So the company I work for just gave me a new laptop. Great!!! The one I had was about 6 years old.
It came with Office 2007.
I fired up Word 2007 for the first time this morning. At first glance I thought, “Hey this looks pretty cool!”
After playing around with it for I while I came to the conclusion that Microsoft had done something right. Word 2007 is awesome!
Then I had to do some actual work.
Ever have something go from awesome to total shit in about 7 seconds?
What the fuck was microsoft thinking when they built this piece of shit?? Every damn function that I use I have to go on an expedition to find it! Nothing is where I would expect it to be. There’s a toilet in the middle of the living room and the kitchen sink is out in the garage. I STILL haven’t figured out which light switch controls that big honkin’ huge crystal chandelier that’s in the broom closet.
And for the love of god, would somebody please tell me how to split a table. You know, that command that you can reach in Word 2003 be clicking on TABLE and then SPLIT TABLE. I’ve been searching for it for an hour!:mad:
My understanding is the ribbon is suppose to be a huge help to touchscreen users. I think the new interface is terrible and they needed an option to return to the menu system of old.
On the bright side, they are some really excellent improvements in the file handling and especially the excel capabilities for really large spreadsheets.
I guess I spent too many years getting used to the old format for MS Office. The new version took some getting used to; I ended up buying “MS Office 2007 for Dummies” which was a big help.
The onscreen/online help section is pretty good, too. If you click the ? in the upper right, it will take you to MS Help. From there, it was two clicks to Table, Split Table to arrive at this direction:
NOTE: To split one table into two tables, you must do the following:
Select the row that you want to be the first row of the second table.
Under Table Tools, on the Layout tab, in the Merge group, click Split Table.*
WHERE"S THE FUCKING FILE MENU??? I WANT MY FUCKING FILE MENU BACK!!!
Ahem. Okay, I’m better now. But seriously, I HATE the new interface. I hate it with the fiery, blistering hatred I usually reserve for telemarketers and people who stand on the left side of the escalator.
I felt like that at first. Now having gotten used to Office 2007, I would hate to go back to 2003. There are so many things that are now quicker. Stick with it - not that you have any choice.
Do a Google search for “Search Commands.” It’s a free add-in for Office 2007 from Microsoft labs that puts a new ribbon section in with a context-sensitive search bar. You simply type in what you want (i.e., split table) and it brings all the relevant menu options right to the ribbon. The downside is that it doesn’t show you how to find them yourselves, but when you’re in a crunch and can’t find something it works great.
Incidentally, I’m playing with the Office 2010 beta and they already dropped the big ol’ Office Button and replaced it with a button just called “File.” I suppose they got a lot of hate mail about dropping the File menu bar.
All in all, I have come to like Office 2007, and 2010 has some very useful features as well, but there is definitely a learning curve.
Plus in Pivot Tables and in Conditional Formatting, as well. Of course, for those of us who have to deal with it, the 1-million+ lines allowed is pretty nice.
But all the ribbon does is foul up the msoCommandBar commands.
After five minutes with it, I thought maybe I should offer extra credit to any of my students who are forced to type a paper with it.
One thing I discovered about it accidentally (Read the directions? I think not!) is after you highlight some text, right click…you get a nice pop up of useful commands.
But, in general, they took things that were one step tasks and made then three step tasks…after searching for each step for several minutes.
Microsoft: Yeah, but they’re macadamia nuts in this shit!
I write/edit extensively with Word and Excel. I’m also pretty tech-savvy and generally love to play around with advanced features and options to unravel programs. I’ve had this piece of shit for several months now, and am still in the process of getting used to it. A month or so I got fed up with this and that and this and that dagnabbit fricken fracken AAAHHHRRR… so I started a running list of complaints. It’s up to about twenty eight items. I was originally thinking of posting it in the Pit (hence to doc title, I hate Word), but will likely put it in GQ in case there are fixes, workarounds, or tips that address the issues.
Oh, there’s also a couple add-ons that will help with the OP. One is Ribbon Customizer. Among other things, it recreates the 2003 menu system (File, Tools, Edit, etc.).
I can freely admit that there are some choice macadamia nuts, but that doesn’t make up for the overall bucket of diarrhea MS is trying to feed us.
In high school and college, I used Word Perfect. When I graduated, I switched to Open Office. Whenever I switched to Word (because a professor required Word files or work required Word), this is how I felt. I still feel that Office 2003 wired the garage door to the Clapper.
When I got my current job, I had to switch over to Office 2007, and I found it very easy to pick up. I’m Excel guru in my office now. Word still baffles me sometimes, but it would confound me even more in Office 2003. (Word Perfect spoiled me. I expect formatting to be easy to understand and manipulate. Microsoft doesn’t subscribe to that theory.)
That said, they should have included an option to use the old style menus. Some people like the open the garage door with a round of applause.
I think there are related spheres of complaint. One is how MS changed the interface. IMHO, much of this was driven by the marketing department. There are great threats to Word out there (e.g., OO), and Word users are still using an intuitive interface (i.e., an interface that has much in common with other programs, such as File, Edit, Tools, etc.), then switching from Word is easier. So, for primarily marketing reasons, they made massive changes that detract from, rather than improve the experience. Yes, things can be figured out, but there were few benefits to the reorganization.
In the meantime, what a pain in the ass. I tried keeping track (similar to the OP, I was excited about the upgrade, then stuck in shock and disbelief at what I found) of the differences between interfaces. For example, there was a lot more movement between selecting tabs and items in the tabs.
Second, despite a lot of improvements, there were a slew of steps backwards. Here’s my favorite bit from the MS site:
Thanks, assholes. So basic customization, such as moving and resizing the fucking takes-up-too-much-space ribbon isn’t possible out of the box. I’m glad Ribbon Customizer is there, but this is pretty basic functionality.
I’ve been using Office 2007 for a little over a year now at work, and I still hate the ribbons. I can find my way around them a bit better now, but I still hate them.
They’re at their very worst in Access 2007 - because so many of the things you might want to do there really don’t have graphical ways to represent them that are particularly distinctive, and anyway, when I want to create a new table, I just don’t need a pictoral representation of a table to help me decide where to click.
The ribbon is patronising and intrusive, occupying a huge and unnecessary slice of screen real-estate (I know it can be hidden, but that’s just a nuisance too either way).
I consider myself a reasonably adaptable user and intuitive learner for these sorts of things, but a year in, the ribbon still gets on my nerves.
The one I had was about 6 years old.