Datasheet

Accessing the Ribbon
from Your Keyboard
At first glance, you may think that the Ribbon is completely mouse-centric. After all, none
of the commands has the traditional underlined letter to indicate the Alt+keystrokes. In
fact, the Ribbon is very keyboard friendly. The trick is to press the Alt key (or slash key) to
display the pop-up keytips: Each Ribbon control has a letter (or series of letters) that you
type to issue the command.
By the way, you don’t have to hold down the Alt key as you type the keytip letters.
Figure 11-1 shows how the Home tab looks after I press the Alt key to display the keytips.
If you press one of the keytips, the screen then displays more keytips. For example, to use
the keyboard to align the cell contents to the left, press Alt followed by H (for Home) and
then AL (for Align Left). If you’re a keyboard fan (like I am), after just a few times you
memorize the keystrokes required for common commands that you use frequently.
Figure 11-1: Pressing Alt displays the keytips.
After you press Alt, you can also use the left- and right-arrow keys to scroll through the
tabs. When you reach the proper tab, press the down-arrow key to enter the Ribbon. Then
use the left- and right-arrow keys to scroll through the Ribbon commands. When you reach
the command you need, press Enter to execute it. This method isn’t as efficient as using
keytips, but it’s an easy, mouse-free way to take a quick look at the available commands.
Tip 11: Accessing the Ribbon From Your Keyboard
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