Herb and all other responders:
Thanks for all the lively feedback. I'm almost as overwhelmed by it as I
am/was by the new and improved Office 2007 interface. I say "am/was" because
I've been sweating hard in recent days to experiment and get familiar with
the new interface and I think I'm slowly getting used to it. Sint ut sunt aut
non sint - accept them as they are or deny their existence. Denying their
existence is a luxury that Bill Gates et al won't let us afford ...
A few observations:
- Customizing toolbars etc. has never worked well for me. Partly a personal
thing, and partly because it tends to make interactions with company provided
user support even more complicated than they already are.
- Everything in Office 2007 is very visual now - almost exclusively. That
may work well for most people but not for all. Like me for instance. I just
liked the option in previous versions to use text-based pull-down menus
without having to glance all over the screen to find some cute little darn
icon until my eyes start to hurt.
- Some new features I really like, e.g. the long overdue citation insertion
and bibliography creation will come in very handy.
- Pity they still they did not fix some of the chart issues (funky aspect
ratio issues). Guess that will never be addressed.
Thanks again!
--
JMB
"Herb Tyson [MVP]" wrote:
When I agreed to write a book about Word 2007, I faced exactly the same
problem you're facing. But, because Word 2007 was the object rather than the
means, I had no choice in the matter. At the outset, I was using Word 2003
to write the book, but at some point, critical productivity mass was
achieved, and I found that new Word 2007 features made me more productive,
and so I wrote the last half of the book using Word 2007.
I don't know if there are "classic" interface tools for Excel, but there are
several for Word 2007:
http://www.addintools.com/english/menuword/
http://pschmid.net/blog/2007/04/20/111
I believe that the second option is free. So, for Word, at least, you have
at least three choices:
1. Bite the bullet and learn Word 2007, knowing that Word 14 will surely
build on Word 2007/12 rather than on Word 2003/11; this is the best option
if you need to keep up with future versions of Word. If it's hard to get
used to the new interface now in Word 12, it will only be more difficult
several years from now with Word 14.
2. Use a classic interface tool, relying on it when you're in a hurry, but
otherwise dabbling and gradually learning the ribbon approach. This is a
good option if Word 2007 has features that you need, but you don't need to
learn Word 2007 in a hurry. There are other learning aids you can use, as
well, such as the interactive guide that shows you where to find Word 2007
commands and features:
http://office.microsoft.com/assistan...HA100744321033.
3. Revert to Word 2003. This is a good option if Word 2003 provides
everything you need and if you won't need to work with documents that rely
upon Word 2007-specific features that aren't preserved when using the Office
2007 Compatibility Pack.
A 4th option--not incompatible with #1 and #2--is to set up Word 2007's
Quick Access Toolbar so that it contains your most-used tools from Word 2003
(do the same for Excel 2007). This is the approach I use for my everyday
work, and it has alleviated a lot of Word 2007's ergonomic inefficiencies.
One approach to this is shown he
http://word2007bible.herbtyson.com/2...more-familiar/
--
Herb Tyson MS MVP
Author of the Word 2007 Bible
Blog: http://word2007bible.herbtyson.com
Web: http://www.herbtyson.com
"JMB" wrote in message
...
I'll make an honest attempt to give this question/feedback a positive
twist.
I have been using Word/Excel etc. for years now and consider myself
somewhat
of an expert user. Now I have a new computer with Vista and Office 2007.
And
I essentially find myself facing this predicament of going up an
enormously
steep learning curve, i.e. relearning how to wordprocess and spreadsheet
almost from scratch all over again. The new and improved of Office 2007
apps
may look much more "politically correct" than in previous versions, but so
far my experience has been that it can hardly get any less user friendly
and
more convoluted than this. I'm giving it a very serious try here, but I'm
also beginning to think about throwing in the towel. Anybody out there
that
can offer any useful advice as to how I can actually start using the
Office
2007 applications without letting all my previous experience and know-how
completely go to waste?
--
JMB