Tuesday's Tip #28: What's the Simplified Ribbon and the Quick Access Toolbar?

office365 Jul 14, 2020

Simplified Ribbons and Quick Access Toolbar in Office 365 (and prior versions too)

There are constantly new updates to Office 365. It's hard to keep track. One of the great features of Office 365 is that new updates roll out without a big release. That being said, sometimes if we don't have a chance to notice these updates, they pass us by and we don't even know to take advantage of them.

The Office Ribbons

The Ribbons in Office are the main way to navigate and utilize the tools in each app. They've had various overhauls in different versions - all to help improve functionality and efficiency. The most recent versions of Office has fairly large ribbons. One of the things that surfaced in feedback, is wanting more space on the screen.

Collapse a Ribbon

One of the features a lot of people don't know about it the ability to Collapse the ribbon. This hides the entire the ribbon except the tab name.

This is how the Word Ribbon normally looks.

To collapse a ribbon, double-click it.
To use the icons on the ribbon, click the tab name, for example Home.
Double-click on any tab name again to expand the ribbon.

This is how a collapsed ribbon looks - just the tab names, no icons.

To access the icons on each ribbon, you simply click on the tab name, for example Home. Then you can click on any button on the ribbon. When you mouse off the tools, they hide again.

Simplified Ribbons

Simplified Ribbons are one of those recent updates in Office 365. You will see it in Outlook and the Office ONLINE versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. The Simplified ribbon is a mixture between the collapsed ribbon and the full ribbon. It is a smaller more streamlined ribbon that shows some icons and labels but not as large.

Outlook Classic Ribbon

Outlook Toggle between Simplified and Classic Ribbon

Outlook Simplified Ribbon

Quick Access Toolbar

The Quick Access toolbar isn't a new feature but it is a highly undef utilized one. This mini-toolbar allows you 1-click access to any tool in the app you're working in.

The idea behind the Quick Access toolbar is to give the user a way to bring the tools they use most often to the forefront where they can access them in a single click no matter what ribbon they are on and whether or not the ribbons are collapsed or not.

The Quick Access toolbar appears just below (or above) the ribbon.

You can customize the commands on the Quick Access toolbar by clicking on the drop down at the end of the Quick Access toolbar.

In this menu, you can toggle on or off (with check marks) any of the default tools you want to display. If you want to add other tools, simply click the More Commands...