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Show Office 2007 Who's the Boss
jcatcw writes "Microsoft knows how you like your Office Suite. You like Ribbons ... they're a given, right? Well, if not, Computerworld reviews some third-party packages that allow you to customize the software's interface. Classic Menu gives you an Office-2003-like set of menus. It'll help you navigate old menu structures to find favorite commands, but don't expect to use all the familiar keyboard shortcuts. ToolbarToggle lets you customize the menus. However, Classic Menu has two advantages over ToolbarToggle: It's available for PowerPoint today, and it includes Office 2007 commands on its menus, a modification you can't make to ToolbarToggle menus. RibbonCustomizer works within the Ribbon's own constraints to let you change the display of icons and commands on existing tabs or any new ones you create."
You bet. As a Word user since 1986, who knows the program pretty well, I must agree that the ribbon is a jumbled mess with important stuff deeply hidden. It was a big disappointment. It took me quite a while to find even the undo command. Inserting a footnote now requires a whole series of mouse clicks as far as I can tell. Go try something relatively obscure like turning on line numbering in a document and changing the style of the line numbers. It took me 10 minutes to figure out how to get to that style - it used to be in the default style drop-down. But I still choose to use Office 2007 despite all these frustrations - maybe it's loyalty, maybe it's more interesting. Damned, though, if I can see any really new major features that make it worthwhile. On the other hand, when this stuff gets rolled out to secretaries who have been using Word for years, there will be hell to pay. People get pretty set in their ways.
This is (another) major opportunity for competitors to make inroads. Jeez, OpenOffice is (a lot) less of a leap from Word 2003 than this stuff.
we're talking about software for real computers, not toys.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
If I have to take my hands away from the keyboard and touch the mouse to do basic formatting, it is unacceptable. The drop-down menus are fully navigable by keyboard. I do not and will not reach over to the mouse to fricking center text. I will not give up alt-f-s to save a document frequently while editing it.
I and many other people do not WANT a lot of banal eye candy visually blaring out at us while we write.
It's okay, though. If forced to use it at work, I will remember that it's just part of the shitty aspects of working. Microsoft has become as mediocre as the stapler that begins jamming after six months of ordinary use and has to be replaced. As banal and tedious to deal with as an old swivel chair that no longer adjusts. What a pitiful mediocre company they've become.