Use the new interface - Microsoft Word Tutorial

- [Instructor] When new versions of the Microsoft Office applications were announced in 2021, the list of new features included a redesigned interface for Windows users. However, not all users had that new interface when the 2021 version was released. Microsoft does tiered roll-outs and timed software updates. So we are starting with the old interface here, which may look familiar to you, and I'm going to switch to the new interface so you can see it. Now if you already have the new interface, that's great. We'll talk about some of the differences in just a moment. But if you still see the old interface, you might be able to follow these steps. And this is for Windows users only. These changes are not there in the Mac version. What we'll do is click this announcements button near the top right corner, and this shows some information about the new interface, including a switch that you can click on to switch to the new interface. Just keep in mind this is how it looks on my system at the time of this recording. Because this software is constantly being updated, you may not see this option in the future. Or you might just already have the new interface anyway. But for now, I'm going to click this to turn on the new interface. It tells me I need to restart the application, which is fine, so I'll click okay there, quit Microsoft word, then I'll go to the start menu and launch it again. Now you won't see much difference on the welcome screen. So we'll start a new document, and now we can see that new interface. And probably the main difference here is the look and general design and layout of the ribbons up at the top. You can see these curved corners and some changes to the layout, but another difference is how the quick access toolbar works. In the older interface, you may be used to seeing the save button, the undo and redo buttons, and other important tools up in the top left corner. And that area was known as the quick access toolbar. Now that has not changed on the Mac. But in the new interface on Windows, this works a little differently. You can see there is a save button here, but this is not the quick access toolbar. The save options are the only buttons here in the top left corner. Now the undo and the redo buttons have been moved here to the home ribbon. Now if we go to another ribbon, like the insert ribbon or the design ribbon, we do not see those buttons. You have to be on the home ribbon, and you have the undo and redo buttons right there. So with the save options and the undo and redo buttons located where they are now, you may not need the quick access toolbar like you may have needed it in the older interface. But if you do want the quick access toolbar, you can enable it. Just go to this arrow in the bottom right corner of the ribbon, click that to open this menu, and choose show quick access toolbar. And that will turn it on, but now the quick access toolbar appears at the bottom of the ribbon, not up at the top. You'll see mine is empty because the undo, redo, and save buttons are not there by default, but you can click this button here to open up this menu and choose which options you want in the quick access toolbar. So maybe you do want the undo and redo buttons there in the toolbar. You can add them. I also like to have a shortcut to print my document, so I'll add the quick print option here. And you can still add other commands to the quick access toolbar, which has always been one of my favorite features. So you can go to that menu again and go to more commands, and you can add almost any command in Microsoft Word as a shortcut to the quick access toolbar. Now we're looking at a list of the most popular commands, but you can go to this menu up at the top and set this to show all commands or you can have it show just the commands that are in specific ribbons or specific tabs. So I want to see the commands that are in the insert ribbon. I'll choose that. And the command I'm looking for is to insert a page break. There it is there, so I can select that. I can click add. It's been added to this list. And when I click okay, I now have that shortcut to make a page break right there in the quick access toolbar. So functionally, this is the same as how the quick access toolbar worked in the older interface, but now it's just at the bottom of the ribbon. Now if you want, you can go back and switch to the old interface again. Just click that announcements button up in the top, and you can flip that switch and switch back to the old interface. Again, this could change in future updates. But I do want you to be aware if you switch back to the older interface, the quick access toolbar will stay at the bottom of the ribbon. That's just a side effect of switching between the old and the new interface. So if you don't have the new interface, you may be able to switch to it. And when you do have the new interface, you should be able to get the quick access toolbar set up how you need it.