Description
One of the biggest advantages of using Microsoft Office Home and Student 2013 is the similarities across the applications. The most obvious is the user interface, which is the overall look and feel of the application and how you interact with it. If you’ve used previous versions of Office, you may notice that many commands and features are nearly identical to those in past releases of Office, if not exactly the same, such as the commands for copying and pasting information, formatting text, creating charts, or inserting pictures. All of these similarities greatly reduce the learning curve, which allows you to apply the functionality in one application across the entire Office suite.
As you apply that knowledge and learn more about each application, you’ll likely discover similar functionality that may not be initially obvious. For example, you can create a company newsletter by using Microsoft Word or PowerPoint. You can document company meeting notes in Microsoft OneNote or Word. And you can store lists of data in both Word and Microsoft Excel.
In this chapter, you’ll learn about the Office environment, which includes the user interface, application options, and Office settings, plus you’ll learn about Office terminology, Help options, and other functionality available in Office. This chapter also covers basic instructions for starting an Office application and working with Office files. At the end of this chapter, you’ll get an overview of each application and tips for choosing the right application for various tasks.
PRACTICE FILES You don’t need any practice files to complete the exercises in this chapter.
Exploring the Office environment
The first step in getting comfortable with Office Home and Student 2013 is to become familiar with your Office surroundings. In this section, you’ll explore the user interface along with application options and settings that are shared across the Office applications.
TIP Even if you’re already comfortable with this information from working with a previous version of Office, please read this section for tips that you may have not previously discovered.
You typically start an Office application from the Windows Start screen in Windows 8 orthe Start menu in Windows 7. You can also start an application and open a file at the same time by opening a file sent to you as an email attachment or by double-clicking a file from somewhere in your computer environment, such as your Windows desktop.
With the exception of OneNote, when you start an application without opening a file, the new application Start screen appears.
TIP OneNote doesn’t have an application Start screen. When you start the application, the main window is displayed.