Book I
Chapter 2
The Access Navigation Bar, Ribbon, and File menu
23
Okay, the database opens — you can tell because a window has appeared
with the name of the database as its title. So what can you do with it. How
can you see what’s in it. The next section describes this window, and how to
get it to display all the stuff in the database.
The Access Navigation Bar, Ribbon, and File menu
If you are an old Access user, you will have immediately noticed that the
Access 2007 window looks completely different than any previous version
of Access. In fact, you may have flipped straight to this section to figure out
how to get around the new Access interface. (Good move.)
The Ribbon
First you’ll notice that there is no menu. Instead there are tabs at the top of
the window, and a bunch of buttons. This is the new Ribbon that has replaced
the menu and toolbars.
A number of different tabs on the Ribbon are available, and are accessed
through the tabs at the top of the window. The Home, Create, External Data,
and Database Tools tabs are always available. Additional tabs are available
when particular objects are open — for instance, a Datasheet tab is available
when a Datasheet is active. These are known as
contextual tabs
.
The Ribbon presents buttons in labeled groups. That’s why this whole book
tells you (for example) to click the Excel button in the Export group of the
External Data tab on the Ribbon. To find that button, first click the External
Data tab to display the External Data tab on the Ribbon. Then find the Export
group in the middle of the Ribbon (the group names are at the bottom of the
Ribbon). Then find the Excel button within that group.
Quick Access Toolbar
Tabs
Groups
Figure 2-2:
Tabs display
different
ribbons, and
below them
the Quick
Access
toolbar is
displayed.
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