The Home Tab - the basic workspace in a document:

Purpose

The Home Tab is about the basics of how text looks when it is printed or displayed online. It
gives access to both direct and Style-based formatting. Because of the importance of Styles
to using Word effectively, it devotes a great deal of space to Styles.

I suspect that many Word users seldom stray from the Home Tab. They are missing many
opportunities to make Word work for them, but that is not the topic of this page. On this
page I intend to examine the control groups on the Home Tab and what each of the controls
does. This leads into the Font and Paragraph dialogs and the Clipboard functions of Word.

The Home Tab has its controls arranged in five (six) groups from left to right:

Clipboard -- Font -- Paragraph -- Styles -- Editing -- Voice (2019)

Group names are at the bottom of the Ribbon and groups are separated by a thin line. Most
but not all groups have a dialog launcher button in the bottom right corner of the group.
The Home Tab shown above is a screenshot from Word 2010. The Home tab has varied
slightly through Word versions. These variations are shown at the end of this page.

Word 2019/365 has added a sixth group at the far right: Voice. It holds a Dictate button.

I do not pretend to know what every control does, especially the ones on the dialog boxes. I
will tell you what I know. If I am speculating or guessing, I will try to make that clear. As I
learn more, this page will be changed. This is a "work in progress."

The Clipboard Group

The clipboard group is on the far left of the Home Tab. It is often used in conjunction with
the Editing group, which is on the far right of that tab.

Paste (with options) Ctrl+V: I have been told that when Microsoft studied Word users,
they discovered that the most used Command was "Paste"
so when they redesigned the user interface, they decided to give this command
prominence as the first button people would see.
(The keyboard shortcut in most Windows programs including all versions of Word
is Ctrl+V.)
The Paste button is actually a drop-down menu of paste choices which is similar to the
paste options you see after you paste
if you use the the Ctrl+V shortcut.

Button Drop-Down - Ctrl Key Result

The first choice (brush) is to keep source formatting.

The arrow button is to merge formatting and the A is to paste the content into the
destination document's formatting.
Paste Special... brings up a dialog box that I do not pretend to understand.
Set Default Paste... let's you decide what happens when you simply press Ctrl+V to
paste.
It gives far more nuanced control through the Advanced Word Options.

The Cut Button is the mouse equivalent of Ctrl+X.

It deletes content from the current location and puts it in the Clipboard.
Another way of looking at this is that it is the beginning of moving text (or graphics)
from one part of a document to another
(or to a different document or even program).
The second step - the new location placement is done with the Paste command or
button.
The Copy Button also puts selected text or graphics into the Clipboard. It remains where
it is, though.
The keyboard equivalent for this is Ctrl+C.

The Format Painter (Brush) (Ctrl+Shift+C to copy formatting, Ctrl+Shift+V to paste

formatting)

I strongly urge people to use Styles rather than the Format Painter. In the long run it
will make your life much simpler.
Double-clicking on it allows you to paste to different areas using the mouse brush
pointer.

These all work with the Office Clipboard as well as the System Clipboard. You can see
what is in the Office Clipboard by clicking
on the dialog launcher in the bottom right corner of the Clipboard group.

This launches the Office Clipboard Task Pane which shows items recently added to the
Office Clipboard with the latest at the top.
The Office Clipboard can hold 24 items.
If you Copy or Cut from any program while an Office program is open, the content is
added to the Office Clipboard as well as to the System Clipboard.
When you paste content, it will be from the System Clipboard (which holds one item).
To use the Office Clipboard, you need to display the Office Clipboard Task Pane.
That pane is anchored to the left side of the Word window by default but can be made
to float and can be resized when floating.
The top of the Office Clipboard Task Pane will tell you the number of items in the clipboard
out of the possible 24. If, with the
Clipboard Task Pane showing, you click on one of the items, it will be pasted into your
document at the current insertion point
even if it was not the last item placed in the clipboard.

Note that if you Copy or Cut material more than once, it will occupy multiple postitions
in the Office Clipboard.
Office does not keep track of whether the item is already in the Office Clipboard.
The Clipboard is available in all MS Office programs.
It is cleared if you close all Office programs or if you use the Clear option.
If you use the Clear option, you will also clear the System Clipboard.

Note, the (Windows) System Clipboard holds the last item cut or copied. It only holds one
item.

Clipboard -- Font -- Paragraph -- Styles -- Editing -- Voice (2019)

The Font Group

The font group has to do with how characters look. It is distinguished from the paragraph
group where the formatting handles
the entire paragraph. I am going to divide these controls into three parts:

1. Controls that give you direct formatting or erase that formatting,

2. A Control that changes the Case of text but is not formatting, and
3. Controls that change how the text looks but are not considered formatting.

Let's look at the last two types, first, because there are only two of them.

Change Case: - Note that Small Caps is not one of the

options.

Highlighting: - Highlighting is not

considered formatting in Word
Highlighting cannot be part of a Style definition (unlike shading) and is not reversed by
the Clear Formatting button.

Next is the Oops button: Clear Formatting, which will strip the effects of the other buttons
in the font group from selected text.
 Clear All Formatting
This says it clears all formatting. This is not accurate. It clears all direct formatting, the
same as using Ctrl+Spacebar and Ctrl+Q..
It then changes the paragraph style to the Normal style.

The Clear Formatting button will clear any of the formatting applied by the remaining
buttons in the Font Group or direct paragraph formatting as well as any style formatting.

The following are all considered Direct Formatting by Word and can be cleared by the Clear
Formatting button (or by Ctrl+Spacebar).

Font Dropdown and Font Size Dropdown

These have been a part of Word since at least Word 97. You can click on them to give a
list to select from or you can type in them.
In the size window you can type a size that is not on the dropdown list. In the Font
window you can start typing the name
of a font and it will fill in the first font name that fits as you type.

Increase Font Size - Grow Font

Decrease Font Size - Shrink Font

These two buttons will increase/decrease the size of selected text. The increments are
according to the font sizes shown in the
dropdown for fonts except that for smaller sizes it will go in increments of one that can be
lower than any shown. The minimum is 1.

Bold (Ctrl+B)
Italic (Ctrl+I)

These two buttons apply Bold or Italic formatting to text. When the insertion point is
inside text that has been
formatted as bold or Italic, these buttons will be shaded.
Bold and Italic are toggle formatting. I.e., if you apply bold to text that is already bold,
it is turned off.
Both can be applied to the same text, so that you can have text formatted Bold and
Italic.
I tend to use the Strong and Emphasis character styles instead of the direct formatting
in case of a theme change.
There is no built-in style for that. Applying the style is not a toggle.

Underline (with options) (Ctrl+U)

Clicking on the Underline button will underscore your text. Clicking the little triangle on
 the right will give you options for
the type of underline you want. Once you select an option, that option is active during
your Word session (including in
different documents). The Underline Color brings up a palette. More Underlines... brings
up the Font dialog box which has
access to even more underline types.
You can only apply one type of underlining to a character. This is character formatting
so you could apply different types to
different characters in the same word.
If text is already underlined and you click on the Underline button, the underlining will
be removed.

Strikethrough

The Strikethrough button gives you a single line through selected text. A double line is
possible through the
Font Formatting dialog box (below).
If this button is clicked on text that already has double-line strikethrough, it changes it
to single-line.
If it is clicked on text that already has single-line strikethrough, that is removed.
The Strikethrough button will be shaded if selected text has a single underline applied.

Subscript
Superscript

These decrease the font size proportionally and lower or raise the baseline.
These buttons are toggles and will be shaded when text is selected to which they apply.

Text Effects
 Text Effects lets you apply WordArt type appearance to text in the body of your
document. Unlike WordArt, Text Effects can be
applied using Styles.
The Text Effects button is available beginning with Word 2010. The screenshot above is
from Word 2013; the last three choices
in the menu are not available in Word 2010.
This works as a gallery, changing the appearance of text as you mouse-over a type.
Also, as you mouse-over, if you pause, you will see background information on the
effect.
The Text Effects button only works as a drop-down. Unlike the Underline, Highlighting,
and Color buttons which also allow choices,
it will not apply an effect upon being clicked. You need to pick something.
Text Effects work best on larger-size text. On body-size text they will make the text
unreadable.
For access to all of the options, you need to use the Dialog Launcher.
I do not pretend to understand all of the choices in this. Here is an Office-Watch
page on them.

Font Color
 If you simply click on the font color button, it will give you the color shown. That color
will be the last one applied to text in your Word session.
If you click on the drop-down, it gives you selections and menu choices.
I try to use Theme colors when they work. That is because if a theme is changed, the
color is more likely to fit in.
More Colors gives you access to the full palette
Gradient allows setting multiple colors fading - this is much more effective with larger
text.

Font Dialog Launcher (Ctrl+D)

As with many of the Groups on the Ribbon, the Font Group has a dialog launcher button
in the bottom right corner.
An alternative for reaching this dialog box is the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+D.
This opens a dialog box that gives control over multiple options and gives more options
than do the buttons on the Ribbon.
Two not available on the Ribbon buttons are Double strikethrough, and SMALL CAPS. In
addition, the Underline style gives
access to many different kinds of underscores.
The Preview box at the bottom previews what you are setting.
Under that are buttons that let you set these settings as the default for new documents
(based on this template),
for text effects, and OK/Cancel.
Even more options are available on the Advanced tab of the font dialog box:
 These have to do with character rather than line spacing.
Exploration of these options is beyond the scope of this page.

Clipboard -- Font -- Paragraph -- Styles -- Editing -- Voice (2019)

The Paragraph Group

Bullets and Numbering is the top-right section of the paragraph group.

For simple documents that will not need much editing, these will work fine.

Bullets

The first button is for bullets. Clicking on the bullet button will give you a bullet, the type of
bullet will be the last type used by you. Following paragraphs will have the same bullet type.
When you press the Enter key to create a new paragraph in an empty line, Word will
discontinue use of bullets. When you click on the button, Word changes the indents to add a
"hanging indent" that indents both the bullet and the associated text.

Clicking on the down-pointing triangle will give you choices.

You can also choose to define your own bullet icon.

For documents that are going to be heavily edited or with multiple kinds of bullets, I
recommend use of bullets linked to Styles. See How to control bullets in Ribbon Versions of
Word by Shauna Kelly.

List Numbering

The second bullet is for simple numbered lists. Clicking on the button will give you a single-
level numbered list of the type last used. Shown below is such a number inserted with the
ruler showing.

Included with the numbering is a first-line indent and a hanging indent. Your numbered list
will be set in from the margin and following lines in the paragraph will be set in more.
As with bullets, you can apply this to existing paragraphs.

As with bullets, the down-facing triangle will give you more choices.
The screenshot above shows the gallery of choices. As with the bullets gallery, the list
number gallery lets you preview your choice for selected text. In this show, the current
choice is with the full stop following the number; the previewed choice is with a right
parenthesis. As with bullets, you can define a new format. In addition, you can reset or
restart your numbering.

Again, with simple documents that will not be edited much, this button works fine. For
anything more complex, you will want to go to Numbering linked to Styles. See How to
create numbered headings or outline numbering in Ribbon Versions of Word by Shauna
Kelly. This method gives much finer control and is much less prone to development of
"spaghetti numbering."

Paragraph Dialog Launcher

The little arrow in the bottom right corner of the Paragraph group launches the Paragraph
Formatting dialog. Again, such formatting is best done using Styles rather than directly.
 Clipboard -- Font -- Paragraph -- Styles -- Editing -- Voice (2019)

The Styles Group

The Styles Group in Word 2007-2010 is shown above. The Styles Group for 2013 and later
no longer has the Change Styles dropdown.
That has been moved to the design tab in those versions.
From Word 2016 on it has become smaller horizontally but still has the expansion dropdown
menu.

With Word 2021 and Windows 11, a different look was introduced, called the "New
Experience."
It changed the Styles Group, removing the unformatted names of the styles and instead
showing them formatted.
This decreases the number of styles that can be displayed.

It is possible to add style controls to the Quick Access Toolbar. Here is a link to my free
Add-In that does this: Styles QAT Add-In.
 Clipboard -- Font -- Paragraph -- Styles -- Editing -- Voice (2019)

The Editing Group

The Editing Group actually appears on the far right end of the Home Tab.

The Editing Group has three choices, two of which are drop-down.

Find

Find (Ctrl+F) opens the navigation pane with the insertion point in a search box
Advanced Find (Ctrl+H, Alt+D) opens the Find dialog box (See Replace below)
Go To... (Ctrl+G) opens a dialog that lets you go to a point in your document

Replace (Ctrl+H) opens the Replace dialog box shown below.

 Actually, it opens a smaller dialog box with everything above "Search Options" on it. In
the smaller version the
button on the left reads "More >>" instead of "<< Less."
Note the Find and Go To tabs at the top. These are the dialog boxes for the Advanced
Find and Go To commands.
The Replace dialog can be used instead of the Advanced Find box if you want, just ignore
the Replace and Replace All buttons.
Under both the Find what and Replace with boxes are areas for format. These are
controlled by the Format and
No Formatting buttons when the cursor is in the box for the text.
There are multiple web pages devoted to this dialog box. Here is a place to start: MVP
General Word Help Page

The Voice Group - Dictate Office 2019-2021/365 Only

Note that the Online version of Word also has a Transcribe function.
As far as I know, this is the only function available in the Online version that is not in the
Desktop applications.

Variations on the Home Tab

This page has been exploring the controls in Word 2010 and 2013. The Home tab has
remained mostly the same in all versions of Word. Here are some screenshots.

Word 2007
-Word 2007 - wider

-Word 2007 - narrower

The three tabs above are all screenshots of the ribbon on the same computer. Word
repackages the ribbon tabs to fit the available space. Here, I've simply decreased the size of
the screenshots of the wider versions.

In the wider version, it gives more space to the Styles Gallery. In the narrower version
some buttons shrink or lose captions. The combination of screen size and resolution
determines what you will see, so your ribbons may not look exactly like any of the ones
shown here. Another example showing different screen layouts is in the Word 2010 version
of the Drawing Tools contextual tab below. Your ribbon may or may not have a Developer
Tab, that is up to you.

The Word 2007 and 2010 tabs shown are from a laptop running Windows Vista. The Word
2013 tabs are from a desktop tower running Windows 7 on a larger screen.

Word 2010
Word 2010 - Narrower

(Note the collapse of the QuickStyles Gallery and Editing Group. The Quick Styles gallery is
now available through the dialog launcher button next to the word "Styles.". Other groups
are compressed. This is less than half as wide as the one immediately above it.)

Word 2013

Word 2016/365

Original Word 2016

Word 2016/365 in 2018 - Note Voice/Dictate Group on Right

Word 2019/2021/365 in 2023

Word 2021/365 New Experience applied in 2023 - major change is look of Quick Styles
Gallery and addition of Editor