So I bought the MS Office Ultimate 2007 package for students.....and I hate the layout of it. Is there ANY WAY to switch to a sort of classic view or so that it looks like Office 2003 in Word and Excel?

Also, why are the programers at MS such idiots? Why would they not allow a default save mode that is compatible with 2003 rather than the .docx? Not only that, but the default font is "Calapri" or some MS designed font, and the default "paragraph" settings are all out of whack. Sorry had to rant - thats been bothering me.

[Edited on March 20, 2009 at 8:07 PM. Reason : .]

3/20/2009 8:04:12 PM

http://lifehacker.com/5166887/ubitmenu-brings-the-microsoft-office-2003-menu-back-to-office-2007

3/20/2009 8:05:45 PM

Quote :

"ANYWAY"

3/20/2009 8:06:14 PM

2007 saves 2003 compliant .doc files, calibri is a far better font than times new roman from a readability standpoint, and the ribbon is a god send. read the thread from 3 years ago when this was discussed thoroughly

3/20/2009 8:08:55 PM

^^^ not a bad substitue

[Edited on March 20, 2009 at 8:15 PM. Reason : .]

3/20/2009 8:15:42 PM

the lesson is

people hate change

[Edited on March 20, 2009 at 8:17 PM. Reason : even if it's for their own good]

3/20/2009 8:17:39 PM

yea it was a pain to get used to but i'd consider myself pretty proficient at Word so i can only imagine what it was like for average joe_schmoe user

why do you think it was better for users to give them the ribbon?

3/20/2009 8:27:15 PM

/message_topic.aspx?topic=490170
http://thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=495160
to name a couple...

3/20/2009 8:31:13 PM

huh? he said the ribbon was for our own good and i asked him why and you pointed me to more moaning threads about how the ribbon sucks?

3/20/2009 9:09:36 PM

there are responses to those thread that indicate that why ribbon is good

during the development of office 2007, i followed the blog of the group program manager that talked about all the choices they made, why they made them, all the supporting research and user testing, etc.

there are a LOT of microsoft products that i am critical of, but office 2007 is not one of them

[Edited on March 20, 2009 at 9:15 PM. Reason : one of the most enjoyable blogs i've ever kept up with. it's sad he doesn't write anymore]

3/20/2009 9:13:20 PM

oh ok i just read the OPs in both

3/20/2009 9:17:28 PM

Quote :

"Also, why are the programers at MS such idiots? "

you should probably alert the Microsoft management about this. They may not be aware.

I mean, the extensive interviewing process and hiring the top students from the top CS programs obviously hasn't worked for them in the past 30 years. Apparently you're the first to see through this charade and call them out for the bozos they really are.

3/21/2009 12:31:26 AM

just use that shit longer, the new interface is SO much better than the old one, just have to get used to it and once you do you will feel like the old interface is the stone age

3/21/2009 1:10:52 AM

docx is the future... an open format that is readable by web browsers and such with no plug-in.

Just give ribbon some time. My wife, who is not an avid PC user, made me get 2007 for both her work PC's because she cannot live without Office 2007 now. For her to go out of her way to talk about the pro's of 2007 is enough to tell me that Microsof thas a hot on their hands.

3/21/2009 2:21:26 AM

Honestly when the whole ribbon thing came in I hated it, but after basically using it non-stop for a few months it's actually something I don't think I could revert back from. You just have to give it a chance.

3/21/2009 2:53:02 AM

seriously. After 2 weeks with the ribbon, I never could go back.

Quote :

"So I bought the MS Office Ultimate 2007 package for students.....and I hate the layout of it. Is there ANY WAY to switch to a sort of classic view or so that it looks like Office 2003 in Word and Excel? Also, why are the programers at MS such idiots? Why would they not allow a default save mode that is compatible with 2003 rather than the .docx? Not only that, but the default font is "Calapri" or some MS designed font, and the default "paragraph" settings are all out of whack. Sorry had to rant - thats been bothering me."

The ribbon is ridiculously more productive. There's a ton of research backing up the design change.

They aren't idiots. You are the idiot, you can go into OPTIONS and change the default save format to Office2000/2003 if you don't want to use docx. The default font is Calibri, which is specially designed for better readability on LCD monitors. It's gorgeous, what do you want, Times New Roman? Amazingly you can change the default font easily!

Default paragraph settings? What do you mean, tab stops? Margin spacing? Indent? It's all changeable in 20 seconds.

3/21/2009 5:21:08 AM

i use office a lot, but i rarely need anything that wasn't on the standard toolbar in previous versions. which makes it nearly impossible to find the specialized tools/buttons when i *do* need them. i think it's much easier to read text-based menus than it is to try to decipher the ribbon icons.

luckily for my everyday productivity, at least, i can minimize the ribbon and add a custom toolbar that mimics what i'd prefer to see.

3/21/2009 10:19:52 AM

of course you don't like it considering you just bought it, it's not exactly like what you're used to.

but give it some time and you'll find that the interface is a lot more intuitive and helpful than before, now I find that I really really miss it when I'm using open office on my netbook

3/21/2009 10:26:55 AM

I think he means that the default paragraph setting is for double spacing.

3/21/2009 10:56:26 AM

ya the 10pt spacing after a paragraph and 1.15 line spacing annoys me on default docs too but i have created doc templates i use for different things now so i don't really care

3/21/2009 11:12:15 AM

Takes 10 seconds at most to change the default font and paragraph settings for a new doc.

3/21/2009 2:39:47 PM

it takes 10 seconds at most to type up your email signature

doesn't mean you want to do it for every email you write.

3/21/2009 3:02:17 PM

the layout of Office 07 is great - very efficient. just use it for a few weeks and you will see.

my only complaint is using keyboard shortcuts - I don't know all of the keys to perform certain actions, and 07 won't show you a menu + keyboard shortcuts, you just have to know all the keys. anyway to change this?

3/21/2009 5:26:37 PM

i thought you could just press ALT and all the keyboard shortcuts would show up over the Ribbon buttons. IIRC, one of the key design points was to retain as much keyboard shortcuts as possible, and add new ones that make sense

3/21/2009 5:49:09 PM

^yeh, it does that. but that doesn't always work.

example: word - alt-t ....

3/21/2009 5:53:48 PM

Using Office 2007 daily for hours a day (Outlook, Word and Excel) I have come to tolerate the ribbon and such. My biggest complaint is that the products are just not stable. I get at least 3 crashes (most of the crashes are Outlook) per week. Luckily it does a reasonable job of recovering the documents to their prior state just before it goes down in flames. That still doesn't excuse it though.

(Running XP SP2, Windows itself is stable and no other application crashes. Office 2003 with the latest Service Pack was completely stable. Office 2007 just crashes at random all the damn time.)

3/21/2009 6:38:39 PM

user error.

I have it on an XP & vista machine, both work great. occasionally excel on my vista machine will crash when working with charts, but it's always recovered perfectly.

3/21/2009 6:48:59 PM

it most certainly is not user error in the case of outlook. most often I find it's probably poor addon/plugin support.

3/21/2009 8:38:14 PM

Quote :

"it takes 10 seconds at most to type up your email signature doesn't mean you want to do it for every email you write."

I think you missed that fact that I said default.

And you don't have to change the default font/paragraph settings everytime you open a new doc. You set the default settings once (which takes 10 seconds), and from then on, every time you press Ctrl+N, the font is Arial and single spaced (or whatever you prefer).

3/22/2009 8:30:18 AM

default takes both meanings but yeah, that's easy as well. i have my header and footer on my template.

3/22/2009 2:31:41 PM

i like calibri a lot. i also really like the ribbon. it's much more efficient, and therefore faster. people just don't adapt to change very well, even if it's for the better.

i've never had a problem with word, excel, powerpoint, or publisher crashing in 2007. outlook used to before the update. maybe there's something wrong with your computer.

i use ms office constantly at work.

[Edited on March 22, 2009 at 8:56 PM. Reason : ]

3/22/2009 8:52:45 PM

Outlook 2007 Update Boosts Performance and Responsiveness
http://lifehacker.com/5185259/outlook-2007-update-boosts-performance-and-responsiveness

for all you guys that were having crashing probs or whatever with it

3/26/2009 11:50:30 AM

People are saying they hated it at first but after 2 weeks loved it and couldn't go back.

Well for me, that 2 weeks was about 3-4 days.

Once I got the hang of it, I was like wow, this is so logical and ergonomic!

Anyway, now can someone tell me concisely what MS OneNote is? I can kind of see some of the things you can do with it. But, MS Word is a 'word processor', Excel is a 'spreadsheet' program, etc. What is OneNote?

3/26/2009 12:31:12 PM

OneNote is a text/picture/object collection point. Allows you to mix and match any amount and type of item and store it or print it. Also does OCR on images, very nice for say, a PDF of power point slides or book scans.

Pretty much it's one of the most useful tools for keeping track of random information without having 10,000 different Word documents.

3/26/2009 2:36:29 PM

^Yep, I use Outlook, OneNote, Powerpoint daily. OneNote has pretty much eliminated my need for Word.

3/26/2009 5:16:45 PM

having now an x61 tablet and one note, i don't know how i ever got through class before without it

3/26/2009 8:40:15 PM

^ are you german?

3/26/2009 8:43:52 PM

yes, why?

3/26/2009 11:22:31 PM

"having now an x61"

3/26/2009 11:34:28 PM

yeah i took german for a few years - i was just guessing from your word order

either german or a jedi knight

3/27/2009 12:13:16 AM

My only complaint with Office 07 is that it bitches whenever I open a normal XLS file.

I've never taken the time to see if I can disable the warning, and I'm sure I probably can, it just irks me.

3/27/2009 12:31:34 AM

Quote :

" Also, why are the programers at MS such idiots? Why would they not allow a default save mode that is compatible with 2003 rather than the .docx? Not only that, but the default font is "Calapri" or some MS designed font, and the default "paragraph" settings are all out of whack. Sorry had to rant - thats been bothering me."

Also, btw I just came across this tonight.

If you want the old Office 2003 formatting defaults: open the New Document dialog, click on "Installed Templates" and at the bottom right is "Office Word 2003 Look". It gives you Times New Roman, and the paragraph settings you are used to.

3/27/2009 2:10:44 AM

can you have a computer with both office 2003 and office 2007 installed? would the programs be all out of whack trying to choose one or the other?

5/2/2009 2:28:17 PM

When I installed 2007, it automatically uninstalled the old version I had. Could have just been my installer though.

5/2/2009 3:03:43 PM