Ribbon

Ribbon is a term coined by Microsoft for its new user interface tool bar in Microsoft Office 2007 applications. It sits at the top of windows and presents a row tabs, each with large buttons and sub-menus giving access to the most commonly used functions in an application or a specific sub-context of an application.

The example in the figure shows the ribbon of a Microsoft Outlook 2007 message composition window, with the tabs Message, Insert, Options, Format Text, and Developer. Below the tabs the button panels of the current tab, Options, are visible: Themes, Fields, Format, Tracking, and More Options.