[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Larry,

The Ribbon collapses if you use Ctrl+F1. You can, using the links in the previous method, to use RibbonX to customize the ribbon to
remove or replace entire chunks (groups) within the ribbon tabs and to add new tabs.

Customizations of older Word version built in Word menus and toolbars usually don't come over in Word 2007.

Custom toolbars and menus of your own can and by default work from the 'Add-in' tabs. You can create 'clones' of the older version
drop down menus or toolbars (hold ctrl key while working in the older version to create a duplicate of the built in menus, but with
a slightly modified menu or toolbar name, for example File, as File97)

Word 2007 usually retains the button images from the prior edition, but the button editing/pasting capability of prior versions is
not in the apps in 2007.

Rather than replacing Normal.dotm save a copy of your old Normal.dot under a new file name and then open it in Word 2007.

The Custom toolbar and Custom menu choices are placeholders on the QAT. They 'fill' with the contents of the Add-Ins tab when it's
populated, but revert to blank placeholders again if the other document (Add-In tab content) is taken away.

===================
"Larry" wrote in message ...


Bob,

I don't have 2007 in front of me now, but here's what I'm trying to figure
out:

In my Normal template in Word 97, I have my own custom menus, two of them
are on the regular Menu bar which also includes the usual menus. But also
the built-in menus are highly customized by me, with my own macros stuck in
those menus. For example, I have special macros of my own on the File menu,
the Tools menu, the Window menu, and so on.

The other custom menu (called Extra) is on its own custom toolbar called
Extra which I only display when I need it.

I also have a customized toolbar that I use in place of the Standard and
Formatting toolbars, so that I normally have only one toolbar displayed.

Now, getting back to Word 2007, let's say I replaced the Normal template in
Word 2007 with my own Normal template from Word 97. I click my custom
toolbar in Add-ins and that adds it to the so-called Quick Access toolbar.
Does that mean the custom toolbar is displayed permanently as a toolbar?
How does a toolbar display ON a toolbar? I'll have to check this out. And
how would the button images from Word 97 translate into the Word 2007
environment?

And what about my custom menus that are on the regular menu bar? Since a
menu does not exist by itself--it has to be part of the Menu bar or part of
a toolbar, how can a menu by by itself be loaded in Word 2007?

Suppose I wanted to keep access to all my existing menus, both my custom
menus and the regular menus to which I've added my own macros. How would I
do that? I suppose I'd have to create a new custom toolbar, and copy move
all the menus (regular and custom) from the regular Word 97 Menu bar to that
custom toolbar, and then add that toolbar to Word 2007. Is this possible?
And then I would have my own complete menu bar as a permanent part of Word
2007?

But there are further problems. For example, Alt+W opens the Window menu in
previous versions of Word. But in 2007 Alt+W opens the View tab of the
Ribbon. And there's no way to close the Ribbon down. So, even if I could
load an entire custom toolbar containing all my menus, I can't see how I
could continue to open the menus with the same key combos that I now use.

The difficulties are just unbelievable.

How amazing, that in earlier versions of Word, MS gave users all these customization capacities, so you learn them, you build stuff
with them, you create your own customized version of Word, you spend years refining it, and then MS comes along with a new Word
version that basically makes it impossible for you to use the customizations that you have designed and built and you're forced to
start over again almost at scratch.

Larry
--

Bob Buckland ?:-)
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*