Scout is the code name of the rumored new plug-in developed by Microsoft for Microsoft Office 2007, which intends to further enhance the easiness to find a command or function in Microsoft Office 2007 application or program. This is on top of enhanced and redesigned Microsoft Office Fluent or Ribbon user interface that helps users to locate and find functions and commands within Office 2007 Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access and Outlook programs. Scout works by creating a ‘Search Commands’ tab at the end of your ribbon menu where inside it, you could search for commands and functions, especially those tools that is out-of-context, and usually not showing up in the contextual tabs, according to istartedsomething.

istartedsomething also posted a screen shot of Scout:

Scout for Office

Scout is probably a good news to those who want quick access to every commands, tools, features and functions in Microsoft Office applications by a few simple keystrokes. Scout will return all matching and available commands that has name that matched what user typed, paginating at 9 commands per page. User can then click on the command to run it, or execute it with a keyboard shortcut, or KeyTips.

Scout likely to be released for free download as add-in for 2007 Microsoft Office System when development is done.

Update: Scout has been canned.