[Graham Mayor]

See http://www.gmayor.com/Toolbars_in_word_2007.htm re the reconfiguration
issues.

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org


Phil wrote:
re Graham Mayor below

Thanks for all that. I agree with every word you say - Outlook2007 is
OK, an improvement I feel, but everything else is a disaster. I've
used WORD for at least 10 years, have written 2 books and god knows
how much else with it - thoroughly conversant with contents lists,
styles, change tracking, footnotes/endnotes, multi-section documents,
etc. Now its taking me weeks to get familiar with all this in 2007
and in every case so far, once i've found how to do it, I find it
harder and more awkward than it used to be. One major drawback in 2003
- very large documents - the 'Master Document' facility was a well
known shambles so I assumed it would be fixed. Has it? Not as far as I
can see.

I agree with Graham that one just has to keep both versions
available. Though I note that if I use WORD2003, next time I load
WORD2007 there's a 2 minute delay while something gets reconfigured.
Any way to stop that?

Phil




On 20 Jan, 09:00, "Graham Mayor" wrote:
Aeneas wrote:
Some, who take the time to read about what Office 2007 offers, will
decide it doesn't suit their needs and decide not to buy it; many
others will be impressed and buy it. Typically, those in the latter
group will take the time to learn the new user interface and how to
take advantage of other new features (both of which can be very
frustrating) and, in most cases, be rewarded for their efforts.

Others will have Office 2007 forced upon them by a decision of
company management. Some will refuse to spend the time to learn the
new interface and take advantage of the new features; instead they
will incessantly complain, often blaming the "evil empire
(Microsoft)" or their stupid bosses. Most who choose to endure the
frustration of learning the new software will be richly rewarded
for their efforts.

I did not get involved in the beta trials - life's too short - but I
have
been using Office 2007 since the launch and it certainly has merit,
but for
those coming to it with an in-depth knowledge of the earlier
version, the
change is traumatic. I now use it more or less continuously, but
there is no
doubt I am less productive than I was with the earlier version, and
when
faced with any complicated task it is usually simpler to start Word
2003 (which I still have available) and use that.

I personally think that Microsoft squandered good will from its vast
user
base with this unneccessary change by not providing a backward
compatible
user interface. Patrick Schmid's excellent Ribbon
Customizerhttp://ribboncustomizer.com/ goes some way to bridge the
gap, but frankly it gets in the way of learning the new layout.

Business will have a huge training implication to consider along
with the
cost of the change. Users cannot simply abandon 2003 and start up
work the
next day with 2007 without training or time to learn. Some users
will have
been with the familiar Word layout for more than ten years. Ten
years of
familiarity takes a lot of putting aside just for a pretty new face.

Then there are the implications for all the specialised processes
using vba,
many of which will have to be re-written. Autotext no longer works
properly
because of the lack of autocomplete (though potentially it is much
better),
and it is much more difficult to customize the interface to suit
personal
work practices. Even custom labels have to be re-compiled (though to
be fair
that happened also at the change from Word 2000 to 2002). Only the
XML file
format is really worth the effort, and that could have been added to
2003 as
the compatibility pack shows.

Excel too I now find much more difficult to use, though as I do not
use it
to anything like the extent I use Word I can live with that. Only
Outlook
and Publisher seem to have benefited from the changes and that is
because
they have not been changed so much and the changes have been largely
beneficial. And I simply refuse to update FrontPage.

I am not averse to change and I am quite happy to learn new software
if the
changes are truly beneficial. I am afraid that here the cosmetic
changes are
not justified by the results. The old military expression 'bull****
baffles
brains' is well served by Office 2007

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web sitewww.gmayor.com
Word MVP web sitehttp://word.mvps.org