The ribbon is what you see at the top of your screen when you open Word.
In the 2016 version, there is a list of tabs at the top of the ribbon that refer to different overall features. These tabs are listed as File, Home, Insert, Draw, Design, Layout, References, Mailings, Review, and View. An extra search field has the text ‘Tell me what you want to do’, and replaces the former Help tab. The Draw and Design tabs are new additions. Much earlier versions used Edit and Format tabs which are now integrated under other tabs. A window with various styles for headings, normal text, quotes etc. appears across a large part of the ribbon and will be discussed later.
QUICK ACCESS TOOLBAR
Above is an enlargement of the Quick Access Toolbar that is placed directly under or above the Ribbon. By default, it will only show some of the items shown here (from left), but you can customise it by adding (pinning) actions that you regularly use under other tabs so you can reach them quickly and easily without leaving the Home tab. The ones I have here are, from left, Save, Undo last action, Redo last action, swap between the mouse and touch screen, Print, Spelling and Grammar checker, Print Preview, Insert Comment, Thesaurus, Smart Lookup, Insert Footnote, Insert a Page Break, Insert Picture, and Draw a Text Box.
You can see that I have pinned actions that are found under the Insert tab so I don’t have to go looking for them when I need them, and I need them a lot! You might use other actions regularly and have a different set of quick access icon buttons. You can also pin any action you want from the Home tab as well. Here’s how to do just that:
Imagine that you want to pin the Bold action to the toolbar. Go to the Bold button and right click on it. A menu will display with various options. The first option is to Add to Quick Access Toolbar. While the menu is open, just left click on the option, and the Bold button will also appear on the Quick Access Toolbar. You can do this for any action under any tab except the File tab. You can also remove any action from the toolbar by right clicking it and clicking on the remove option.
See my YouTube video about the Ribbon and Quick Access Toolbar on:
The Editor's Pen with Paul Vander Loos 