Office Ribbon is really good in Office 2007 and reveals all the features that were hidden in the previous versions of Office. But if you are wondering the ribbon is too big and if there is a way to minimize the Office Ribbon when you don’t need, fortunately there is.
Default Office Ribbon
Office Ribbon Minimized
There are couple of ways you can minimize and restore Office ribbon.
The easy and the quick way is to double click on the name of the active tab (For example, lets say if you are in the tab Home then double click the tab Home to minimize and restore the ribbon)
You can also minimize the Office Ribbon by clicking the Quick Access Toolbar on the top of the application near the Office button and check the option, Minimize the Ribbon. If you want to restore the Office Ribbon, click the Quick Access Toolbar and uncheck the option Minimize the Ribbon.
The best of all is to use the keyboard shortcut to minimize and maximize the Ribbon. Just use the keyboard shortcut CTRL + F1 to minimize the Office Ribbon. Use the same set of keys again to restore the Office Ribbon. This tip is applicable for all Office 2007 applications like Word, Excel, Powerpoint etc.
If you work on Windows and Office Applications most of the time then these posts on Keyboard Shortcuts for Windows and Office will help you a lot.
I’m not sure, if minimizing the ribbon will help me in staying focused, but here’s a tip which works for me. I love zooming while typing. Typically I zoom to about 140%, just helps me stay focused on Word.
@Thilak, Thats a nice interesting tip…Will try that next time..