What Happened to the Options Dialog Box?

When Word 2007 was released, it represented a huge change in the user interface from previous versions of Word. Gone were the traditional menus, being replaced with a tabbed Ribbon that contains various groups of commands.

Long-time users of Word were familiar with using the Options dialog box to make changes to Word's configuration. The Options dialog box used to be accessible by choosing Options from the Tools menu, but this obviously is no longer possible since the menus were done away with in Word 2007.

In Word 2007 the configuration options can be accessed by clicking on the Office button (the round icon in the upper-left corner of the program window with the Office logo on it) and then clicking Word Options. The result is that you'll see the Word Options dialog box. (Click here to see a related figure.)

Note that the dialog box doesn't have tabs; it has options at the left side that are the functional equivalent of the old dialog box tabs. Click an option, and the controls available in the dialog box change to represent the selected option. You should note that the controls aren't organized the same as in the Options dialog box in older versions of Word. This means that you may have to search around a bit to find the control you want, but they should all be there somewhere.

If you previously spent quite a bit of time using the Options dialog box, you will likely also use the Word Options dialog box quite a bit in Word 2007. You may want to spend some time familiarizing yourself with the dialog box and each of the options available in it.