There are basically three types of control found on the Microsoft Word ribbon: buttons, drop-down menus and launchers. The Bold control, found on the Home tab, is an example of a simple button. When you click the Bold button, highlighted text becomes bold. If you click the same button again, the highlighted text reverts to normal.

The Change Case control is one example of a drop-down menu. Clicking the control shows you a series of options. For example, if you choose Other Case from the drop-down, the highlighted text becomes capitalised if it lowercase and vice versa. If you choose Capitalise Each Word, only the first letter in each word is capitalised.

Some controls are made up of a combination of both simple buttons and drop-down menus. One example of this type is Underline, which consists of two sections: a button on the left and a drop-down menu on the right. If you click on the button, the default underline will be applied; usually the underline style which was last used. If you click on the drop-down menu, you are given a series of options for customising the underline. You have a choice of styles: solid, dotted, double, and so forth. You can also change the underline colour. As with the Bold button, if you click the Underline button a second time, the underline will be removed. Also, any line style that you chose from the drop-down menu will become the default.

The dialog boxes and task pane options found in previous versions are still present in Word 2007. They are accessed via launcher buttons. Launcher buttons are displayed in the bottom right of certain ribbon tab groups. Clicking on the launcher button displays a series of options either in a task pane or a dialog box. For example, in the Home tab, the Clipboard launcher button displays its options in a task pane. In the case of the Font group launcher button, the options are displayed in a dialog box.

You may find that the Microsoft Word 2007 ribbon takes up quite a lot of screen space; approximately 20% of the average screen. If this becomes inconvenient, you can minimise the ribbon at any time by simply double-clicking on the name of any tab. Even when the ribbon is minimised, it can still be used. Simply click on the name of a tab and the options will appear once more. Once you have chosen an option the ribbon will be minimised again. To revert the ribbon to its normal behaviour, simply-double click on any tab. Another way of minimising the ribbon is to go to the Quick Access Toolbar and choose Minimise the Ribbon. To revert the ribbon to its normal size, choose the same option once more.