Comments on: Making The Most Of The Microsoft Office 2007 Ribbon

By: Steve Capps

Steve Capps — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 00:15:00 +0000

Thanks to Angus Kidman for the June 2009 guide to the Ribbon. (It’s telling that we need this guide to adapt two years after release.) Frankly, I also loathe the Ribbon after trying to work with it for the past year. Some of us are more productive with less, not more. We don’t want to see all the useless “features” in the applications. We work with better with plain English and simple keyboard shortcuts. The Ribbon and its silly pictures that blink on and off (”contextual”) are just a nuisance. I’m going back to Office 2003.

By: Jonathon Hughes

Jonathon Hughes — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:27:18 +0000

Thanks Gus, I glossed over the UBitMenu tip when it was posted, but my mum’s getting a new PC with Office 2007 installed and that’s probably going to be the easiest thing for me to do :)

2 slightly off-topic questions:
1. What’s with all the comment spam on the UBitMenu post?
2. Whatever happened to BRAN? I miss you guys!

By: Duane Nutley

Duane Nutley — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:37:41 +0000

True, yet the Workbooks are text, while the Guides are visual and you watch it on the monitor. So depends upon the user if they prefer reading and text, or visual and graphics.

By: Mic Cullen

Mic Cullen — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 09:25:43 +0000

Get into the new Office (2010) – you can modify the ribbon in that.

By: Regan

Regan — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:15:24 +0000

I’ve been using Office for god knows how long and I can’t bring my mind to use the Ribbon Interface (even working on MS Dynamics applications like CRM).

I don’t have the time with looming deadlines to relearn a new interface.

Ubit Menu previously mentioned on LifeHacker has been a life saver.

By: Angus Kidman

Angus Kidman — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 05:03:08 +0000

The Mapping Workbooks are files you download for local use.

By: Duane Nutley

Duane Nutley — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 04:54:37 +0000

Instead of the mentioned Mapping Workbooks, you could try http://office.microsoft.com/en-au/training/HA102295841033.aspx and the Office Guides.
The Guides are flash demos that you start in Office 2003 and click what you want from the menus or toolbars. It then bring up the 2007 equivalent and steps through for that item.

Plus instead of going to the Microsoft site, you can download the files and have them locally.

By: Wobble

Wobble — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 03:58:27 +0000

My biggest gripe is that you can’t modify the Ribbons.

And there still is no Paste-Special-TextOnly button. If I want to copy-paste some text from a website, it copies over all the formatting. To prevent this, I have to go through 4 steps.