Office 2007

LadyRef
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Office 2007

Post by LadyRef »

I am so frustrated with Office 7 and the defaults that have been pre-set.! :hairout: What a shame they don't leave the alone and let the individual user set them up.
Last edited by HansV on 27 Jan 2010, 18:52, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: to edit subject (7 > 2007)

JoeP
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Re: Office 7

Post by JoeP »

I'm guessing you mean Office 2007. Many things can still be set you just have to look in a different place. Is there something specific?

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LadyRef
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Re: Office 7

Post by LadyRef »

EVERYTHING!!!! (Sorry, don't mean to shout!) It has been a learning experience to try and discover where every day items are hidden. Use PowerPoint quite a bit and particularly miss the right click functions that allowed me to select a special design.

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Re: Office 7

Post by JoeP »

You might want to try the :free: add-in Search Commands. It can help get used to the Ribbon.

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LadyRef
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Re: Office 7

Post by LadyRef »

Thanks, I already have it You are correct it does help.

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Wendell
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Re: Office 7

Post by Wendell »

Well, you aren't alone in your frustration with the menu changes. Unfortunately the next generation (Office 2010) continues along the path. I have to switch back and forth because I have clients using 2002, 2003 and 2007 and I am still more efficient in 2002/3 after nearly 3 years. But there are some things about the new interface I do like.
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LadyRef
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Re: Office 7

Post by LadyRef »

What do you like about the new interface? Haven't found much myself. The new defaults are not even close to what I need. I would rather set my own than have someone else tell me what I need.

I am an average user. Use PowerPoint to create instructional modules that are simple and to the point. '02/'03 met my needs to create these. Having to start over at the bottom of the learning curve has been extremely frustrating.

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Re: Office 7

Post by JoeP »

If you use the keyboard try the ALT key. It will display the keyboard input for the options available in the current part of the ribbon.

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Wendell
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Re: Office 7

Post by Wendell »

LadyRef wrote:What do you like about the new interface? Haven't found much myself. ...
I very much like the Quick Access toolbar where you can put the things you use the most, and most of the shortcut keys still work the same. (Joe's tip is a very good one.) And I normally minimize the ribbon in Access where I work the majority of the time. Also, you can customize the ribbon if you are willing to spend the time to learn how to use the customizing process. (Office 2010 improves on that quite a bit.) The biggest complaint :scold: I have is that they took my vertical real estate rather than the horizontal. I run widescreen monitors (16x9 more or less) and have more horizontal room than vertical - I suppose I could rotate them, but turning a 24 inch vertically requires you to move your head up and down...
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TonyE
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Re: Office 2007

Post by TonyE »

There is a free for private use add-on, UBitMenu, that creates a new ribbon which contains the classic Office 2003 style menu and toolbars for Excel, Word and Powerpoint.
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Re: Office 2007

Post by dasadler »

This may be old news but here is an interesting video showing product development of MS Office… especially the user interface. About 90 minutes. I, for one, am a little less frustrated and more willing to learn after watching this.

http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2 ... ibbon.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: Office 2007

Post by HansV »

dasadler wrote:I, for one, am a little less frustrated and more willing to learn after watching this.
The presentation is nice, but it makes me wonder why they botched the whole thing so terribly. Switching from the menu/toolbar interface to the ribbon was the perfect opportunity to make things more logical, but they often did the opposite.

I switched from Office XP to Office 2007 almost three weeks ago, and I'm sincerely trying to use the ribbon. But this is what happens:

I was working in Excel, and I wanted to insert a shape on a worksheet. No Drawing toolbar, but switching to the Insert tab of the ribbon seemed logical, and Yes! there was a Shapes button. So far so good.

Next, I wanted to insert a new worksheet. In previous versions, this was Insert | Worksheet, so it seemed logical to look on the Insert tab, where I already was. I scanned the Insert tab from left to right and from right to left, but no Worksheet button. Turns out this is on the Home tab. AAARGH! Instead of making things easier, they have made them more frustrating!

One of my pet peeves with older versions of Office was that over time, the Tools | Options dialog had become a confusing mixture of items. For example in Excel, there were worksheet-level options, workbook-level options and application-level options. So what do we have now? The Advanced tab of the Excel Options dialog has ... worksheet-level options, workbook-level options and application-level options. :igiveup:
Best wishes,
Hans

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Re: Office 2007

Post by JoeP »

Next, I wanted to insert a new worksheet. In previous versions, this was Insert | Worksheet, so it seemed logical to look on the Insert tab, where I already was. I scanned the Insert tab from left to right and from right to left, but no Worksheet button. Turns out this is on the Home tab.
With Excek 2010 you can always insert a new worksheet with the little icon at the bottom. I think it is there in Excel 2007 also.
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HansV
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Re: Office 2007

Post by HansV »

Yes, that's in Excel 2007 too, and that is a nice new feature. I'm aware that there are lots of alternative ways of doing things, often more efficient than using the ribbon. But that's not the point I was trying to make, I was trying to point out that the ribbon interface is often just as confusing as the menu/toolbar interface it's supposed to be a huge improvement upon.
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Hans

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Re: Office 2007

Post by dasadler »

There is always a period of adjustment while we flounder outside our comfort zone. Soon it will be second nature to you. That said, I do share the frustration of not finding what I need when I need it and, invariably, it happens when time is critical.
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Re: Office 2007

Post by HansV »

I don't mind learning a new interface, and of course I'll become more comfortable with it over time. I'm not going to use an add-in to restore the menus in Office 2007, and I know that there are tools that show you where the equivalent of an Office 2003 menu or toolbar command can be found. But the whole point of the ribbon interface, as mr Jensen points out again and again in the video, was to make commands easier to find.

There's extensive footage of eye tracking: someone's gaze goes all over the place looking for the Find command in Excel 2003, then he or she finds it within seconds in Excel 2007.

And yes, some commands are very easy to find, but others have become more difficult to find than before, and many commands now take more mouse clicks. When it has become second nature, it'll be because I have learned the location of many commands by heart - just as in previous versions.
Best wishes,
Hans

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VegasNath
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Re: Office 2007

Post by VegasNath »

Out of interest, I've read many criticism's of the new Office interface & ribbon, has Microsoft responded in any way to the criticism's and do they plan to make changes?

I was not expecting to ever need to get to grips with 2007 (at work), but I have heard a rumour that it may well be coming our way. :shudder:
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Re: Office 2007

Post by JoeP »

VegasNath wrote:Out of interest, I've read many criticism's of the new Office interface & ribbon, has Microsoft responded in any way to the criticism's and do they plan to make changes?

I was not expecting to ever need to get to grips with 2007 (at work), but I have heard a rumour that it may well be coming our way. :shudder:
It is extended to all the client programs & Sharepoint in Office 2010.

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HansV
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Re: Office 2007

Post by HansV »

Not only that, but the ribbon interface is also used in the Paint program in Windows 7, and I assume that it will find its way into more Windows utilities over time. That in itself is not bad though, it's the way it's been implemented in Office 2007 that I object to.
Best wishes,
Hans

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Re: Office 2007

Post by JoeP »

FWIW, the ribbon is in Windows 7 Wordpad also. I, too, have been frustrated in finding some things in the ribbon. I guess we have to hope that Microsoft sees something in its instrumentation or hears complaints and makes the ribbon arrangement more usable.

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