Office 2007’s new ribbon interface may look more appealing, but it also takes more space away from your work area than the earlier versions’ menus.

Fortunately, you can temporarily get back that lost space. Just double-click on the active tab on your ribbon, and Office temporarily hides the ribbon. You can get a peek at any of your tabs by clicking on one of them, but the ribbon won’t display permanently again until you double-click on the tab to toggle it back into view.

This tip applies to all of Office’s applications, including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

Filed under: Microsoft Office Tutor