Basic Publisher Ribbons

The current MS Office suite programs, which include Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Publisher, etc., use what
are termed "Ribbons".  These Ribbons take the place of what used to be called menus in the previous
iterations of the various MS Office programs.  Each Ribbon has a range of functions, which again are
similar to the menus used in many different software applications.  To use MS Publisher successfully you
need to understand the various Ribbons and what their functions are.

Home-This is the default ribbon in Publisher and the one that you will use most of the time.  You can see
that most of the basic text editing tools such as Bold, Italics, alignment, indenting, fonts, etc., are
displayed here.  You alos have limited control over objects that you can click on in the publication layout.
This Ribbon is very similar to the one used in Microsoft Word.

Insert-Any time that you would like to add content to your publication then the Insert Ribbon is the one
most likey to be used.  There are features here for adding pictures, shapes, calendars, borders,
hyperlinks, and more.  The first time that you insert an image Publisher will ask you for the location of the
images on your system and from that point forward it will display the available images when function is
used subsequently.

Page Design-This Ribbon allows users to change the color of their publication, template, fonts, etc.,,
without having to go back to the start and creating a new publication.  It is strongly advised that you save
your publication before using the features in this Ribbon and then only save again once you are satisfied
with the changes.
Mailings-Probably the least used of the Publisher Ribbons.  There are tools here to enable users to mail
merge their publication and send it out, usually through MS Outlook or other email programs.

Review-Another lesser used Ribbon that as its name suggests, allows the user to review the publication,
including spelling errors, language translation, and the use of a thesaurus for words/phrases.

View-This Ribbon allows the user to view the publication while working on it in a variety of ways.  There
are functions here for single or two page spreads, adding guides and rulers, cascading windows, and
more.  It is a good idea to experiment with these functions to determine the easiest view for working on
your publication.

Essential Publisher Ribbons

Microsoft Publisher has several unique ribbons, which includes the Drawing and Text Box Tools.  There is
also the Picture Tools Ribbon which adds image editing features to the MS Publisher program.  To be
successful with MS Publisher you will need to use these Ribbons to edit a wide variety of what are termed
objects in Publisher.
Picture Tools-Every time an image is clicked on in the publication layout this Ribbon will open, even
though it is not usually displayed with the standard Ribbons. With this Ribbon you can add borders to an
image, various effects, and even captions.  This Ribbon also contains some basic image editing tools
such as re-coloring, corrections, and cropping.  Anything beyond basic editing should be done in an
actual image editing program such as Adobe Creative Cloud Photoshop or GImp 2, then use the
Publisher tools for any final touch up or size issues.  It is also important to note the Bring Forward, Send
Backward, and Align tools that are used with images.  Publisher can "stack" objects, such as image on
top of a colored shape which itself is on top of a text box.  In this case the position of each obkject is very
important and these tools can control their position in the stack.

Drawing Tools-Another Ribbon that only appears when certain objects are selected.  This Ribbon allows
the user to select from a wide variety of shapes, borders, text wrapping, alignment, and rotation tools.
Users can add borders to text boxes, effects, color fills for shapes, and much more.  It is highly
recommeded that users experiement with the various tools in this Ribbon by creating shapes, effects,
changing colors, and using the Arrange tools.

Text Box Tools-After the Home Ribbon, this is the next most popular Ribbon in Publisher.  From this
Ribbon you can control the appearance of any text in your publication.  The features include font, font
size, alignment, WordArt, text fills, effects, and more.  Like the Drawing Tools Ribbon users should feel
free to experimet with this Ribbon before starting an actual publication to see how text works and what is
possible by using these tools.