In September 2018, Microsoft overhauled the way the Ribbon looks.
Since it has been included in Office applications since Office 2007, you’re probably familiar with how it works, but if you need a refresher, see our Word 2010 cheat sheet. The Ribbon interface is alive and well in the current version of Word. Share this story: IT pros, we hope you’ll pass this guide on to your users to help them learn to get the most from Word for Office 365. (If you’re using the perpetual-license Word 2016 or 2019, see our separate Word 20 cheat sheet.)
We’ll periodically update this story as new features roll out.
This cheat sheet gets you up to speed on the features that have been introduced in Office 365’s Word for Windows desktop client since 2015. For more details, see “ What are the differences between Microsoft Office 2019 and Office 365?” When you purchase a perpetual version of the suite - say, Office 2016 or Office 2019 - its applications will never get new features, whereas Office 365 apps are continually updated with new features.
Microsoft sells Office under two models: Individuals and businesses can pay for the software license up front and own it forever (what the company calls the “perpetual” version of the suite), or they can purchase an Office 365 subscription, which means they have access to the software for only as long as they keep paying the subscription fee. Nearly everyone who uses Office ends up using Word at some point, whether it be for writing memos, typing up agendas, creating reports, crafting business correspondence or any of a thousand other uses. In this way you can be certain you won't inadvertently delete hidden text.Word has always been the workhorse app of the Microsoft Office suite. The best way to guard against this is to make sure hidden text is always displayed when you are developing or editing your document. This is especially true if you delete larger blocks of text, such as entire paragraphs.
This makes it very easy to delete hidden text without even realizing it. When you turn it off, it doesn't show up at all on your screen.
Turning off the display of hidden text presents a danger that you need to be aware of, however. (This is the tool that contains the paragraph symbol it looks like a backwards P and is technically called a pilcrow.) This tool is directly attached to the Show All Formatting Marks option in the Word Options dialog box it toggles the setting of the check box. You can also control the display of hidden text (along with all other non-printing characters) by clicking on the Home tab of the ribbon, in the Paragraph group. (Same caveat about the Show All Formatting Marks check box applies.) The reason is that if the Show All Formatting Marks check box is selected, then all the check boxes that appear just above it (in the "Always Show These Formatting Marks On the Screen" section) are displayed.Īfter hidden text is hidden, you can later display it by following the same steps, but make sure the Hidden Text check box (step 3) is selected. Note that if the Show All Formatting Marks check box is selected in the Word Options dialog box, it doesn't really matter whether the Hidden Text check box is selected or not (step 3). The display options in the Word Options dialog box.