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JMB JMB is offline
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Posts: 7
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

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
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Suzanne S. Barnhill Suzanne S. Barnhill is offline
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Posts: 33,624
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

I'm not using Office 2007 yet, so I'm still an outsider looking in, and from
here I've seen a lot of pain like yours reflected in these NGs. One
suggestion I can offer is that any keyboard shortcuts you may have learned
(including the Alt+ shortcuts for navigating menus) will still work. You may
also find the interactive command reference
(http://office.microsoft.com/assistan...HA100744321033
for Word) of some limited utility.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"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



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Herb Tyson [MVP] Herb Tyson [MVP] is offline
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Posts: 2,936
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

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


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JMB JMB is offline
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Posts: 7
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

Herb and Susan, thanks for the useful feedback. Like Herb I have no choice,
with my company about to make a massive migration to Vista and Office 2007.
And I can't afford to loose much time and productivity because of this. Hence
my present preparatory work at home in my spare time. So I'll have to bite
the bullet, but this looks like it is going to be a very tough and bitter
one. Quite frankly I fail to understand what Microsoft was/is thinking.
Preparing a new document or spreadsheet seems to be all about coping with the
user interface and appearances now, and in the meantime many people seem to
forget what it is really about, i.e. the contents of the message ... The next
release has been aptly code named MS Office HAB (Hot Air Balloon). On the
other hand I suppose it is also fair to point out that I'm not getting any
younger and possibly my flexibility to adjust is no longer what it used to be.

--
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



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Herb Tyson [MVP] Herb Tyson [MVP] is offline
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Posts: 2,936
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

Use the QAT as much as possible to collect your most frequently used tools.
One good thing about Office 2007 is that it's really easy to add items to
the QAT. Right-click what you want, and choose Add to Quick Access Toolbar.
The other thing that will make it less of a pain (literally) is to move the
QAT to below the ribbon. That way, it will a shorter mouse journey, and
easier to access. (Right-click the QAT and choose "Show QAT Below the
Ribbon".) The QAT has been my salvation.

--
Herb Tyson MS MVP
Author of the Word 2007 Bible
Blog: http://word2007bible.herbtyson.com
Web: http://www.herbtyson.com
"JMB" wrote in message
...
Herb and Susan, thanks for the useful feedback. Like Herb I have no
choice,
with my company about to make a massive migration to Vista and Office
2007.
And I can't afford to loose much time and productivity because of this.
Hence
my present preparatory work at home in my spare time. So I'll have to bite
the bullet, but this looks like it is going to be a very tough and bitter
one. Quite frankly I fail to understand what Microsoft was/is thinking.
Preparing a new document or spreadsheet seems to be all about coping with
the
user interface and appearances now, and in the meantime many people seem
to
forget what it is really about, i.e. the contents of the message ... The
next
release has been aptly code named MS Office HAB (Hot Air Balloon). On the
other hand I suppose it is also fair to point out that I'm not getting any
younger and possibly my flexibility to adjust is no longer what it used to
be.

--
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






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Jay Freedman Jay Freedman is offline
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Posts: 9,854
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

On Wed, 26 Dec 2007 19:00:00 -0800, JMB wrote:

Herb and Susan, thanks for the useful feedback. Like Herb I have no choice,
with my company about to make a massive migration to Vista and Office 2007.
And I can't afford to loose much time and productivity because of this. Hence
my present preparatory work at home in my spare time. So I'll have to bite
the bullet, but this looks like it is going to be a very tough and bitter
one. Quite frankly I fail to understand what Microsoft was/is thinking.
Preparing a new document or spreadsheet seems to be all about coping with the
user interface and appearances now, and in the meantime many people seem to
forget what it is really about, i.e. the contents of the message ... The next
release has been aptly code named MS Office HAB (Hot Air Balloon). On the
other hand I suppose it is also fair to point out that I'm not getting any
younger and possibly my flexibility to adjust is no longer what it used to be.


For the "why", you may want to read the 8-part series by Jensen Harris, the lead
of the UI team, starting from the "table of contents" at
http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archiv..._/default.aspx.
It may help to have some of this background.

For the most part, I find that I do things in Word 2007 the same way I did them
in earlier versions; only the locations of the commands are different. Yes, it
takes some effort to store the new locations in permanent memory. And despite
the "new is better" facade, it's clear that some things aren't in logical
positions -- but they weren't necessarily in logical places before, just ones
that we were used to. (What the heck is a "Tools" menu, anyway? Isn't everything
a tool of one kind or another?)

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit.
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CyberTaz CyberTaz is offline
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Posts: 1,348
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

In addition to the excellent suggestions from others, I've found it quite
helpful to pay particular attention to the "Dialog Launcher" buttons that
appear on the right end of the group name bar of many of the tabs - they
look like a little square with a diagonal arrow within it... In most cases
the dialogs or Task Panes they evoke are virtually identical to what you're
accustomed to using in previous versions.

HTH |:)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac



On 12/26/07 10:00 PM, in article
, "JMB"
wrote:

Herb and Susan, thanks for the useful feedback. Like Herb I have no choice,
with my company about to make a massive migration to Vista and Office 2007.
And I can't afford to loose much time and productivity because of this. Hence
my present preparatory work at home in my spare time. So I'll have to bite
the bullet, but this looks like it is going to be a very tough and bitter
one. Quite frankly I fail to understand what Microsoft was/is thinking.
Preparing a new document or spreadsheet seems to be all about coping with the
user interface and appearances now, and in the meantime many people seem to
forget what it is really about, i.e. the contents of the message ... The next
release has been aptly code named MS Office HAB (Hot Air Balloon). On the
other hand I suppose it is also fair to point out that I'm not getting any
younger and possibly my flexibility to adjust is no longer what it used to be.


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Terry Farrell[_2_] Terry Farrell[_2_] is offline
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Posts: 229
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

Bob

And how I wish these 'dialog launchers' were activated by clicking anywhere
in the group title bar rather than having to aim for the piddling little
arrow at its end. After all, the bar is functionless other than for display
the group title.

Terry

"CyberTaz" wrote in message
.. .
In addition to the excellent suggestions from others, I've found it quite
helpful to pay particular attention to the "Dialog Launcher" buttons that
appear on the right end of the group name bar of many of the tabs - they
look like a little square with a diagonal arrow within it... In most cases
the dialogs or Task Panes they evoke are virtually identical to what
you're
accustomed to using in previous versions.

HTH |:)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac



On 12/26/07 10:00 PM, in article
, "JMB"
wrote:

Herb and Susan, thanks for the useful feedback. Like Herb I have no
choice,
with my company about to make a massive migration to Vista and Office
2007.
And I can't afford to loose much time and productivity because of this.
Hence
my present preparatory work at home in my spare time. So I'll have to
bite
the bullet, but this looks like it is going to be a very tough and bitter
one. Quite frankly I fail to understand what Microsoft was/is thinking.
Preparing a new document or spreadsheet seems to be all about coping with
the
user interface and appearances now, and in the meantime many people seem
to
forget what it is really about, i.e. the contents of the message ... The
next
release has been aptly code named MS Office HAB (Hot Air Balloon). On the
other hand I suppose it is also fair to point out that I'm not getting
any
younger and possibly my flexibility to adjust is no longer what it used
to be.



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Terry Farrell[_2_] Terry Farrell[_2_] is offline
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Posts: 229
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

The others have given you some great tips to start off with: namely use the
old keyboard shortcuts and modify the QAT to be useful for your style of
working.

I feel your pain as I have already been through it. Personally, I am all in
favour of the new Ribbon, but at least three quarters of the tools on the
ribbons are redundant for my way of working. This was the same as previous
versions of Word, but at least in those cases I was able to remove the
redundant tools and add the tools that I find productive (or create a custom
toolbar). Now I am stuck with all the junk stealing my screen real estate.
At least the QAT is easy to edit and you can collapse the Ribbon when not
needed.

--
Terry Farrell - MS Word MVP

"JMB" wrote in message
...
Herb and Susan, thanks for the useful feedback. Like Herb I have no
choice,
with my company about to make a massive migration to Vista and Office
2007.
And I can't afford to loose much time and productivity because of this.
Hence
my present preparatory work at home in my spare time. So I'll have to bite
the bullet, but this looks like it is going to be a very tough and bitter
one. Quite frankly I fail to understand what Microsoft was/is thinking.
Preparing a new document or spreadsheet seems to be all about coping with
the
user interface and appearances now, and in the meantime many people seem
to
forget what it is really about, i.e. the contents of the message ... The
next
release has been aptly code named MS Office HAB (Hot Air Balloon). On the
other hand I suppose it is also fair to point out that I'm not getting any
younger and possibly my flexibility to adjust is no longer what it used to
be.

--
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




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CyberTaz CyberTaz is offline
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Posts: 1,348
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

Hey Terry -

Do ya think that maybe they're trying to discourage people from using them
because they eventually intend to yank the dialogs out?;-)

Regards |:)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac



On 12/27/07 5:53 AM, in article
, "Terry Farrell"
wrote:

Bob

And how I wish these 'dialog launchers' were activated by clicking anywhere
in the group title bar rather than having to aim for the piddling little
arrow at its end. After all, the bar is functionless other than for display
the group title.

Terry

"CyberTaz" wrote in message
.. .
In addition to the excellent suggestions from others, I've found it quite
helpful to pay particular attention to the "Dialog Launcher" buttons that
appear on the right end of the group name bar of many of the tabs - they
look like a little square with a diagonal arrow within it... In most cases
the dialogs or Task Panes they evoke are virtually identical to what
you're
accustomed to using in previous versions.

HTH |:)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac



On 12/26/07 10:00 PM, in article
, "JMB"
wrote:

Herb and Susan, thanks for the useful feedback. Like Herb I have no
choice,
with my company about to make a massive migration to Vista and Office
2007.
And I can't afford to loose much time and productivity because of this.
Hence
my present preparatory work at home in my spare time. So I'll have to
bite
the bullet, but this looks like it is going to be a very tough and bitter
one. Quite frankly I fail to understand what Microsoft was/is thinking.
Preparing a new document or spreadsheet seems to be all about coping with
the
user interface and appearances now, and in the meantime many people seem
to
forget what it is really about, i.e. the contents of the message ... The
next
release has been aptly code named MS Office HAB (Hot Air Balloon). On the
other hand I suppose it is also fair to point out that I'm not getting
any
younger and possibly my flexibility to adjust is no longer what it used
to be.






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Beth Melton Beth Melton is offline
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Posts: 1,380
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

I felt the same way when I first started using Office 2007. My trusty menus
and toolbars were gone and it seemed like it took more clicks to accomplish
a task than the previous versions. I hated it, I hated every minute I spent
with it. BUT then I started discovering the new features that were
introduced and ever since then I've never looked back. The key is two-fold.

1) If you are trying to use the applications exactly as you did in the past
you may find it more cumbersome. 2) While some tasks take more clicks other
tasks, many tasks that used to involved several changes have been reduced to
a couple clicks. I found the time-saving steps are a bit of a trade-off.
Take the Margin galleries for a quick example. If you need to modify your
margins, several frequently used options are available on the Page Layout
tab in the Margins gallery for Word and Excel. All you have to do is open
the gallery, click your selection, and the margins are changed for you.

I suspect once you learn how to efficiently use the new UI then you'll
discover as I did, and numerous others who hated it initially too, things
you wondered how you ever lived without. :-) Here are a few tips and
resources that may help:
- Learn more about the Quick Access Toolbar (the small toolbar next to the
Microsoft Office Button that has Save and Undo on it by default). It's easy
to customize and add those commands you frequently use. To add a command,
right-click the command, either on the Ribbon or those found under the
Microsoft Office Button, and then click "Add to Quick Access Toolbar". To
add an entire group, such as the Font group on the Home tab, right-click the
group name instead of a command in the group. To remove a command,
right-click it and you'll see the Remove command. To reorganize commands,
right-click the Quick Access Toolbar and then click "Customize the Quick
Access Toolbar". I set mine up in the beginning so it looked exactly like
the first part of the old Standard toolbar and the first part of the
Formatting toolbar. What a difference that made!

- Right-click *everything*. Unlike previous versions, some commands can only
be found by right-clicking a command. This includes the Galleries as well.

- Use Interactive Guides to help you find commands you're unable to locate.
They can be found in Help or by using these links:

Excel : http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/ex...491511033.aspx


PowerPoint: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/po...490761033.aspx


Word: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/wo...744321033.aspx


- Spend a little time on Office Online. It contains a wealth of resources
from tips and tricks to training.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email cannot be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Coauthor of Word 2007 Inside Out:
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/boo...x#AboutTheBook

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

"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



  #12   Report Post  
Posted to microsoft.public.word.newusers
Jay Freedman Jay Freedman is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 9,854
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

Hi Bob,

Having listened to Jensen Harris in person, reading his blog, and suffering
through the beta, I think I can promise you that they aren't going to "yank the
dialogs out" although they will probably give some of them a facelift the next
time around. I think the tiny size of the launchers was a mistake, probably in
an overzealous attempt to "hide the complexity from new users". Believe me,
they're hearing plenty of feedback about it!

On Thu, 27 Dec 2007 10:53:58 -0500, CyberTaz
wrote:

Hey Terry -

Do ya think that maybe they're trying to discourage people from using them
because they eventually intend to yank the dialogs out?;-)

Regards |:)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac



On 12/27/07 5:53 AM, in article
, "Terry Farrell"
wrote:

Bob

And how I wish these 'dialog launchers' were activated by clicking anywhere
in the group title bar rather than having to aim for the piddling little
arrow at its end. After all, the bar is functionless other than for display
the group title.

Terry

"CyberTaz" wrote in message
.. .
In addition to the excellent suggestions from others, I've found it quite
helpful to pay particular attention to the "Dialog Launcher" buttons that
appear on the right end of the group name bar of many of the tabs - they
look like a little square with a diagonal arrow within it... In most cases
the dialogs or Task Panes they evoke are virtually identical to what
you're
accustomed to using in previous versions.

HTH |:)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac



On 12/26/07 10:00 PM, in article
, "JMB"
wrote:

Herb and Susan, thanks for the useful feedback. Like Herb I have no
choice,
with my company about to make a massive migration to Vista and Office
2007.
And I can't afford to loose much time and productivity because of this.
Hence
my present preparatory work at home in my spare time. So I'll have to
bite
the bullet, but this looks like it is going to be a very tough and bitter
one. Quite frankly I fail to understand what Microsoft was/is thinking.
Preparing a new document or spreadsheet seems to be all about coping with
the
user interface and appearances now, and in the meantime many people seem
to
forget what it is really about, i.e. the contents of the message ... The
next
release has been aptly code named MS Office HAB (Hot Air Balloon). On the
other hand I suppose it is also fair to point out that I'm not getting
any
younger and possibly my flexibility to adjust is no longer what it used
to be.



--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ:
http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit.
  #13   Report Post  
Posted to microsoft.public.word.newusers
Terry Farrell[_2_] Terry Farrell[_2_] is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 229
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

After all the 'waffle' we were given about usability and how the whole area
around the Pizza in Word and Start Menu in Vista are 'sensitive' areas so
the users don't actually have to hit the buttons dead-on, it is a shame that
the team designing the dialog selectors hadn't been party to the same
brainwashing.

Terry

"Jay Freedman" wrote in message
news
Hi Bob,

Having listened to Jensen Harris in person, reading his blog, and
suffering
through the beta, I think I can promise you that they aren't going to
"yank the
dialogs out" although they will probably give some of them a facelift the
next
time around. I think the tiny size of the launchers was a mistake,
probably in
an overzealous attempt to "hide the complexity from new users". Believe
me,
they're hearing plenty of feedback about it!

On Thu, 27 Dec 2007 10:53:58 -0500, CyberTaz

wrote:

Hey Terry -

Do ya think that maybe they're trying to discourage people from using them
because they eventually intend to yank the dialogs out?;-)

Regards |:)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac



On 12/27/07 5:53 AM, in article
, "Terry Farrell"
wrote:

Bob

And how I wish these 'dialog launchers' were activated by clicking
anywhere
in the group title bar rather than having to aim for the piddling little
arrow at its end. After all, the bar is functionless other than for
display
the group title.

Terry

"CyberTaz" wrote in message
.. .
In addition to the excellent suggestions from others, I've found it
quite
helpful to pay particular attention to the "Dialog Launcher" buttons
that
appear on the right end of the group name bar of many of the tabs -
they
look like a little square with a diagonal arrow within it... In most
cases
the dialogs or Task Panes they evoke are virtually identical to what
you're
accustomed to using in previous versions.

HTH |:)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac



On 12/26/07 10:00 PM, in article
, "JMB"
wrote:

Herb and Susan, thanks for the useful feedback. Like Herb I have no
choice,
with my company about to make a massive migration to Vista and Office
2007.
And I can't afford to loose much time and productivity because of
this.
Hence
my present preparatory work at home in my spare time. So I'll have to
bite
the bullet, but this looks like it is going to be a very tough and
bitter
one. Quite frankly I fail to understand what Microsoft was/is
thinking.
Preparing a new document or spreadsheet seems to be all about coping
with
the
user interface and appearances now, and in the meantime many people
seem
to
forget what it is really about, i.e. the contents of the message ...
The
next
release has been aptly code named MS Office HAB (Hot Air Balloon). On
the
other hand I suppose it is also fair to point out that I'm not getting
any
younger and possibly my flexibility to adjust is no longer what it
used
to be.



--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ:
http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup
so all may benefit.


  #14   Report Post  
Posted to microsoft.public.word.newusers
John Hanley John Hanley is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

Here are a couple of learning tools for Word 2007 that helped me:

http://office.microsoft.com/training...RC100664431033

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/tr...654561033.aspx

http://office.microsoft.com/training...RP100664381033

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/msoffice/?p=146



"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


  #15   Report Post  
Posted to microsoft.public.word.newusers
Paul Gauci Paul Gauci is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 41
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

Yes Ok I have tried the QAT approach but I disovered that some of the icons
for different commands look exactly alike and there is no fast-and-easy way
to edit the icons as we were able to do with 2003.

I am now trying out the pschmid Ribbon Customiser. However, I still have to
find out how to customise the ribbon.


--
Paul Gauci


"Herb Tyson [MVP]" wrote:

Use the QAT as much as possible to collect your most frequently used tools.
One good thing about Office 2007 is that it's really easy to add items to
the QAT. Right-click what you want, and choose Add to Quick Access Toolbar.
The other thing that will make it less of a pain (literally) is to move the
QAT to below the ribbon. That way, it will a shorter mouse journey, and
easier to access. (Right-click the QAT and choose "Show QAT Below the
Ribbon".) The QAT has been my salvation.

--
Herb Tyson MS MVP
Author of the Word 2007 Bible
Blog: http://word2007bible.herbtyson.com
Web: http://www.herbtyson.com
"JMB" wrote in message
...
Herb and Susan, thanks for the useful feedback. Like Herb I have no
choice,
with my company about to make a massive migration to Vista and Office
2007.
And I can't afford to loose much time and productivity because of this.
Hence
my present preparatory work at home in my spare time. So I'll have to bite
the bullet, but this looks like it is going to be a very tough and bitter
one. Quite frankly I fail to understand what Microsoft was/is thinking.
Preparing a new document or spreadsheet seems to be all about coping with
the
user interface and appearances now, and in the meantime many people seem
to
forget what it is really about, i.e. the contents of the message ... The
next
release has been aptly code named MS Office HAB (Hot Air Balloon). On the
other hand I suppose it is also fair to point out that I'm not getting any
younger and possibly my flexibility to adjust is no longer what it used to
be.

--
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






  #16   Report Post  
Posted to microsoft.public.word.newusers
Terry Farrell[_2_] Terry Farrell[_2_] is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 229
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

Paul

That is yet another serious shortcoming of the implementation of the new
interface. I am amazed that Microsoft could not foresee that if the Ribbon
is locked for mere mortals (standard Users) to edit and that they are
'supposed' to use the QAT, there needs to be a way to distinguish between
the buttons - just like on the Ribbon!

But the user research team employed at huge expense by Microsoft said that
normal users never change their toolbars and such. Obviously they were not
monitoring real users and took the results at face value.

Terry

"Paul Gauci" wrote in message
...
Yes Ok I have tried the QAT approach but I disovered that some of the
icons
for different commands look exactly alike and there is no fast-and-easy
way
to edit the icons as we were able to do with 2003.

I am now trying out the pschmid Ribbon Customiser. However, I still have
to
find out how to customise the ribbon.


--
Paul Gauci


"Herb Tyson [MVP]" wrote:

Use the QAT as much as possible to collect your most frequently used
tools.
One good thing about Office 2007 is that it's really easy to add items to
the QAT. Right-click what you want, and choose Add to Quick Access
Toolbar.
The other thing that will make it less of a pain (literally) is to move
the
QAT to below the ribbon. That way, it will a shorter mouse journey, and
easier to access. (Right-click the QAT and choose "Show QAT Below the
Ribbon".) The QAT has been my salvation.

--
Herb Tyson MS MVP
Author of the Word 2007 Bible
Blog: http://word2007bible.herbtyson.com
Web: http://www.herbtyson.com
"JMB" wrote in message
...
Herb and Susan, thanks for the useful feedback. Like Herb I have no
choice,
with my company about to make a massive migration to Vista and Office
2007.
And I can't afford to loose much time and productivity because of this.
Hence
my present preparatory work at home in my spare time. So I'll have to
bite
the bullet, but this looks like it is going to be a very tough and
bitter
one. Quite frankly I fail to understand what Microsoft was/is thinking.
Preparing a new document or spreadsheet seems to be all about coping
with
the
user interface and appearances now, and in the meantime many people
seem
to
forget what it is really about, i.e. the contents of the message ...
The
next
release has been aptly code named MS Office HAB (Hot Air Balloon). On
the
other hand I suppose it is also fair to point out that I'm not getting
any
younger and possibly my flexibility to adjust is no longer what it used
to
be.

--
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





  #17   Report Post  
Posted to microsoft.public.word.newusers
Gordon Gordon is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 304
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...

But the user research team employed at huge expense by Microsoft said that
normal users never change their toolbars and such. Obviously they were not
monitoring real users and took the results at face value.


I have to say as an Advanced Excel user and a not-so advanced Word user /I/
never bothered with customizing the tool bar in previous versions - just as
I don't bother customizing IE or Firefox.....


  #18   Report Post  
Posted to microsoft.public.word.newusers
Graham Mayor Graham Mayor is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 19,312
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

If you still have access to a PC with Word 2003 - see if
http://www.gmayor.com/Toolbars_in_word_2007.htm helps.

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

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


Paul Gauci wrote:
Yes Ok I have tried the QAT approach but I disovered that some of the
icons for different commands look exactly alike and there is no
fast-and-easy way to edit the icons as we were able to do with 2003.

I am now trying out the pschmid Ribbon Customiser. However, I still
have to find out how to customise the ribbon.



Use the QAT as much as possible to collect your most frequently used
tools. One good thing about Office 2007 is that it's really easy to
add items to the QAT. Right-click what you want, and choose Add to
Quick Access Toolbar. The other thing that will make it less of a
pain (literally) is to move the QAT to below the ribbon. That way,
it will a shorter mouse journey, and easier to access. (Right-click
the QAT and choose "Show QAT Below the Ribbon".) The QAT has been my
salvation.

--
Herb Tyson MS MVP
Author of the Word 2007 Bible
Blog: http://word2007bible.herbtyson.com
Web: http://www.herbtyson.com
"JMB" wrote in message
...
Herb and Susan, thanks for the useful feedback. Like Herb I have no
choice,
with my company about to make a massive migration to Vista and
Office 2007.
And I can't afford to loose much time and productivity because of
this. Hence
my present preparatory work at home in my spare time. So I'll have
to bite the bullet, but this looks like it is going to be a very
tough and bitter one. Quite frankly I fail to understand what
Microsoft was/is thinking. Preparing a new document or spreadsheet
seems to be all about coping with the
user interface and appearances now, and in the meantime many people
seem to
forget what it is really about, i.e. the contents of the message
... The next
release has been aptly code named MS Office HAB (Hot Air Balloon).
On the other hand I suppose it is also fair to point out that I'm
not getting any younger and possibly my flexibility to adjust is no
longer what it used to be.

--
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



  #19   Report Post  
Posted to microsoft.public.word.newusers
Terry Farrell[_2_] Terry Farrell[_2_] is offline
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Posts: 229
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

In previous versions, I always modified the Toolbars. Many of the tools I
never used (such as cut, copy, past, bold, italics underline, etc.) I always
dragged off and added useful tools that were hidden (such as
ParaPageBreakBefore, Doc Properties, File New... and custom macros, etc.).

I always like that there were always so many different ways to work in Word
that allowed users to customize and work in a way that suited themselves and
their principal tasks. To me, much of this choice seems to have been
removed. I was privileged to be shown demos of the proposed Ribbon before it
went beta and was enthusiastic as I could see that so many more commands
could be made available for users, rather than having to dig deep to find
the hidden nest of tools available. But I wasn't aware of how rigid the
Ribbon was to be until beta testing started. I was deeply disappointed and I
still am. And I will remain disappointed until the Ribbon is user
customizable out-of-the-box.

Terry

"Gordon" wrote in message
...
"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...

But the user research team employed at huge expense by Microsoft said
that normal users never change their toolbars and such. Obviously they
were not monitoring real users and took the results at face value.


I have to say as an Advanced Excel user and a not-so advanced Word user
/I/ never bothered with customizing the tool bar in previous versions -
just as I don't bother customizing IE or Firefox.....


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Gordon Gordon is offline
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Posts: 304
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
In previous versions, I always modified the Toolbars. Many of the tools I
never used (such as cut, copy, past, bold, italics underline, etc.) I
always dragged off and added useful tools that were hidden (such as
ParaPageBreakBefore, Doc Properties, File New... and custom macros, etc.).

I always like that there were always so many different ways to work in
Word that allowed users to customize and work in a way that suited
themselves and their principal tasks. To me, much of this choice seems to
have been removed. I was privileged to be shown demos of the proposed
Ribbon before it went beta and was enthusiastic as I could see that so
many more commands could be made available for users, rather than having
to dig deep to find the hidden nest of tools available. But I wasn't aware
of how rigid the Ribbon was to be until beta testing started. I was deeply
disappointed and I still am. And I will remain disappointed until the
Ribbon is user customizable out-of-the-box.

Terry


I hear what you say, but from a support perspective in a commercial
environment, a User customising ANYTHING on an individual basis turns into a
support/helpdesk nightmare.....




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Terry Farrell[_2_] Terry Farrell[_2_] is offline
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Posts: 229
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

Gordon

I'm not sure why this should be a support nightmare. If you use roaming
profiles, surely, the customisations stay with the user. So if I log into
any computer on the network, I get My Profile with My Desktop displayed and
in Word I will see all my toolbars as I want to use them. Why is that a
support nightmare?

Terry

"Gordon" wrote in message
...
"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
In previous versions, I always modified the Toolbars. Many of the tools I
never used (such as cut, copy, past, bold, italics underline, etc.) I
always dragged off and added useful tools that were hidden (such as
ParaPageBreakBefore, Doc Properties, File New... and custom macros,
etc.).

I always like that there were always so many different ways to work in
Word that allowed users to customize and work in a way that suited
themselves and their principal tasks. To me, much of this choice seems to
have been removed. I was privileged to be shown demos of the proposed
Ribbon before it went beta and was enthusiastic as I could see that so
many more commands could be made available for users, rather than having
to dig deep to find the hidden nest of tools available. But I wasn't
aware of how rigid the Ribbon was to be until beta testing started. I was
deeply disappointed and I still am. And I will remain disappointed until
the Ribbon is user customizable out-of-the-box.

Terry


I hear what you say, but from a support perspective in a commercial
environment, a User customising ANYTHING on an individual basis turns into
a support/helpdesk nightmare.....


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Suzanne S. Barnhill Suzanne S. Barnhill is offline
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Posts: 33,624
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

Because the help desk person is not looking at the same screen the user is,
so the user is referring to buttons and menu items the IT person may not
even be aware exist, much less have in his UI.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
Gordon

I'm not sure why this should be a support nightmare. If you use roaming
profiles, surely, the customisations stay with the user. So if I log into
any computer on the network, I get My Profile with My Desktop displayed
and in Word I will see all my toolbars as I want to use them. Why is that
a support nightmare?

Terry

"Gordon" wrote in message
...
"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
In previous versions, I always modified the Toolbars. Many of the tools
I never used (such as cut, copy, past, bold, italics underline, etc.) I
always dragged off and added useful tools that were hidden (such as
ParaPageBreakBefore, Doc Properties, File New... and custom macros,
etc.).

I always like that there were always so many different ways to work in
Word that allowed users to customize and work in a way that suited
themselves and their principal tasks. To me, much of this choice seems
to have been removed. I was privileged to be shown demos of the proposed
Ribbon before it went beta and was enthusiastic as I could see that so
many more commands could be made available for users, rather than having
to dig deep to find the hidden nest of tools available. But I wasn't
aware of how rigid the Ribbon was to be until beta testing started. I
was deeply disappointed and I still am. And I will remain disappointed
until the Ribbon is user customizable out-of-the-box.

Terry


I hear what you say, but from a support perspective in a commercial
environment, a User customising ANYTHING on an individual basis turns
into a support/helpdesk nightmare.....




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Terry Farrell[_2_] Terry Farrell[_2_] is offline
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Posts: 229
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

I see. So we dumb down Word to help the helpers?

Terry

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
Because the help desk person is not looking at the same screen the user
is, so the user is referring to buttons and menu items the IT person may
not even be aware exist, much less have in his UI.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
Gordon

I'm not sure why this should be a support nightmare. If you use roaming
profiles, surely, the customisations stay with the user. So if I log into
any computer on the network, I get My Profile with My Desktop displayed
and in Word I will see all my toolbars as I want to use them. Why is that
a support nightmare?

Terry

"Gordon" wrote in message
...
"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
In previous versions, I always modified the Toolbars. Many of the tools
I never used (such as cut, copy, past, bold, italics underline, etc.) I
always dragged off and added useful tools that were hidden (such as
ParaPageBreakBefore, Doc Properties, File New... and custom macros,
etc.).

I always like that there were always so many different ways to work in
Word that allowed users to customize and work in a way that suited
themselves and their principal tasks. To me, much of this choice seems
to have been removed. I was privileged to be shown demos of the
proposed Ribbon before it went beta and was enthusiastic as I could see
that so many more commands could be made available for users, rather
than having to dig deep to find the hidden nest of tools available. But
I wasn't aware of how rigid the Ribbon was to be until beta testing
started. I was deeply disappointed and I still am. And I will remain
disappointed until the Ribbon is user customizable out-of-the-box.

Terry

I hear what you say, but from a support perspective in a commercial
environment, a User customising ANYTHING on an individual basis turns
into a support/helpdesk nightmare.....





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Suzanne S. Barnhill Suzanne S. Barnhill is offline
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Posts: 33,624
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

No, but that would be why customization would make it difficult to support.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
I see. So we dumb down Word to help the helpers?

Terry

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
Because the help desk person is not looking at the same screen the user
is, so the user is referring to buttons and menu items the IT person may
not even be aware exist, much less have in his UI.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
Gordon

I'm not sure why this should be a support nightmare. If you use roaming
profiles, surely, the customisations stay with the user. So if I log
into any computer on the network, I get My Profile with My Desktop
displayed and in Word I will see all my toolbars as I want to use them.
Why is that a support nightmare?

Terry

"Gordon" wrote in message
...
"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
In previous versions, I always modified the Toolbars. Many of the
tools I never used (such as cut, copy, past, bold, italics underline,
etc.) I always dragged off and added useful tools that were hidden
(such as ParaPageBreakBefore, Doc Properties, File New... and custom
macros, etc.).

I always like that there were always so many different ways to work in
Word that allowed users to customize and work in a way that suited
themselves and their principal tasks. To me, much of this choice seems
to have been removed. I was privileged to be shown demos of the
proposed Ribbon before it went beta and was enthusiastic as I could
see that so many more commands could be made available for users,
rather than having to dig deep to find the hidden nest of tools
available. But I wasn't aware of how rigid the Ribbon was to be until
beta testing started. I was deeply disappointed and I still am. And I
will remain disappointed until the Ribbon is user customizable
out-of-the-box.

Terry

I hear what you say, but from a support perspective in a commercial
environment, a User customising ANYTHING on an individual basis turns
into a support/helpdesk nightmare.....







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JMB JMB is offline
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Posts: 7
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

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





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Paul Gauci Paul Gauci is offline
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Posts: 41
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

OK - but how about the needs of companies (large and small) who use
customised styles/templates/toolbars/icons etc to standardise the
presentations of letters, reports, etc?

For instance, when such companies work with outsiders (say, when they
outsource), all they had to do with 2003 was to provide their sub-contractors
with their customised templates/toolbars/icons etc and save considerable time
and energy on post writing-up formatting.

Also, freelancers who work/ed for different companies using their clients'
customised templates/toolbars/icons can/could be very efficient when 2003
customisations are/were well designed. It appears to me that they will have
problems being as efficient with 2007.

--
Paul Gauci


"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

No, but that would be why customization would make it difficult to support.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
I see. So we dumb down Word to help the helpers?

Terry

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
Because the help desk person is not looking at the same screen the user
is, so the user is referring to buttons and menu items the IT person may
not even be aware exist, much less have in his UI.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
Gordon

I'm not sure why this should be a support nightmare. If you use roaming
profiles, surely, the customisations stay with the user. So if I log
into any computer on the network, I get My Profile with My Desktop
displayed and in Word I will see all my toolbars as I want to use them.
Why is that a support nightmare?

Terry

"Gordon" wrote in message
...
"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
In previous versions, I always modified the Toolbars. Many of the
tools I never used (such as cut, copy, past, bold, italics underline,
etc.) I always dragged off and added useful tools that were hidden
(such as ParaPageBreakBefore, Doc Properties, File New... and custom
macros, etc.).

I always like that there were always so many different ways to work in
Word that allowed users to customize and work in a way that suited
themselves and their principal tasks. To me, much of this choice seems
to have been removed. I was privileged to be shown demos of the
proposed Ribbon before it went beta and was enthusiastic as I could
see that so many more commands could be made available for users,
rather than having to dig deep to find the hidden nest of tools
available. But I wasn't aware of how rigid the Ribbon was to be until
beta testing started. I was deeply disappointed and I still am. And I
will remain disappointed until the Ribbon is user customizable
out-of-the-box.

Terry

I hear what you say, but from a support perspective in a commercial
environment, a User customising ANYTHING on an individual basis turns
into a support/helpdesk nightmare.....








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Terry Farrell[_2_] Terry Farrell[_2_] is offline
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Posts: 229
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

Paul

I agree: the current implementation makes it harder for all and I cannot see
what the long-term advantages are to anyone that the Ribbons are locked down
so tightly.

What I would like to see is the ordinary user being able to create their own
'Home' Ribbon that can be tied in with a template. On this ribbon, the user
can add whatever groups they want from any of the other standard ribbons and
remove/change the contents of these groups.

For example, my Home ribbon would remove the Clipboard group (a real waste
of screen space), remove much of the Font and Paragraph group tools (but
adding a few more useful tools) and thus making loads more space for styles.

Terry

"Paul Gauci" wrote in message
...
OK - but how about the needs of companies (large and small) who use
customised styles/templates/toolbars/icons etc to standardise the
presentations of letters, reports, etc?

For instance, when such companies work with outsiders (say, when they
outsource), all they had to do with 2003 was to provide their
sub-contractors
with their customised templates/toolbars/icons etc and save considerable
time
and energy on post writing-up formatting.

Also, freelancers who work/ed for different companies using their clients'
customised templates/toolbars/icons can/could be very efficient when 2003
customisations are/were well designed. It appears to me that they will
have
problems being as efficient with 2007.

--
Paul Gauci


"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

No, but that would be why customization would make it difficult to
support.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
I see. So we dumb down Word to help the helpers?

Terry

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
Because the help desk person is not looking at the same screen the
user
is, so the user is referring to buttons and menu items the IT person
may
not even be aware exist, much less have in his UI.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
Gordon

I'm not sure why this should be a support nightmare. If you use
roaming
profiles, surely, the customisations stay with the user. So if I log
into any computer on the network, I get My Profile with My Desktop
displayed and in Word I will see all my toolbars as I want to use
them.
Why is that a support nightmare?

Terry

"Gordon" wrote in message
...
"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
In previous versions, I always modified the Toolbars. Many of the
tools I never used (such as cut, copy, past, bold, italics
underline,
etc.) I always dragged off and added useful tools that were hidden
(such as ParaPageBreakBefore, Doc Properties, File New... and
custom
macros, etc.).

I always like that there were always so many different ways to work
in
Word that allowed users to customize and work in a way that suited
themselves and their principal tasks. To me, much of this choice
seems
to have been removed. I was privileged to be shown demos of the
proposed Ribbon before it went beta and was enthusiastic as I could
see that so many more commands could be made available for users,
rather than having to dig deep to find the hidden nest of tools
available. But I wasn't aware of how rigid the Ribbon was to be
until
beta testing started. I was deeply disappointed and I still am.
And I
will remain disappointed until the Ribbon is user customizable
out-of-the-box.

Terry

I hear what you say, but from a support perspective in a commercial
environment, a User customising ANYTHING on an individual basis
turns
into a support/helpdesk nightmare.....









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Suzanne S. Barnhill Suzanne S. Barnhill is offline
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Posts: 33,624
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

While I agree that a customizable ribbon or tab would be helpful, it has
been pointed out that you can create a specialize QAT for a specific
template. Don't think, however, that I am in any way defending the loss of
customizability. I haven't yet "upgraded" to Office 2007, but I'm going to
be one of the loudest whiners when I do, as I have highly customized my Word
2003 UI (with some customizations probably dating back to Word 2.0).

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
Paul

I agree: the current implementation makes it harder for all and I cannot
see what the long-term advantages are to anyone that the Ribbons are
locked down so tightly.

What I would like to see is the ordinary user being able to create their
own 'Home' Ribbon that can be tied in with a template. On this ribbon, the
user can add whatever groups they want from any of the other standard
ribbons and remove/change the contents of these groups.

For example, my Home ribbon would remove the Clipboard group (a real waste
of screen space), remove much of the Font and Paragraph group tools (but
adding a few more useful tools) and thus making loads more space for
styles.

Terry

"Paul Gauci" wrote in message
...
OK - but how about the needs of companies (large and small) who use
customised styles/templates/toolbars/icons etc to standardise the
presentations of letters, reports, etc?

For instance, when such companies work with outsiders (say, when they
outsource), all they had to do with 2003 was to provide their
sub-contractors
with their customised templates/toolbars/icons etc and save considerable
time
and energy on post writing-up formatting.

Also, freelancers who work/ed for different companies using their
clients'
customised templates/toolbars/icons can/could be very efficient when 2003
customisations are/were well designed. It appears to me that they will
have
problems being as efficient with 2007.

--
Paul Gauci


"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

No, but that would be why customization would make it difficult to
support.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
I see. So we dumb down Word to help the helpers?

Terry

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
Because the help desk person is not looking at the same screen the
user
is, so the user is referring to buttons and menu items the IT person
may
not even be aware exist, much less have in his UI.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
Gordon

I'm not sure why this should be a support nightmare. If you use
roaming
profiles, surely, the customisations stay with the user. So if I log
into any computer on the network, I get My Profile with My Desktop
displayed and in Word I will see all my toolbars as I want to use
them.
Why is that a support nightmare?

Terry

"Gordon" wrote in message
...
"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
In previous versions, I always modified the Toolbars. Many of the
tools I never used (such as cut, copy, past, bold, italics
underline,
etc.) I always dragged off and added useful tools that were hidden
(such as ParaPageBreakBefore, Doc Properties, File New... and
custom
macros, etc.).

I always like that there were always so many different ways to
work in
Word that allowed users to customize and work in a way that suited
themselves and their principal tasks. To me, much of this choice
seems
to have been removed. I was privileged to be shown demos of the
proposed Ribbon before it went beta and was enthusiastic as I
could
see that so many more commands could be made available for users,
rather than having to dig deep to find the hidden nest of tools
available. But I wasn't aware of how rigid the Ribbon was to be
until
beta testing started. I was deeply disappointed and I still am.
And I
will remain disappointed until the Ribbon is user customizable
out-of-the-box.

Terry

I hear what you say, but from a support perspective in a commercial
environment, a User customising ANYTHING on an individual basis
turns
into a support/helpdesk nightmare.....











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Jay Freedman Jay Freedman is offline
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Posts: 9,854
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

Just a couple more observations in the mix:

The "Ribbons are locked down" statement needs qualification. The
built-in Ribbon groups aren't customizable, but it _is_ possible to
remove any/all built-in groups and replace them with customized groups
that might be either slight modifications of the built-ins or
completely different. To do this, though, you need to get somewhat
familiar with RibbonX, which is what Patrick Schmid tries to do at
http://www.pschmid.net/office2007/ribbonx.

Yes, this is harder than customizing Word 2003 and earlier, and thus
not end-user-friendly. I suspect that's intentional, at the request of
the aforementioned large companies. They can afford to have someone
learn RibbonX, create customized templates for their needs, and have
everyone in the company forced to use the same customizations
(including IT support).

Eventually someone will come up with an end-user tool that makes
Ribbon changes easier. Patrick's RibbonCustomizer is close, but still
not as easy as many would like. Probably it will have to wait until MS
fixes some of the bugs and limitations in RibbonX itself.

On Sun, 30 Dec 2007 11:23:50 -0600, "Suzanne S. Barnhill"
wrote:

While I agree that a customizable ribbon or tab would be helpful, it has
been pointed out that you can create a specialize QAT for a specific
template. Don't think, however, that I am in any way defending the loss of
customizability. I haven't yet "upgraded" to Office 2007, but I'm going to
be one of the loudest whiners when I do, as I have highly customized my Word
2003 UI (with some customizations probably dating back to Word 2.0).

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
Paul

I agree: the current implementation makes it harder for all and I cannot
see what the long-term advantages are to anyone that the Ribbons are
locked down so tightly.

What I would like to see is the ordinary user being able to create their
own 'Home' Ribbon that can be tied in with a template. On this ribbon, the
user can add whatever groups they want from any of the other standard
ribbons and remove/change the contents of these groups.

For example, my Home ribbon would remove the Clipboard group (a real waste
of screen space), remove much of the Font and Paragraph group tools (but
adding a few more useful tools) and thus making loads more space for
styles.

Terry

"Paul Gauci" wrote in message
...
OK - but how about the needs of companies (large and small) who use
customised styles/templates/toolbars/icons etc to standardise the
presentations of letters, reports, etc?

For instance, when such companies work with outsiders (say, when they
outsource), all they had to do with 2003 was to provide their
sub-contractors
with their customised templates/toolbars/icons etc and save considerable
time
and energy on post writing-up formatting.

Also, freelancers who work/ed for different companies using their
clients'
customised templates/toolbars/icons can/could be very efficient when 2003
customisations are/were well designed. It appears to me that they will
have
problems being as efficient with 2007.

--
Paul Gauci


"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

No, but that would be why customization would make it difficult to
support.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
I see. So we dumb down Word to help the helpers?

Terry

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
Because the help desk person is not looking at the same screen the
user
is, so the user is referring to buttons and menu items the IT person
may
not even be aware exist, much less have in his UI.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
Gordon

I'm not sure why this should be a support nightmare. If you use
roaming
profiles, surely, the customisations stay with the user. So if I log
into any computer on the network, I get My Profile with My Desktop
displayed and in Word I will see all my toolbars as I want to use
them.
Why is that a support nightmare?

Terry

"Gordon" wrote in message
...
"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
In previous versions, I always modified the Toolbars. Many of the
tools I never used (such as cut, copy, past, bold, italics
underline,
etc.) I always dragged off and added useful tools that were hidden
(such as ParaPageBreakBefore, Doc Properties, File New... and
custom
macros, etc.).

I always like that there were always so many different ways to
work in
Word that allowed users to customize and work in a way that suited
themselves and their principal tasks. To me, much of this choice
seems
to have been removed. I was privileged to be shown demos of the
proposed Ribbon before it went beta and was enthusiastic as I
could
see that so many more commands could be made available for users,
rather than having to dig deep to find the hidden nest of tools
available. But I wasn't aware of how rigid the Ribbon was to be
until
beta testing started. I was deeply disappointed and I still am.
And I
will remain disappointed until the Ribbon is user customizable
out-of-the-box.

Terry

I hear what you say, but from a support perspective in a commercial
environment, a User customising ANYTHING on an individual basis
turns
into a support/helpdesk nightmare.....











--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit.
  #30   Report Post  
Posted to microsoft.public.word.newusers
Suzanne S. Barnhill Suzanne S. Barnhill is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 33,624
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

I suspect that if toolbar/menu customization had been possible only through
VBA in the past, we'd hear a lot less moaning about the need to learn
RibbonX for Word 2007 customization.

The real problem is that MS depended too much on SQM data that suggested
users never customized the UI, overlooking the fact that (a) UI
customization, if captured at all by CEIP (and they weren't very confident
about that), would be captured only once, and that existing customizations
(created before Word 2002/2003) would not be represented at all. This led
the developers to believe that "users never customize the UI," which may
still be true for the majority (especially the large portion whose UI is
locked down by IT), but they overlooked a large and vocal minority who do
customize.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Jay Freedman" wrote in message
news
Just a couple more observations in the mix:

The "Ribbons are locked down" statement needs qualification. The
built-in Ribbon groups aren't customizable, but it _is_ possible to
remove any/all built-in groups and replace them with customized groups
that might be either slight modifications of the built-ins or
completely different. To do this, though, you need to get somewhat
familiar with RibbonX, which is what Patrick Schmid tries to do at
http://www.pschmid.net/office2007/ribbonx.

Yes, this is harder than customizing Word 2003 and earlier, and thus
not end-user-friendly. I suspect that's intentional, at the request of
the aforementioned large companies. They can afford to have someone
learn RibbonX, create customized templates for their needs, and have
everyone in the company forced to use the same customizations
(including IT support).

Eventually someone will come up with an end-user tool that makes
Ribbon changes easier. Patrick's RibbonCustomizer is close, but still
not as easy as many would like. Probably it will have to wait until MS
fixes some of the bugs and limitations in RibbonX itself.

On Sun, 30 Dec 2007 11:23:50 -0600, "Suzanne S. Barnhill"
wrote:

While I agree that a customizable ribbon or tab would be helpful, it has
been pointed out that you can create a specialize QAT for a specific
template. Don't think, however, that I am in any way defending the loss of
customizability. I haven't yet "upgraded" to Office 2007, but I'm going to
be one of the loudest whiners when I do, as I have highly customized my
Word
2003 UI (with some customizations probably dating back to Word 2.0).

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
Paul

I agree: the current implementation makes it harder for all and I cannot
see what the long-term advantages are to anyone that the Ribbons are
locked down so tightly.

What I would like to see is the ordinary user being able to create their
own 'Home' Ribbon that can be tied in with a template. On this ribbon,
the
user can add whatever groups they want from any of the other standard
ribbons and remove/change the contents of these groups.

For example, my Home ribbon would remove the Clipboard group (a real
waste
of screen space), remove much of the Font and Paragraph group tools (but
adding a few more useful tools) and thus making loads more space for
styles.

Terry

"Paul Gauci" wrote in message
...
OK - but how about the needs of companies (large and small) who use
customised styles/templates/toolbars/icons etc to standardise the
presentations of letters, reports, etc?

For instance, when such companies work with outsiders (say, when they
outsource), all they had to do with 2003 was to provide their
sub-contractors
with their customised templates/toolbars/icons etc and save
considerable
time
and energy on post writing-up formatting.

Also, freelancers who work/ed for different companies using their
clients'
customised templates/toolbars/icons can/could be very efficient when
2003
customisations are/were well designed. It appears to me that they will
have
problems being as efficient with 2007.

--
Paul Gauci


"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

No, but that would be why customization would make it difficult to
support.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
I see. So we dumb down Word to help the helpers?

Terry

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
Because the help desk person is not looking at the same screen the
user
is, so the user is referring to buttons and menu items the IT
person
may
not even be aware exist, much less have in his UI.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
Gordon

I'm not sure why this should be a support nightmare. If you use
roaming
profiles, surely, the customisations stay with the user. So if I
log
into any computer on the network, I get My Profile with My Desktop
displayed and in Word I will see all my toolbars as I want to use
them.
Why is that a support nightmare?

Terry

"Gordon" wrote in message
...
"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
In previous versions, I always modified the Toolbars. Many of
the
tools I never used (such as cut, copy, past, bold, italics
underline,
etc.) I always dragged off and added useful tools that were
hidden
(such as ParaPageBreakBefore, Doc Properties, File New... and
custom
macros, etc.).

I always like that there were always so many different ways to
work in
Word that allowed users to customize and work in a way that
suited
themselves and their principal tasks. To me, much of this choice
seems
to have been removed. I was privileged to be shown demos of the
proposed Ribbon before it went beta and was enthusiastic as I
could
see that so many more commands could be made available for
users,
rather than having to dig deep to find the hidden nest of tools
available. But I wasn't aware of how rigid the Ribbon was to be
until
beta testing started. I was deeply disappointed and I still am.
And I
will remain disappointed until the Ribbon is user customizable
out-of-the-box.

Terry

I hear what you say, but from a support perspective in a
commercial
environment, a User customising ANYTHING on an individual basis
turns
into a support/helpdesk nightmare.....











--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup
so all may benefit.





  #31   Report Post  
Posted to microsoft.public.word.newusers
Beth Melton Beth Melton is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,380
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

I asked about SQM in regards to how they ascertained users didn't use custom
toolbars and such and never really got an answer. I've discovered long ago
they key to obtain the answer you are seeking lies in "how" you ask your
question. So I kept asking essentially the same question but a little
differently each time. I finally asked the *right* question and found CEIP
doesn't record programmatic actions, only "user clicks". From that I
surmised add-ins/global templates that contain customized toolbars weren't
recorded. And, as you noted, if in Word 2002 you already customized your
toolbars for Normal.dot and simply used it for Word 2003 then your
customizations wouldn't be recorded since they were already present. All
provided, of course, if you even opted in to CEIP. I suspect those users who
are knowledgeable enough to customize their toolbars are also those who
would refrain from opting in. (I know I didn't opt in initially.)

BUT, I also know that in corporate environments and help desk situations,
trying to help a user over the phone or in email isn't easy to begin with.
Combine that with nonstandard toolbars/menus and that makes things even more
difficult. In this scenario I do understand the desire for a command to
always be present in a specific place.

Another aspect to consider is while it was easy to customize the
menus/toolbars in the previous versions, if you're an add-in developer you
can really mess things up! I think of the countless questions we encounter
about missing menus/menu items (not all of them can be attributed to user
error), menus that didn't open when clicked, the overpopulation of menu
items, the prompt to save Normal.dot each time you exit Word, the lack of
the prompt (in the case of the Adobe add-in which simply discarded all
customizations made to Normal.dot), and so on. I forget what the ratio is
for each question asked what the number of others with the same question is
but I recall it's quite a bit. The number of users encountering problems
that stem from the same exact issue (primarily add-ins) indicate there is
indeed a problem that needed fixing. So how does MS go about fixing it?? Why
not redesign of the menus/toolbars which also enables the ability to set
specific standards. Doing so forces developers into using a specific
standard for UI customizations and that's not necessarily a "bad thing".

For the last year or so I've been doing numerous presentations on Office
2007 and have the opportunity to talk with a LOT of users. The majority used
the Office apps in the past and they ranged from average users to advanced
users. What I found was an overwhelming number were thrilled with QAT
customizations. They love the ease in simply right-clicking to add or remove
a command/group. To be perfectly honest, I'm digging the ease in customizing
the QAT too. Basically what I have is the first half looks a lot like the
old Standard toolbar (New, Open, Save, Close, Print, Print Preview, Cut,
Copy, Paste, Undo, Redo, along with groups of commands I frequently use,
such as the Font group, Paragraph group, Styles group, and Page Setup group.
The rest changes depending on the task at hand. My Ribbon is usually
minimized and seldom used. I tend to treat it as my "pool" of commands for
quickly adding to my QAT. I also have a few templates that are more
task-oriented than those used for formatting/boilerplate. All they contain
is a customized QAT. So if I'm creating a I'll use my Mail Merge template.
If creating a form I'll use my Forms template. That way I have the tools I
frequently use at my fingertips simply by creating new document.

I think the key to the new UI involves a bit of letting go of the old ways
(IOW, don't attempt to force Word 2007 to work exactly like previous
versions) and adapting new ways, which, for me, have actually been more
efficient.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email cannot be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Coauthor of Word 2007 Inside Out:
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/boo...x#AboutTheBook

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...

The real problem is that MS depended too much on SQM data that suggested
users never customized the UI, overlooking the fact that (a) UI
customization, if captured at all by CEIP (and they weren't very confident
about that), would be captured only once, and that existing customizations
(created before Word 2002/2003) would not be represented at all. This led
the developers to believe that "users never customize the UI," which may
still be true for the majority (especially the large portion whose UI is
locked down by IT), but they overlooked a large and vocal minority who do
customize.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Jay Freedman" wrote in message
news
Just a couple more observations in the mix:

The "Ribbons are locked down" statement needs qualification. The
built-in Ribbon groups aren't customizable, but it _is_ possible to
remove any/all built-in groups and replace them with customized groups
that might be either slight modifications of the built-ins or
completely different. To do this, though, you need to get somewhat
familiar with RibbonX, which is what Patrick Schmid tries to do at
http://www.pschmid.net/office2007/ribbonx.

Yes, this is harder than customizing Word 2003 and earlier, and thus
not end-user-friendly. I suspect that's intentional, at the request of
the aforementioned large companies. They can afford to have someone
learn RibbonX, create customized templates for their needs, and have
everyone in the company forced to use the same customizations
(including IT support).

Eventually someone will come up with an end-user tool that makes
Ribbon changes easier. Patrick's RibbonCustomizer is close, but still
not as easy as many would like. Probably it will have to wait until MS
fixes some of the bugs and limitations in RibbonX itself.

On Sun, 30 Dec 2007 11:23:50 -0600, "Suzanne S. Barnhill"
wrote:

While I agree that a customizable ribbon or tab would be helpful, it has
been pointed out that you can create a specialize QAT for a specific
template. Don't think, however, that I am in any way defending the loss
of
customizability. I haven't yet "upgraded" to Office 2007, but I'm going
to
be one of the loudest whiners when I do, as I have highly customized my
Word
2003 UI (with some customizations probably dating back to Word 2.0).

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
Paul

I agree: the current implementation makes it harder for all and I
cannot
see what the long-term advantages are to anyone that the Ribbons are
locked down so tightly.

What I would like to see is the ordinary user being able to create
their
own 'Home' Ribbon that can be tied in with a template. On this ribbon,
the
user can add whatever groups they want from any of the other standard
ribbons and remove/change the contents of these groups.

For example, my Home ribbon would remove the Clipboard group (a real
waste
of screen space), remove much of the Font and Paragraph group tools
(but
adding a few more useful tools) and thus making loads more space for
styles.

Terry

"Paul Gauci" wrote in message
...
OK - but how about the needs of companies (large and small) who use
customised styles/templates/toolbars/icons etc to standardise the
presentations of letters, reports, etc?

For instance, when such companies work with outsiders (say, when they
outsource), all they had to do with 2003 was to provide their
sub-contractors
with their customised templates/toolbars/icons etc and save
considerable
time
and energy on post writing-up formatting.

Also, freelancers who work/ed for different companies using their
clients'
customised templates/toolbars/icons can/could be very efficient when
2003
customisations are/were well designed. It appears to me that they will
have
problems being as efficient with 2007.

--
Paul Gauci


"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

No, but that would be why customization would make it difficult to
support.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
I see. So we dumb down Word to help the helpers?

Terry

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
Because the help desk person is not looking at the same screen the
user
is, so the user is referring to buttons and menu items the IT
person
may
not even be aware exist, much less have in his UI.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
Gordon

I'm not sure why this should be a support nightmare. If you use
roaming
profiles, surely, the customisations stay with the user. So if I
log
into any computer on the network, I get My Profile with My
Desktop
displayed and in Word I will see all my toolbars as I want to use
them.
Why is that a support nightmare?

Terry

"Gordon" wrote in message
...
"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
In previous versions, I always modified the Toolbars. Many of
the
tools I never used (such as cut, copy, past, bold, italics
underline,
etc.) I always dragged off and added useful tools that were
hidden
(such as ParaPageBreakBefore, Doc Properties, File New... and
custom
macros, etc.).

I always like that there were always so many different ways to
work in
Word that allowed users to customize and work in a way that
suited
themselves and their principal tasks. To me, much of this
choice
seems
to have been removed. I was privileged to be shown demos of the
proposed Ribbon before it went beta and was enthusiastic as I
could
see that so many more commands could be made available for
users,
rather than having to dig deep to find the hidden nest of tools
available. But I wasn't aware of how rigid the Ribbon was to be
until
beta testing started. I was deeply disappointed and I still am.
And I
will remain disappointed until the Ribbon is user customizable
out-of-the-box.

Terry

I hear what you say, but from a support perspective in a
commercial
environment, a User customising ANYTHING on an individual basis
turns
into a support/helpdesk nightmare.....











--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup
so all may benefit.





  #32   Report Post  
Posted to microsoft.public.word.newusers
Jay Freedman Jay Freedman is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 9,854
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

On Sun, 30 Dec 2007 19:22:11 -0600, "Beth Melton"
wrote:

I asked about SQM in regards to how they ascertained users didn't use custom
toolbars and such and never really got an answer. I've discovered long ago
they key to obtain the answer you are seeking lies in "how" you ask your
question. So I kept asking essentially the same question but a little
differently each time. I finally asked the *right* question and found CEIP
doesn't record programmatic actions, only "user clicks". From that I
surmised add-ins/global templates that contain customized toolbars weren't
recorded. And, as you noted, if in Word 2002 you already customized your
toolbars for Normal.dot and simply used it for Word 2003 then your
customizations wouldn't be recorded since they were already present. All
provided, of course, if you even opted in to CEIP. I suspect those users who
are knowledgeable enough to customize their toolbars are also those who
would refrain from opting in. (I know I didn't opt in initially.)


Besides that, there's the argument that Jonathan West has been
pressing for lo these many months, that one developer can make a
template containing customizations and macros that are then used by
hundreds or thousands of end users. SQM doesn't capture any of that.

BUT, I also know that in corporate environments and help desk situations,
trying to help a user over the phone or in email isn't easy to begin with.
Combine that with nonstandard toolbars/menus and that makes things even more
difficult. In this scenario I do understand the desire for a command to
always be present in a specific place.

Another aspect to consider is while it was easy to customize the
menus/toolbars in the previous versions, if you're an add-in developer you
can really mess things up! I think of the countless questions we encounter
about missing menus/menu items (not all of them can be attributed to user
error), menus that didn't open when clicked, the overpopulation of menu
items, the prompt to save Normal.dot each time you exit Word, the lack of
the prompt (in the case of the Adobe add-in which simply discarded all
customizations made to Normal.dot), and so on. I forget what the ratio is
for each question asked what the number of others with the same question is
but I recall it's quite a bit. The number of users encountering problems
that stem from the same exact issue (primarily add-ins) indicate there is
indeed a problem that needed fixing. So how does MS go about fixing it?? Why
not redesign of the menus/toolbars which also enables the ability to set
specific standards. Doing so forces developers into using a specific
standard for UI customizations and that's not necessarily a "bad thing".


Agreed that enforcing a standard for UI customizations isn't a "bad
thing". But according to Jensen that consideration was secondary to
the overload of commands that would have made the menu/toolbar
paradigm unworkable. I'm not sure I completely buy that for 2007, but
I think the feeling was that they'd get the pain out of the way this
time so people will accept it better in the next version.

For the last year or so I've been doing numerous presentations on Office
2007 and have the opportunity to talk with a LOT of users. The majority used
the Office apps in the past and they ranged from average users to advanced
users. What I found was an overwhelming number were thrilled with QAT
customizations. They love the ease in simply right-clicking to add or remove
a command/group. To be perfectly honest, I'm digging the ease in customizing
the QAT too. Basically what I have is the first half looks a lot like the
old Standard toolbar (New, Open, Save, Close, Print, Print Preview, Cut,
Copy, Paste, Undo, Redo, along with groups of commands I frequently use,
such as the Font group, Paragraph group, Styles group, and Page Setup group.
The rest changes depending on the task at hand. My Ribbon is usually
minimized and seldom used. I tend to treat it as my "pool" of commands for
quickly adding to my QAT. I also have a few templates that are more
task-oriented than those used for formatting/boilerplate. All they contain
is a customized QAT. So if I'm creating a I'll use my Mail Merge template.
If creating a form I'll use my Forms template. That way I have the tools I
frequently use at my fingertips simply by creating new document.


Two things that would make the QAT-primary approach easier to accept:
distinctive icons or text for all QAT buttons (no more anonymous green
circles), and the ability to use custom icons made from arbitrary
bitmaps (preferably for any command, but at least for macros).

I think the key to the new UI involves a bit of letting go of the old ways
(IOW, don't attempt to force Word 2007 to work exactly like previous
versions) and adapting new ways, which, for me, have actually been more
efficient.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email cannot be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Coauthor of Word 2007 Inside Out:
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/boo...x#AboutTheBook

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...

The real problem is that MS depended too much on SQM data that suggested
users never customized the UI, overlooking the fact that (a) UI
customization, if captured at all by CEIP (and they weren't very confident
about that), would be captured only once, and that existing customizations
(created before Word 2002/2003) would not be represented at all. This led
the developers to believe that "users never customize the UI," which may
still be true for the majority (especially the large portion whose UI is
locked down by IT), but they overlooked a large and vocal minority who do
customize.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Jay Freedman" wrote in message
news
Just a couple more observations in the mix:

The "Ribbons are locked down" statement needs qualification. The
built-in Ribbon groups aren't customizable, but it _is_ possible to
remove any/all built-in groups and replace them with customized groups
that might be either slight modifications of the built-ins or
completely different. To do this, though, you need to get somewhat
familiar with RibbonX, which is what Patrick Schmid tries to do at
http://www.pschmid.net/office2007/ribbonx.

Yes, this is harder than customizing Word 2003 and earlier, and thus
not end-user-friendly. I suspect that's intentional, at the request of
the aforementioned large companies. They can afford to have someone
learn RibbonX, create customized templates for their needs, and have
everyone in the company forced to use the same customizations
(including IT support).

Eventually someone will come up with an end-user tool that makes
Ribbon changes easier. Patrick's RibbonCustomizer is close, but still
not as easy as many would like. Probably it will have to wait until MS
fixes some of the bugs and limitations in RibbonX itself.

On Sun, 30 Dec 2007 11:23:50 -0600, "Suzanne S. Barnhill"
wrote:

While I agree that a customizable ribbon or tab would be helpful, it has
been pointed out that you can create a specialize QAT for a specific
template. Don't think, however, that I am in any way defending the loss
of
customizability. I haven't yet "upgraded" to Office 2007, but I'm going
to
be one of the loudest whiners when I do, as I have highly customized my
Word
2003 UI (with some customizations probably dating back to Word 2.0).

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
Paul

I agree: the current implementation makes it harder for all and I
cannot
see what the long-term advantages are to anyone that the Ribbons are
locked down so tightly.

What I would like to see is the ordinary user being able to create
their
own 'Home' Ribbon that can be tied in with a template. On this ribbon,
the
user can add whatever groups they want from any of the other standard
ribbons and remove/change the contents of these groups.

For example, my Home ribbon would remove the Clipboard group (a real
waste
of screen space), remove much of the Font and Paragraph group tools
(but
adding a few more useful tools) and thus making loads more space for
styles.

Terry

"Paul Gauci" wrote in message
...
OK - but how about the needs of companies (large and small) who use
customised styles/templates/toolbars/icons etc to standardise the
presentations of letters, reports, etc?

For instance, when such companies work with outsiders (say, when they
outsource), all they had to do with 2003 was to provide their
sub-contractors
with their customised templates/toolbars/icons etc and save
considerable
time
and energy on post writing-up formatting.

Also, freelancers who work/ed for different companies using their
clients'
customised templates/toolbars/icons can/could be very efficient when
2003
customisations are/were well designed. It appears to me that they will
have
problems being as efficient with 2007.

--
Paul Gauci


"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

No, but that would be why customization would make it difficult to
support.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
I see. So we dumb down Word to help the helpers?

Terry

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
Because the help desk person is not looking at the same screen the
user
is, so the user is referring to buttons and menu items the IT
person
may
not even be aware exist, much less have in his UI.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
Gordon

I'm not sure why this should be a support nightmare. If you use
roaming
profiles, surely, the customisations stay with the user. So if I
log
into any computer on the network, I get My Profile with My
Desktop
displayed and in Word I will see all my toolbars as I want to use
them.
Why is that a support nightmare?

Terry

"Gordon" wrote in message
...
"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
In previous versions, I always modified the Toolbars. Many of
the
tools I never used (such as cut, copy, past, bold, italics
underline,
etc.) I always dragged off and added useful tools that were
hidden
(such as ParaPageBreakBefore, Doc Properties, File New... and
custom
macros, etc.).

I always like that there were always so many different ways to
work in
Word that allowed users to customize and work in a way that
suited
themselves and their principal tasks. To me, much of this
choice
seems
to have been removed. I was privileged to be shown demos of the
proposed Ribbon before it went beta and was enthusiastic as I
could
see that so many more commands could be made available for
users,
rather than having to dig deep to find the hidden nest of tools
available. But I wasn't aware of how rigid the Ribbon was to be
until
beta testing started. I was deeply disappointed and I still am.
And I
will remain disappointed until the Ribbon is user customizable
out-of-the-box.

Terry

I hear what you say, but from a support perspective in a
commercial
environment, a User customising ANYTHING on an individual basis
turns
into a support/helpdesk nightmare.....











--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup
so all may benefit.





--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit.
  #33   Report Post  
Posted to microsoft.public.word.newusers
Bob Buckland ?:-\) Bob   Buckland ?:-\) is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,073
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

Hi Jay,

In many large corporate settings (where Office apps are often run through thin clients, such as Citrix [i.e. slow no matter what
G] and not used full time by users, the Ribbon seems to be better accepted as in the previous incarnation, users were locked out
from doing any customization on their own that would 'stick' and the menus seemed to almost always be set to not show the full menus
(many folks don't realize there are additional menu commands below the ones shown in that mode and think that with the Ribbon MS
added a lot more features than just those new in 2007).

With 2007 corporate users may still not be allowed to make their own QAT that 'sticks', but they do have, as Beth mentioned some
help in that Template embedded QATs do seem to be allowed

For help desks, with the internet and broadband and higher speed connections being more common these days it's more likely that the
help desk will have the ability to 'take over' the users workstation or at least watch what they're doing to help out than in the
past, but they would still be slowed by having to figure out too many unique locations for items as Office is usually not the only
thing they have to support

Developer's also have a learning curve. It's more unfamiliarity than degree of difficulty in some cases that prevents folks from
providing customized ribbons for their users in corporate environments, and yes in both the Ribbon and the QAT there is room for
improvement in 'version next' g). For the Ribbon, scaling took a lot of work on MS on the backend and DIY (do it yourself)
Ribbons don't always scale as well and yes locking down the QAT graphics was an interesting choice, rather than providing a
'sandbox' area for having 'safe' graphics to use.

In addition to Patrick's work, Greg's article at
http://gregmaxey.mvps.org/Customize_Ribbon.htm
can be an interesting exercise for a first play with making your own custom ribbon.

In watching users with Office 2007, I've seen some frustration that the Themes aren't consistent in their effects across apps, but
I've also seen that folks are more willing to try something/undo it/try something else with the ribbon than with menus. Menus,
after you choose something, often 'go away', and unless you happened to remember what you just clicked, you have to hunt for the
same spot to try again With the Ribbon, it's still there, pretty much where you left it unless you move the context point in your
document, so you can try until more or less satisfied.

Having had to write my own UI for programs for years, then add custom commands to WordStar and beyond, I can appreciate how much
'fun' selling and implementing then troubleshooting each of the changes within MS must have been. To their credit, MS hasn't fallen
back on the
'it's version 1' (when speaking of the Ribbon) as basically, it does work very well for the most part for day in/day out tasks.

The lack of use of text labels on the QAT (since one of Jensen's blog's statements was that there research said the ribbon had icons
plus text because it worked better) came down, in part, to how much screen space it would take up both vertically and how many QAT
items you could put across a screen with and without text. Tradeoff/settlement/compromise/lack of time to make more changes... who
can say for sure

============
"Jay Freedman" wrote in message ...
Besides that, there's the argument that Jonathan West has been
pressing for lo these many months, that one developer can make a
template containing customizations and macros that are then used by
hundreds or thousands of end users. SQM doesn't capture any of that.


Agreed that enforcing a standard for UI customizations isn't a "bad
thing". But according to Jensen that consideration was secondary to
the overload of commands that would have made the menu/toolbar
paradigm unworkable. I'm not sure I completely buy that for 2007, but
I think the feeling was that they'd get the pain out of the way this
time so people will accept it better in the next version.

Two things that would make the QAT-primary approach easier to accept:
distinctive icons or text for all QAT buttons (no more anonymous green
circles), and the ability to use custom icons made from arbitrary
bitmaps (preferably for any command, but at least for macros).
--

Bob Buckland ?:-)
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*



  #34   Report Post  
Posted to microsoft.public.word.newusers
Terry Farrell[_2_] Terry Farrell[_2_] is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 229
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

Suzanne

It is a useful and valuable feature - but it is a nightmare to change the
button faces and you can end up with several tools all with the same button
face or with button faces that are irrelevant to Word or any of its
commands. A simple example is the ParaPageBreakBefore button face is a green
Bullet when added to the QAT: what relevance to real life is a green bullet.
It is also share by many other commands too, so you can fill the QAT with
green bullets if you love green bullets.

My point is that although I now believe that Ribbons (and the QAT) are a way
forward, until it can be customised out-of-the-box without the need for
programming skills, it falls down BADLY.

Terry

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
While I agree that a customizable ribbon or tab would be helpful, it has
been pointed out that you can create a specialize QAT for a specific
template. Don't think, however, that I am in any way defending the loss of
customizability. I haven't yet "upgraded" to Office 2007, but I'm going to
be one of the loudest whiners when I do, as I have highly customized my
Word 2003 UI (with some customizations probably dating back to Word 2.0).

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
Paul

I agree: the current implementation makes it harder for all and I cannot
see what the long-term advantages are to anyone that the Ribbons are
locked down so tightly.

What I would like to see is the ordinary user being able to create their
own 'Home' Ribbon that can be tied in with a template. On this ribbon,
the user can add whatever groups they want from any of the other standard
ribbons and remove/change the contents of these groups.

For example, my Home ribbon would remove the Clipboard group (a real
waste of screen space), remove much of the Font and Paragraph group tools
(but adding a few more useful tools) and thus making loads more space for
styles.

Terry

"Paul Gauci" wrote in message
...
OK - but how about the needs of companies (large and small) who use
customised styles/templates/toolbars/icons etc to standardise the
presentations of letters, reports, etc?

For instance, when such companies work with outsiders (say, when they
outsource), all they had to do with 2003 was to provide their
sub-contractors
with their customised templates/toolbars/icons etc and save considerable
time
and energy on post writing-up formatting.

Also, freelancers who work/ed for different companies using their
clients'
customised templates/toolbars/icons can/could be very efficient when
2003
customisations are/were well designed. It appears to me that they will
have
problems being as efficient with 2007.

--
Paul Gauci


"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

No, but that would be why customization would make it difficult to
support.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
I see. So we dumb down Word to help the helpers?

Terry

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
Because the help desk person is not looking at the same screen the
user
is, so the user is referring to buttons and menu items the IT person
may
not even be aware exist, much less have in his UI.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
Gordon

I'm not sure why this should be a support nightmare. If you use
roaming
profiles, surely, the customisations stay with the user. So if I
log
into any computer on the network, I get My Profile with My Desktop
displayed and in Word I will see all my toolbars as I want to use
them.
Why is that a support nightmare?

Terry

"Gordon" wrote in message
...
"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
In previous versions, I always modified the Toolbars. Many of the
tools I never used (such as cut, copy, past, bold, italics
underline,
etc.) I always dragged off and added useful tools that were
hidden
(such as ParaPageBreakBefore, Doc Properties, File New... and
custom
macros, etc.).

I always like that there were always so many different ways to
work in
Word that allowed users to customize and work in a way that
suited
themselves and their principal tasks. To me, much of this choice
seems
to have been removed. I was privileged to be shown demos of the
proposed Ribbon before it went beta and was enthusiastic as I
could
see that so many more commands could be made available for users,
rather than having to dig deep to find the hidden nest of tools
available. But I wasn't aware of how rigid the Ribbon was to be
until
beta testing started. I was deeply disappointed and I still am.
And I
will remain disappointed until the Ribbon is user customizable
out-of-the-box.

Terry

I hear what you say, but from a support perspective in a
commercial
environment, a User customising ANYTHING on an individual basis
turns
into a support/helpdesk nightmare.....












  #35   Report Post  
Posted to microsoft.public.word.newusers
Terry Farrell[_2_] Terry Farrell[_2_] is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 229
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

Beth/Jay/Bob

All excellent arguments and reasoning behind the Ribbon/QAT. But it needs
work to make it user friendly.

The user is the customer and if the customer wants, the customer should get.
The music industry is suffering from its pig-headedness in not providing
what customers wanted. Had they listened and reacted 5 years ago to
customer's needs, illegal file sharing would probably have been a non-event
and probably the growth of the Internet and Mobile downloads would be two or
three years ahead of its current state.

If corporates want to be able to lock down the user interface, then it
should be made so that corporates can lock down rigidly. But this should not
be at the expense of all the other users who want customisable Ribbons. If
MS doesn't change its attitude, users will migrate to one of many
alternatives. Some are free and loyalty to brand can only be pushed so far!

Terry

"Bob Buckland ?:-)" 75214.226(At Beautiful Downtown)compuserve.com wrote
in message ...
Hi Jay,

In many large corporate settings (where Office apps are often run through
thin clients, such as Citrix [i.e. slow no matter what
G] and not used full time by users, the Ribbon seems to be better
accepted as in the previous incarnation, users were locked out
from doing any customization on their own that would 'stick' and the menus
seemed to almost always be set to not show the full menus
(many folks don't realize there are additional menu commands below the
ones shown in that mode and think that with the Ribbon MS
added a lot more features than just those new in 2007).

With 2007 corporate users may still not be allowed to make their own QAT
that 'sticks', but they do have, as Beth mentioned some
help in that Template embedded QATs do seem to be allowed

For help desks, with the internet and broadband and higher speed
connections being more common these days it's more likely that the
help desk will have the ability to 'take over' the users workstation or at
least watch what they're doing to help out than in the
past, but they would still be slowed by having to figure out too many
unique locations for items as Office is usually not the only
thing they have to support

Developer's also have a learning curve. It's more unfamiliarity than
degree of difficulty in some cases that prevents folks from
providing customized ribbons for their users in corporate environments,
and yes in both the Ribbon and the QAT there is room for
improvement in 'version next' g). For the Ribbon, scaling took a lot of
work on MS on the backend and DIY (do it yourself)
Ribbons don't always scale as well and yes locking down the QAT graphics
was an interesting choice, rather than providing a
'sandbox' area for having 'safe' graphics to use.

In addition to Patrick's work, Greg's article at
http://gregmaxey.mvps.org/Customize_Ribbon.htm
can be an interesting exercise for a first play with making your own
custom ribbon.

In watching users with Office 2007, I've seen some frustration that the
Themes aren't consistent in their effects across apps, but
I've also seen that folks are more willing to try something/undo it/try
something else with the ribbon than with menus. Menus,
after you choose something, often 'go away', and unless you happened to
remember what you just clicked, you have to hunt for the
same spot to try again With the Ribbon, it's still there, pretty much
where you left it unless you move the context point in your
document, so you can try until more or less satisfied.

Having had to write my own UI for programs for years, then add custom
commands to WordStar and beyond, I can appreciate how much
'fun' selling and implementing then troubleshooting each of the changes
within MS must have been. To their credit, MS hasn't fallen
back on the
'it's version 1' (when speaking of the Ribbon) as basically, it does work
very well for the most part for day in/day out tasks.

The lack of use of text labels on the QAT (since one of Jensen's blog's
statements was that there research said the ribbon had icons
plus text because it worked better) came down, in part, to how much screen
space it would take up both vertically and how many QAT
items you could put across a screen with and without text.
Tradeoff/settlement/compromise/lack of time to make more changes... who
can say for sure

============
"Jay Freedman" wrote in message
...
Besides that, there's the argument that Jonathan West has been
pressing for lo these many months, that one developer can make a
template containing customizations and macros that are then used by
hundreds or thousands of end users. SQM doesn't capture any of that.


Agreed that enforcing a standard for UI customizations isn't a "bad
thing". But according to Jensen that consideration was secondary to
the overload of commands that would have made the menu/toolbar
paradigm unworkable. I'm not sure I completely buy that for 2007, but
I think the feeling was that they'd get the pain out of the way this
time so people will accept it better in the next version.

Two things that would make the QAT-primary approach easier to accept:
distinctive icons or text for all QAT buttons (no more anonymous green
circles), and the ability to use custom icons made from arbitrary
bitmaps (preferably for any command, but at least for macros).
--

Bob Buckland ?:-)
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*






  #36   Report Post  
Posted to microsoft.public.word.newusers
Suzanne S. Barnhill Suzanne S. Barnhill is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 33,624
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

I can only hope that when I get ready to upgrade (side-by-side with 2003) I
will find that I can use Graham's instructions to import my custom buttons
and button faces, including the ones Robert Franz provided for KWN, KLT, and
PBB. I can't believe I got along without those buttons for so long! Not only
do they save many tedious trips to the Format Paragraph dialog, but they
also allow me to see at a glance what Line and Page Breaks settings are
already applied to a given paragraph.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
news
Suzanne

It is a useful and valuable feature - but it is a nightmare to change the
button faces and you can end up with several tools all with the same
button face or with button faces that are irrelevant to Word or any of its
commands. A simple example is the ParaPageBreakBefore button face is a
green Bullet when added to the QAT: what relevance to real life is a green
bullet. It is also share by many other commands too, so you can fill the
QAT with green bullets if you love green bullets.

My point is that although I now believe that Ribbons (and the QAT) are a
way forward, until it can be customised out-of-the-box without the need
for programming skills, it falls down BADLY.

Terry

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
While I agree that a customizable ribbon or tab would be helpful, it has
been pointed out that you can create a specialize QAT for a specific
template. Don't think, however, that I am in any way defending the loss
of customizability. I haven't yet "upgraded" to Office 2007, but I'm
going to be one of the loudest whiners when I do, as I have highly
customized my Word 2003 UI (with some customizations probably dating back
to Word 2.0).

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
Paul

I agree: the current implementation makes it harder for all and I cannot
see what the long-term advantages are to anyone that the Ribbons are
locked down so tightly.

What I would like to see is the ordinary user being able to create their
own 'Home' Ribbon that can be tied in with a template. On this ribbon,
the user can add whatever groups they want from any of the other
standard ribbons and remove/change the contents of these groups.

For example, my Home ribbon would remove the Clipboard group (a real
waste of screen space), remove much of the Font and Paragraph group
tools (but adding a few more useful tools) and thus making loads more
space for styles.

Terry

"Paul Gauci" wrote in message
...
OK - but how about the needs of companies (large and small) who use
customised styles/templates/toolbars/icons etc to standardise the
presentations of letters, reports, etc?

For instance, when such companies work with outsiders (say, when they
outsource), all they had to do with 2003 was to provide their
sub-contractors
with their customised templates/toolbars/icons etc and save
considerable time
and energy on post writing-up formatting.

Also, freelancers who work/ed for different companies using their
clients'
customised templates/toolbars/icons can/could be very efficient when
2003
customisations are/were well designed. It appears to me that they will
have
problems being as efficient with 2007.

--
Paul Gauci


"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

No, but that would be why customization would make it difficult to
support.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
I see. So we dumb down Word to help the helpers?

Terry

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
Because the help desk person is not looking at the same screen the
user
is, so the user is referring to buttons and menu items the IT
person may
not even be aware exist, much less have in his UI.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
Gordon

I'm not sure why this should be a support nightmare. If you use
roaming
profiles, surely, the customisations stay with the user. So if I
log
into any computer on the network, I get My Profile with My Desktop
displayed and in Word I will see all my toolbars as I want to use
them.
Why is that a support nightmare?

Terry

"Gordon" wrote in message
...
"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
In previous versions, I always modified the Toolbars. Many of
the
tools I never used (such as cut, copy, past, bold, italics
underline,
etc.) I always dragged off and added useful tools that were
hidden
(such as ParaPageBreakBefore, Doc Properties, File New... and
custom
macros, etc.).

I always like that there were always so many different ways to
work in
Word that allowed users to customize and work in a way that
suited
themselves and their principal tasks. To me, much of this choice
seems
to have been removed. I was privileged to be shown demos of the
proposed Ribbon before it went beta and was enthusiastic as I
could
see that so many more commands could be made available for
users,
rather than having to dig deep to find the hidden nest of tools
available. But I wasn't aware of how rigid the Ribbon was to be
until
beta testing started. I was deeply disappointed and I still am.
And I
will remain disappointed until the Ribbon is user customizable
out-of-the-box.

Terry

I hear what you say, but from a support perspective in a
commercial
environment, a User customising ANYTHING on an individual basis
turns
into a support/helpdesk nightmare.....














  #37   Report Post  
Posted to microsoft.public.word.newusers
Beth Melton Beth Melton is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,380
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

"Jay Freedman" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 30 Dec 2007 19:22:11 -0600, "Beth Melton"
wrote:

I asked about SQM in regards to how they ascertained users didn't use
custom
toolbars and such and never really got an answer. I've discovered long ago
they key to obtain the answer you are seeking lies in "how" you ask your
question. So I kept asking essentially the same question but a little
differently each time. I finally asked the *right* question and found CEIP
doesn't record programmatic actions, only "user clicks". From that I
surmised add-ins/global templates that contain customized toolbars weren't
recorded. And, as you noted, if in Word 2002 you already customized your
toolbars for Normal.dot and simply used it for Word 2003 then your
customizations wouldn't be recorded since they were already present. All
provided, of course, if you even opted in to CEIP. I suspect those users
who
are knowledgeable enough to customize their toolbars are also those who
would refrain from opting in. (I know I didn't opt in initially.)


Besides that, there's the argument that Jonathan West has been
pressing for lo these many months, that one developer can make a
template containing customizations and macros that are then used by
hundreds or thousands of end users. SQM doesn't capture any of that.


I agree with this assessment as well. If you aren't making the modifications
yourself or then customizations aren't recorded. Not to mention if one does
customize their toolbars it's not something folks do daily -- it may be a
onetime occurrence.

Why
not redesign of the menus/toolbars which also enables the ability to set
specific standards. Doing so forces developers into using a specific
standard for UI customizations and that's not necessarily a "bad thing".


Agreed that enforcing a standard for UI customizations isn't a "bad
thing". But according to Jensen that consideration was secondary to
the overload of commands that would have made the menu/toolbar
paradigm unworkable. I'm not sure I completely buy that for 2007, but
I think the feeling was that they'd get the pain out of the way this
time so people will accept it better in the next version.


I heard that as well. I'm also recalling some discussions I had with some
softies regarding add-in difficulties and the need to create some type of
standards. Who knows what the prompted the decision but I think you're
right, they introduced it now for things to come in the future.

Two things that would make the QAT-primary approach easier to accept:
distinctive icons or text for all QAT buttons (no more anonymous green
circles), and the ability to use custom icons made from arbitrary
bitmaps (preferably for any command, but at least for macros).


I think that was a bad decision too and one I complained about endlessly.
(And filed a few "wishes" on). I can accept locking them for built-in
commands that have associated images, but a bunch of green circles are
useless. They should have enabled same customizations for commands without
icons as they did macros. Also, regarding custom images, doesn't the
difficulties with transparency have something to do with the inability to
use custom icons? There's a bit on this topic he
http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archiv...image-faq.aspx

~Beth Melton


  #38   Report Post  
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Jay Freedman Jay Freedman is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 9,854
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

Hi Bob,

You're right, I don't think the general user population has much
understanding of either how much work was involved in overhauling the
UI, or how much more the UI team wanted to do but didn't have the time
or resources for. The next version, or two or three, certainly have
plenty of room for improvements. s

On Sun, 30 Dec 2007 23:26:26 -0800, "Bob Buckland ?:-\)"
75214.226(At Beautiful Downtown)compuserve.com wrote:

Hi Jay,

In many large corporate settings (where Office apps are often run through thin clients, such as Citrix [i.e. slow no matter what
G] and not used full time by users, the Ribbon seems to be better accepted as in the previous incarnation, users were locked out
from doing any customization on their own that would 'stick' and the menus seemed to almost always be set to not show the full menus
(many folks don't realize there are additional menu commands below the ones shown in that mode and think that with the Ribbon MS
added a lot more features than just those new in 2007).

With 2007 corporate users may still not be allowed to make their own QAT that 'sticks', but they do have, as Beth mentioned some
help in that Template embedded QATs do seem to be allowed

For help desks, with the internet and broadband and higher speed connections being more common these days it's more likely that the
help desk will have the ability to 'take over' the users workstation or at least watch what they're doing to help out than in the
past, but they would still be slowed by having to figure out too many unique locations for items as Office is usually not the only
thing they have to support

Developer's also have a learning curve. It's more unfamiliarity than degree of difficulty in some cases that prevents folks from
providing customized ribbons for their users in corporate environments, and yes in both the Ribbon and the QAT there is room for
improvement in 'version next' g). For the Ribbon, scaling took a lot of work on MS on the backend and DIY (do it yourself)
Ribbons don't always scale as well and yes locking down the QAT graphics was an interesting choice, rather than providing a
'sandbox' area for having 'safe' graphics to use.

In addition to Patrick's work, Greg's article at
http://gregmaxey.mvps.org/Customize_Ribbon.htm
can be an interesting exercise for a first play with making your own custom ribbon.

In watching users with Office 2007, I've seen some frustration that the Themes aren't consistent in their effects across apps, but
I've also seen that folks are more willing to try something/undo it/try something else with the ribbon than with menus. Menus,
after you choose something, often 'go away', and unless you happened to remember what you just clicked, you have to hunt for the
same spot to try again With the Ribbon, it's still there, pretty much where you left it unless you move the context point in your
document, so you can try until more or less satisfied.

Having had to write my own UI for programs for years, then add custom commands to WordStar and beyond, I can appreciate how much
'fun' selling and implementing then troubleshooting each of the changes within MS must have been. To their credit, MS hasn't fallen
back on the
'it's version 1' (when speaking of the Ribbon) as basically, it does work very well for the most part for day in/day out tasks.

The lack of use of text labels on the QAT (since one of Jensen's blog's statements was that there research said the ribbon had icons
plus text because it worked better) came down, in part, to how much screen space it would take up both vertically and how many QAT
items you could put across a screen with and without text. Tradeoff/settlement/compromise/lack of time to make more changes... who
can say for sure

============
"Jay Freedman" wrote in message ...
Besides that, there's the argument that Jonathan West has been
pressing for lo these many months, that one developer can make a
template containing customizations and macros that are then used by
hundreds or thousands of end users. SQM doesn't capture any of that.


Agreed that enforcing a standard for UI customizations isn't a "bad
thing". But according to Jensen that consideration was secondary to
the overload of commands that would have made the menu/toolbar
paradigm unworkable. I'm not sure I completely buy that for 2007, but
I think the feeling was that they'd get the pain out of the way this
time so people will accept it better in the next version.

Two things that would make the QAT-primary approach easier to accept:
distinctive icons or text for all QAT buttons (no more anonymous green
circles), and the ability to use custom icons made from arbitrary
bitmaps (preferably for any command, but at least for macros).
--

Bob Buckland ?:-)
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*



--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit.
  #39   Report Post  
Posted to microsoft.public.word.newusers
Dan Freeman Dan Freeman is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 214
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

*You* whine!?!?!?!?! Say it ain't so!

LOL

Dan

Suzanne S. Barnhill wrote:
While I agree that a customizable ribbon or tab would be helpful, it
has been pointed out that you can create a specialize QAT for a
specific template. Don't think, however, that I am in any way
defending the loss of customizability. I haven't yet "upgraded" to
Office 2007, but I'm going to be one of the loudest whiners when I
do, as I have highly customized my Word 2003 UI (with some
customizations probably dating back to Word 2.0).

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
Paul

I agree: the current implementation makes it harder for all and I
cannot see what the long-term advantages are to anyone that the
Ribbons are locked down so tightly.

What I would like to see is the ordinary user being able to create
their own 'Home' Ribbon that can be tied in with a template. On this
ribbon, the user can add whatever groups they want from any of the
other standard ribbons and remove/change the contents of these
groups. For example, my Home ribbon would remove the Clipboard group (a
real
waste of screen space), remove much of the Font and Paragraph group
tools (but adding a few more useful tools) and thus making loads
more space for styles.

Terry

"Paul Gauci" wrote in message
...
OK - but how about the needs of companies (large and small) who use
customised styles/templates/toolbars/icons etc to standardise the
presentations of letters, reports, etc?

For instance, when such companies work with outsiders (say, when
they outsource), all they had to do with 2003 was to provide their
sub-contractors
with their customised templates/toolbars/icons etc and save
considerable time
and energy on post writing-up formatting.

Also, freelancers who work/ed for different companies using their
clients'
customised templates/toolbars/icons can/could be very efficient
when 2003 customisations are/were well designed. It appears to me
that they will have
problems being as efficient with 2007.

--
Paul Gauci


"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

No, but that would be why customization would make it difficult to
support.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
I see. So we dumb down Word to help the helpers?

Terry

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
Because the help desk person is not looking at the same screen
the user
is, so the user is referring to buttons and menu items the IT
person may
not even be aware exist, much less have in his UI.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
Gordon

I'm not sure why this should be a support nightmare. If you use
roaming
profiles, surely, the customisations stay with the user. So if
I log into any computer on the network, I get My Profile with
My Desktop displayed and in Word I will see all my toolbars as
I want to use them.
Why is that a support nightmare?

Terry

"Gordon" wrote in message
...
"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
In previous versions, I always modified the Toolbars. Many of
the tools I never used (such as cut, copy, past, bold, italics
underline,
etc.) I always dragged off and added useful tools that were
hidden (such as ParaPageBreakBefore, Doc Properties, File
New... and custom
macros, etc.).

I always like that there were always so many different ways to
work in
Word that allowed users to customize and work in a way that
suited themselves and their principal tasks. To me, much of
this choice seems
to have been removed. I was privileged to be shown demos of
the proposed Ribbon before it went beta and was enthusiastic
as I could
see that so many more commands could be made available for
users, rather than having to dig deep to find the hidden nest
of tools available. But I wasn't aware of how rigid the
Ribbon was to be until
beta testing started. I was deeply disappointed and I still
am. And I
will remain disappointed until the Ribbon is user customizable
out-of-the-box.

Terry

I hear what you say, but from a support perspective in a
commercial environment, a User customising ANYTHING on an
individual basis turns
into a support/helpdesk nightmare.....



  #40   Report Post  
Posted to microsoft.public.word.newusers
Suzanne S. Barnhill Suzanne S. Barnhill is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 33,624
Default Word 2007 Learning Curve

I'll try to avoid whining publicly, but I'm willing to bet there will be
some private moaning and gnashing of teeth. g

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Dan Freeman" wrote in message
...
*You* whine!?!?!?!?! Say it ain't so!

LOL

Dan

Suzanne S. Barnhill wrote:
While I agree that a customizable ribbon or tab would be helpful, it
has been pointed out that you can create a specialize QAT for a
specific template. Don't think, however, that I am in any way
defending the loss of customizability. I haven't yet "upgraded" to
Office 2007, but I'm going to be one of the loudest whiners when I
do, as I have highly customized my Word 2003 UI (with some
customizations probably dating back to Word 2.0).

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
Paul

I agree: the current implementation makes it harder for all and I
cannot see what the long-term advantages are to anyone that the
Ribbons are locked down so tightly.

What I would like to see is the ordinary user being able to create
their own 'Home' Ribbon that can be tied in with a template. On this
ribbon, the user can add whatever groups they want from any of the
other standard ribbons and remove/change the contents of these
groups. For example, my Home ribbon would remove the Clipboard group (a
real
waste of screen space), remove much of the Font and Paragraph group
tools (but adding a few more useful tools) and thus making loads
more space for styles.

Terry

"Paul Gauci" wrote in message
...
OK - but how about the needs of companies (large and small) who use
customised styles/templates/toolbars/icons etc to standardise the
presentations of letters, reports, etc?

For instance, when such companies work with outsiders (say, when
they outsource), all they had to do with 2003 was to provide their
sub-contractors
with their customised templates/toolbars/icons etc and save
considerable time
and energy on post writing-up formatting.

Also, freelancers who work/ed for different companies using their
clients'
customised templates/toolbars/icons can/could be very efficient
when 2003 customisations are/were well designed. It appears to me
that they will have
problems being as efficient with 2007.

--
Paul Gauci


"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

No, but that would be why customization would make it difficult to
support.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
I see. So we dumb down Word to help the helpers?

Terry

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
Because the help desk person is not looking at the same screen
the user
is, so the user is referring to buttons and menu items the IT
person may
not even be aware exist, much less have in his UI.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
Gordon

I'm not sure why this should be a support nightmare. If you use
roaming
profiles, surely, the customisations stay with the user. So if
I log into any computer on the network, I get My Profile with
My Desktop displayed and in Word I will see all my toolbars as
I want to use them.
Why is that a support nightmare?

Terry

"Gordon" wrote in message
...
"Terry Farrell" wrote in message
...
In previous versions, I always modified the Toolbars. Many of
the tools I never used (such as cut, copy, past, bold, italics
underline,
etc.) I always dragged off and added useful tools that were
hidden (such as ParaPageBreakBefore, Doc Properties, File
New... and custom
macros, etc.).

I always like that there were always so many different ways to
work in
Word that allowed users to customize and work in a way that
suited themselves and their principal tasks. To me, much of
this choice seems
to have been removed. I was privileged to be shown demos of
the proposed Ribbon before it went beta and was enthusiastic
as I could
see that so many more commands could be made available for
users, rather than having to dig deep to find the hidden nest
of tools available. But I wasn't aware of how rigid the
Ribbon was to be until
beta testing started. I was deeply disappointed and I still
am. And I
will remain disappointed until the Ribbon is user customizable
out-of-the-box.

Terry

I hear what you say, but from a support perspective in a
commercial environment, a User customising ANYTHING on an
individual basis turns
into a support/helpdesk nightmare.....





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