In preparing the Command Finder for Word 2010, we’ve found some curious inconsistencies.
In preparing the Command Finder for Word 2010 , we’ve found some curious inconsistencies.
For starters, the ‘Commands not on ribbon’ list doesn’t include all the commands missing from your ribbon.
For example ‘Character Border’ isn’t on the default ribbon for most people but you won’t find it in the ‘Commands not on the ribbon’ list. It, and many others, is only on the ‘All Commands’ list or hiding on the list for a tab the command should be on (Home). Microsoft makes a distinction between commands allocated to a ribbon (which might not necessarily be exposed on your ribbon) and commands that are not assigned a potential ribbon at all.
Doubtless Microsoft will have some double-talk excuse for this but who cares? If you’re looking for a particular command, use the long ‘All Commands’ list or our new Command Finder for Word 2010.
Finding a command can be hard since the naming is inconsistent. Some commands are labeled with the noun or main subject first, others have the verb first. For example there’s ‘Character Border’ but another character related commands are lower down under ‘Combine Characters’ or ‘Enclose Characters’. With our Command Finder for Word 2010 you can find them quickly by searching for ‘character’.
Other commands are quite unhelpfully named. There is ‘Center’ and ‘Center Text’ with the same icon but the latter only applies in WordArt objects. There are three commands called ‘Zoom’. ‘CharLeft’ and ‘CharRight’ seem strange but are really the equivalent of left and right arrow keys for VBA programs.
‘Accent’ near the top of the list would seem useful to anyone wanting to add accents, graves etc to characters especially since the icon shows an umlaut – in fact that command is related to the Equation editor only.
Have you found any other command list peculiarities? In Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook for any version of Office. Let us know via our Feedback page – choose ‘Article Feedback – Office Watch’.
