointer moves over it, it become ready to use. It also appears above the right-click menu when a user right-clicks on selected text.   

6. Super Tooltip: -It can house formatted text as well as images, and is used to provide detailed description of what most buttons/icons do. For example: move your cursor on any icon or button the help tip of the same will appear bellow.   

7. Quick Access Toolbar: - The Quick Access Toolbar, place in the title bar, servers as a repository of most used functions, regardless of which application is being used, such as save, undo/redo, spelling & grammar and print.   

8. Zoom Slider: - The Zoom Slider, placed in the bottom-right corner, allow for dynamic and rapid magnification of a document.   

9. File Formats: - Microsoft Office 2007 onwards uses a new file format, called Office Open XML, as the default file format. It is based on XML (Extensible Markup Language) and uses the ZIP (compressed) file container. According to Microsoft, documents created in this format are up to 75% smaller than the same documents saved with the previous version of MS Office.  

Word documents without macro extensions are now saved using a .docx extension rather that the traditional .doc extension. Files containing macros are saved with the extension .docm. You can also save your MS Office 2007 documents in the old format so that they will still be usable in previous version of MS Office.   

10. SmartArt: - SmartArt found under the insert tab in the Ribbon in PowerPoint, Word, Access and Outlook, is a new group of easily editable and formatted diagrams. There are many SmartArt graphics layout templates in category such as list, process, cycle and hierarchy. When any item of a SmartArt is inserted, a text Pane appears next to it to guide the user through entering the text in the hierarchical levels. In addition, SmartArt graphics change their colours, fonts and effects to match the document‘s theme   

11. User Assistance System: - In MS Office, the Office Assistants have been completely replaced with the much improved help system. One feature of the new help system is Super Tooltips which explain detailed description of what most buttons/icons do.   

12. Themes and Quick Styles: - Microsoft Office, places different document themes and quick styles. The document Theme defines the colours, fonts and graphic effects for a document. The new office theme file format (.thmx) is shared between Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook email messages. Quick Styles are galleries with a range of styles based on the current theme. There are quick style galleries for text, tables, charts, SmartArt, WordArt and more. The style range goes from simple/light to more graphical/darker.     

For any query please feel free to mail author.