I’ve stuck with WORD 2003 stubbornly, having tried WORD 2007 when it first came out and hating it. I don’t even remember the specific problems I had, only that everything was in the wrong place on the template, I couldn’t find stuff (like how to cut and paste) by logic or intuition, and I asked my IT people to just re-install 2003, please, and I’ve been a happy camper ever since.
But yesterday I was offered a new laptop (which I need) and told that 2003 will no longer be supported in a year or so, and that WORD 2010 (which uses the same template) will be available soon, so I’ve got to get with the program. The timing is actually good (summer vacation is looming, and this time I’ll be allowed to keep my old laptop wth WORD 2003 installed, in case there’s some critical work I need to do without the frustrations of learning a new system simultaneously.) I’m asking if there are any good resources for dealing with this adjustment–any on-line FAQs, any good articles on WORD 2007, any tips from your personal adjustment experiences, etc?
I feel your pain. I found the Dummies book for Office 2007 to be helpful. Google is indispensable. Whenever it takes me more than 5 seconds to figure out which oedipal ribbon an item is hidden under in Abomination 2007, I google it. “Word 2007 page number header”, and I have my answer after a few clicks.
As a fallback, try Open Office. Before I got the Dummies book I was moments away from installing Open Office on my work computer - a potentially career limiting move. There was a whole thread of OO hate on the Dope recently, but they are wrong. OO is like Word 2003 done right.
Download the Word 2007 Interactive file. It translates Word 2003 commands into Word 2007
Office 2010 is near-out as we speak, so you’ll have to upgrade again at some point. I have only looked over someone’s shoulder using it, but it seems that they added the “file” menu back instead of that icon in the upper left, so 2007->2010 won’t be a huge leap.
I hated at first, now I’m a bit more accepting. Cut and paste and commands like that use the same keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl-X and V), or the menus are somewhat intuitive.
Installing add-ins adds a new tab in Word. Imagine my chagrin when I spend time hunting for the analysis toolpack in Excel for 15 minutes only to find that they DON’T add a tab but hide it in other menus.