Office 2007 UI alternatives ?

December 7, 2006 6:06 AM

Office 2007 filter : how do I get my dear old "menus" at least in Word and Excel ?

The new UI is spiffy and all , but surprisingly I don't care and unsurprisingly Microsoft couldn't care less about what I like.

Any way to get the old menu-style back ? I do love the free openoffice but the rest of my family isn't half the geek I am.

posted by elpapacito to Computers & Internet (21 answers total)

Actually, no.

Install 2003.

You'll find many of the old dialogs by clicking the small icon next to each tab pane's title...

Okay, on the ribbon, you have tabs. Each tab has multiple panes, "Font" "Alignment" "Clipboard," etc. in the bottom right of some of these is this tiny little icon that brings up the classic dialog.

The reality is that anyone who is starting fresh will get along with 2007 a lot better than someone using 2003, etc. for a long time. It will probably take a couple of weeks, but the idea here is that it's not just "spiffy," it's intuitive. where do I go to insert a table in Word? The Table tab. Cool.

You'll get used to it. This isn't about Microsoft caring or not caring about their users. It's about a conundrum they faced. Word 93 had 250 features in it. Word 2003 had 2,500 features. 9 out of 10 features requested to the Office group were already available in Office—users just weren't aware of them, because they had to be so buried in menus. So Microsoft spent hundreds of millions of dollars and some of the most advanced UI development team-hours on creating a system that allows them to jam as many features into a small, workable, clean and relatively organized, intuitive space, while bringing up many oft-forgotten features to the forefront of the application. For instance, I never knew you could manage sources and bibliographies so completely, but it's right there, under the References tab.

Just a bit of a rant, but the interface is the primary largest change in Office 2007. Reverting back if you don't like it is a practical and logical solution. My advice: give it a couple more weeks. You'll probably start to like it a lot more.
posted by disillusioned at 6:14 AM on December 7, 2006

It will probably take a couple of weeks, but the idea here is that it's not just "spiffy," it's intuitive. where do I go to insert a table in Word? The Table tab. Cool.

You picked a really odd example, because you do the same thing in Office 2003 using the Table menu.

Or is it all like that? This is a serious question.
posted by mkultra at 7:35 AM on December 7, 2006

It's all like that. MS spent years and big bucks researching with third party usability consultants, and the Ribbon UI is well documented to increase productivity after the initial learning curve.

The issue many users have is a refusal to just "try" things. How did you change page margins before? File->Print Setup->click through 1 or more tabs. How do you do it in Office 2007? Just look at the ribbon and guess.

That's the great thing about the ribbon compared to menus. If you want to know how to do something, just guess. Chances are, you're right.
posted by Merdryn at 7:56 AM on December 7, 2006

(I might've misunderstood your "is it all like that" question. What I mean by my answer is that the ribbon is nearly always intuitive, but doesn't necessarily match the menu names.
posted by Merdryn at 7:57 AM on December 7, 2006

Incidentally, all the keyboard shortcuts you've come to love in Office 2003 still work. And if you don't like Office 2007, don't use it. Use Office 2003, you can download compatibility add-ons to read Office 2007 file formats, no problem.
posted by Merdryn at 7:58 AM on December 7, 2006

Last response (for now), I promise. I'm not a shill for MS, but in the interest of full disclosure, I make a living with MS products. But I REALLY dig Office 2007 outside of all that. There's one blog in particular that is incredibly enlightening, and shows (in great detail) how much effort was expended making the Ribbon UI, why it was done, what the process was, etc. The author is a GPM on the Microsoft Office User Experience Team. His name is Jensen Harris, and his blog is definitely worth spending considerable time reading.
posted by Merdryn at 8:02 AM on December 7, 2006

Don't feel bad, I work 'em and it took me twenty minutes when I first used Word 2007 to figure where my file menu had gone (big round icon in top-left corner) - admittedly, I am getting old and crusty enough to have issues adapting to new UI's...

But as others have mentioned - keyboard combinations such as like 'Alt+F, Alt+E' continue to work as well. In fact, most Vista/2007/IE applications will pull up the standard menu bar when you press the 'ALT' key - then you can click using your mouse.
posted by jkaczor at 9:15 AM on December 7, 2006

It will probably take a couple of weeks, but the idea here is that it's not just "spiffy," it's intuitive. where do I go to insert a table in Word? The Table tab. Cool.

I always just clicked the table button right on the button bar. *shrug*.

Seriously though, if you don't like the ribbon, just don't upgrade. I'm still using Word 2000 at home, and have no interest in upgrading. It works fine.
posted by delmoi at 9:36 AM on December 7, 2006

Response by poster: I thank you all for the answers, but there is still something that bugs me

1) I don't care about how Ribbon is good , it will take me little to get to know it I am a supreme geek with 20+ years of geeking and I'll spare you the details, suffices it to say I know well what AH and AL are

2) I don't care about my allegedly irrational attachment to the old interface, I am irrational so sue me and all irrational people !

What still completely bothers me is Microsoft supreme arrogance of _dictating_ the interface I am -supposed- to prefer for many good reasons.

There is a bunch of user out there that don't give a fuck about innovation, but prefer consisten interface and don't want to learn new stuff AT ALL..I am thinking about half the corporate employees of the world I guess and the others more concerned about getting some results produced so that the idiot with money thinks everything is ok.

How will I be affected ? A trillion calls about how to do that with Office 2007, mostly from friends and relatives, all of them unpaid. MS stupidity still amazes me.

Seriously though, if you don't like the ribbon, just don't upgrade.

Well if you don't like pollution, stop breathing ! Cmon delmoi that is so much not you !
posted by elpapacito at 9:41 AM on December 7, 2006

What still completely bothers me is Microsoft supreme arrogance of _dictating_ the interface I am -supposed- to prefer for many good reasons.

There are also a few hundred million people who felt it was arrogant of Microsoft to keep selling the same fundamentally overburdened user interface for more than a decade. Eventually, the financial opportunity of appeasing that audience was more compelling than placating the people who resist change. I'm unclear here -- if you like what you have, why would you upgrade? Clearly the new version is targetted at those who say "there hasn't been anything new worth upgrading to since 95/97/2000/XP/2003" or whatever.

You can call this ambitious and surprisingly successful new interface a lot of things, but "stupidity" doesn't seem appropriate. That may accurately describe the behavior of buying something new and different wanting it to be old and familiar.
posted by anildash at 10:04 AM on December 7, 2006

Response by poster: if you like what you have, why would you upgrade?

Sometime you don't want to, but have to. It doesn't necessarily imply having a gun pointed at your head.

Imagine for instance if all the cars had the wheel changed to joystick and there was no wheel option ; in software it is often very easy to offer both the old and the new interface, see for instance Winamp.
posted by elpapacito at 10:11 AM on December 7, 2006

What still completely bothers me is Microsoft supreme arrogance of _dictating_ the interface I am -supposed- to prefer for many good reasons.

What is supreme arrogance is installing software which advertises as its #1 new feature a brand-new interface and then complaining about said interface.

Sometime you don't want to, but have to.

Then take it up with whoever is forcing you to. It's not Microsoft.
posted by grouse at 10:25 AM on December 7, 2006

Response by poster: Then take it up with whoever is forcing you to. It's not Microsoft.

OK so you learn it by tomorrow or you are fired. I don't care if it is MS fault or CEO fault (who got that nice new car for buying the news soft) it's is always your fault.

Loser mentality indeed.
posted by elpapacito at 10:53 AM on December 7, 2006

in software it is often very easy to offer both the old and the new interface, see for instance Winamp.

No, depending on the software and the extent of the interface changes, it might be extremely difficult (or expensive -- same thing really). And Office is orders of magnitude more complicated than Winamp.
posted by xil at 12:14 PM on December 7, 2006

elpapacito: Bitterness is a sure way to prevent yourself from efficiently learning a vastly superior system. Good luck to you!
posted by Merdryn at 12:58 PM on December 7, 2006

Response by poster: And Office is orders of magnitude more complicated than Winamp.

True, but Microsoft isn't exaclty mom&pop soft, they have billions of dollar and thousand programmers. If there is a company that can give users more value and more option , it is Microsoft.

Good luck to you!
Yes good luck to you, read the whole post next time. Maybe you'll figure what we were talking about.
posted by elpapacito at 1:16 PM on December 7, 2006

Have you tried jkaczor's solution?
posted by grouse at 1:51 PM on December 7, 2006

Response by poster: I do know keyboard combinations , I runned BBS on Telegard and Maximus, which probably is arcane shit to you. If there is somebody that can adapt to interface change, that's me unlike many McDonald MCSEs.

Thanks for preoccupying, but that still hasn't solved the issue: is there a way to get the old menus back ?

So far I got a loud NO. The alternative , I learned, is to completely reprogram the UI the ways MSDN suggest, but I am not a good enough programmer to achieve that in a short time and I have others work to do.

You see MS is really pissing me off and they have a world of resources in their own hands, literally billions of dollars. And what the old trusty and crusty users get is a lousy UI change many didn't ask to begin with and NO backward compatibility with users.

That's a slap at who is enriching you, motherfuckers. It will not go unnoticed.
posted by elpapacito at 2:01 PM on December 7, 2006

People bitched and moaned about the shift from OS 9 to OS X, but everyone got over it. If MS made the Office UI half as intuitive as it needs to be, i'll jump for joy. One of the most frustrating things to deal with when helping my PC friends switch to OS X is that their time in the Windows world has made them afraid to just try the obvious thing, which generally works correctly on a Mac.
posted by mkultra at 3:05 PM on December 7, 2006

Any way to get the old menu-style back ?

The answer here, to be clear, is no. It's almost inevitable some third-party will make a "old-style menus" plugin, but I wouldn't expect that before the middle of next year.

If it's an employer requiring you to upgrade, then that shouldn't necessarily affect your family's choice of software. And of course, expecting you to learn new skills is a fairly common and appropriate expectation in most companies. I suspect you're flailing against this idea of change in general, which seems like a missed opportunity.

That's a slap at who is enriching you, motherfuckers.

That's demonstrably false. This is a direct response to the desires of decision makers and organizations that account for the vast majority of Microsoft Office revenues. I concur that it will not go unnoticed.
posted by anildash at 4:04 PM on December 7, 2006

I installed the 2007 beta months ago and my co-workers often teased me when I would stare at the ribbon for 5 minutes trying to perform a basic function. Now that I'm used to it, I really do prefer it over 2003. I would agree that a brand new Office user would pick up 2007 much faster than 2003. However, having said that, the non-power users in my company who still struggle with 2003 are going to kick my ass when I eventually make them upgrade. I think I'm going on vacation the week that news is delivered.

It would be cool if you could switch between the ribbon and menus, but I guess that's not technically possible. I'm the last one to tell someone not to upgrade (I love new stuff), but if you don't like the ribbon there aren't any new features that would cause me to upgrade. As for MS "forcing" this change upon the world; you're certainly entitled to your opinion. I think you're giving them a little more power than they actually have. They've decided to gamble the reputation of their product on the new ribbon. If you don't like it, vote with your wallet.
posted by bda1972 at 5:38 PM on December 7, 2006