Most of us use Microsoft Office on our PC’s especially if you have a work/corporate computer. The menu system and toolbars has been basically similar through all the evolutions of office up to and including Office 2003. However with Office 2007 Microsoft introduced the new ‘Ribbon’ interface which is a sort of context aware tabbed toolbar and options. ‘Context aware’ means it changes depending on what you are doing at the time. The Ribbon is available in most Office programs including Word & Excel but only in a limited fashion in Publisher and Outlook.
I actually like the new ribbon menu and once you get used to it, it is very useable. Plus we need to get used to the Ribbon-type system as Microsoft is bringing it to all of their programs over time.
Now of course when you make a change to a program as common as Office you alienate a number of users. So I wasn’t surprised when I ran across an item on Lifehacker the other day referring to a way to customise the menu system in Office 2007 to include the old 2003 menus in one of the Ribbon Tabs.
The article referred me to the Ribbon Customizer website. I downloaded the free Starter Edition and I found it quite useful. However a bit more searching led me to a similar program called UBitMenu and I like the way this one achieves the same outcome.
Office 2007’s Ribbon interface remains a love-it-or-hate-it affair for money, and for those of you who miss the Microsoft Office 2003 menu that’s entrenched in your muscle memory, UBitMenu can help. This plug-in adds a new Menu entry to the Office 2007 ribbon (specifically in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint). When clicked, your ribbon displays the classic Office 2003 menu, complete with the buttons and file menus you’re used to from your old Office 2003 install. Not every single bit of functionality remains in the UBitMenu toolbar as is available in Office 2003—due mostly to changes in Office—but most of the features you’re used to remain in all their glory. Even if you’re keen on the Office 2007 ribbon, UBitMenu is a nice tool to ease the transition from 2003 to 2007.
We have also discussed Search Commands in the past. This add-on from the Office Labs provides a way to search through the Office menu options if you don’t know where a certain function is hiding. It also offers Guided Help which is like a mini-tutorial on how to use some functions. You can add this function as well as one of the ‘old’ menus above
You know there’s a button for it, but you don’t know or remember where it is. If this ever happens to you, check out Search Commands. You can use this concept test today to quickly find the commands you need in Microsoft Office 2007 Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Just search with your own words and click on the command you need. It also includes Guided Help, which acts as a tour guide for the specific tasks you’re looking for.
For those who are totally frustrated with Office I have another alternative – Open Office. OO is a totally different program but has a menu structure that is similar to that used in MS Office of recent years. It is a very powerful program and is fully compatible in most cases with Office document formats. Oh yeah, and it totally FREE!
If you are setting up a new computer for Home use there is no reason to pay $150 or more to have MS Office
So there you go – a number of ways to make using Microsoft Office 2007 easier to use or indeed replace it all together
References
LifeHacker - UBitMenu
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