The Mini toolbar is a floating palette which automatically appears when you highlight text. Initially all the options it contains are discreetly dimmed. However, when you position the cursor over its controls, the Mini toolbar becomes activated.

It contains a number of buttons for formatting your text. All of these buttons can also be found in the Home tab of the Word Ribbon. The top row of buttons allows you to alter the font, size and colour of our text and also contains Word's nifty Format Painter. The Format Painter tool allows you to copy the format of the selected text to other areas of your document.

The second row of the Mini toolbar contains buttons for making your text bold, italic or centre aligned. It also has options for altering the colour of the highlighted text, indenting text and inserting bullets.

The Mini toolbar offers a very convenient way of quickly formatting your text without having to go back to the Ribbon to find the options you're looking for. However, there are times when it can be inconvenient. This is particularly true when using the drag-and-drop facility within Microsoft Word.

This feature enables you to highlight text and simply drag it to a new location. However, as you are about to drag, it's very easy for the cursor to collide with the Mini toolbar and instead of dragging your text you end up changing its format.

As a user of Word 2007, only you can decide whether you like the Mini toolbar facility or not. If you decide it's not for you, Word allows you to deactivate the Mini toolbar facility. Choose Word Options from the Office button. The very first option in the Popular category is "Show Mini Toolbar on selection". If you decide that the you not like the Mini toolbar, simply switch off this option. Now, whenever you highlight text, no Mini toolbar palette will appear.

Even if you have asked Word not to show the Mini toolbar, it is still possible to display it by simply right-clicking on selected text.