Changing Office 2007 Interface

[csmith]

I just got Office 2007 and I absolutely hate it. I mean I really, really hate
it. I am a freelance writer and I rely heavily on Word. Why, why, why do you
insist on fixing things that aren't broken? The menus - if you can call them
that - make no sense, the interface is childish and ridiculous and my entire
experience of using this software will be diminished. I can't imagine I'm the
first person to tell you this.

Is there any way I can restore it to look the way Office 2003 worked? The
menus there were logical, the text interface much more pleasant and than all
of these dumb icons.

 

[Stacers]

The new interface definitely takes some getting used to. You can use
third-party add-ons (like this here:
http://www.addintools.com/english/menuword/ ) to bring back menus in the same
style as 2003. Or...

If you're not interested in doing that, you can work around it by
customizing your Quick Access Toolbar (QAT). That's how I got around it...
if you look right under the ribbon (the new menus), by default there's the
Save, Undo, and Redo options. You can add buttons to that toolbar by
right-clicking there, and choosing 'Customize Quick Access Toolbar'.

If you change the 'Choose commands from:' to 'All commands', you'll get a
complete list of all the possible buttons you can add to your toolbar. You
can go ahead and click on the ones you want, click 'Add' to bring it over to
the right-side of the screen, then click 'OK' when you're done. Your new
buttons will all be added to that new toolbar. It's not the same as having
the 2003 menus, but you might find it useful to put the commands you use most
frequently there.

Hope that helps!