cross-reference of Office 2003 programs' menu, sub-menu and toolba

A

Alan R. C.

Subject (above one is truncated)
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cross-reference of Office 2003 programs' menu, sub-menu and toolbar
functions with how to locate same function using ribbons


For the sake of all the expert/heavy users of Office programs before Office
12, like me (well, as far as Word, Excel and Outlook are concerned), who know
where to quickly locate functions on drop down menus, sub-menus and toolbars
and who are going to be very frustrated by having to learn a new interface
using ribbons and how to navigate these to find a particular function, to
help bring us up to speed, please include on the Office 12 product CD, a
document for each Office product, that cross references each menu, sub-menu
and toolbar function (using the function name and toolbar icon) used in the
Office 2003 version of the program with a description of how to navigate to
the same function in the Office 12 version of the program, including screen
prints of the ribbon(s) etc. for illustrations.

Better still; make this document for a program readable from the program’s
help function too, with the ability to click on a link in the help page to
display the relevant ribbon, with the mouse pointer positioned over the
required function.

In the past, when Microsoft have published a new version of Office,
companies largely based their purchasing decisions on whether they could
afford the new licenses, as the new Office version could be installed on the
company’s computers and their employees could continue to use the new version
in the same way as they did with the old one, with retraining costs limited
to the few who might need to know how to use new features.

Now that installing Office 12 will require company employees to be trained
to use the new user interface before they can be productive, I think
Microsoft is going to find many companies resisting purchasing Office 12
because of the shear investment they have in their personnel’s knowledge of
previous versions of Office, especially the previous user interface, and
companies’ reluctance to pay large sums for retraining.

For this reason, I think it was a mistake, which Microsoft will regret, to
completely remove the menu, sub-menu and toolbar interface from each Office
program rather than allowing a user the choice, in the Options function, of
reverting to using the menu, sub-menu and toolbar interface rather than the
ribbon interface even if this meant losing some functionality only provided
with the ribbon interface.

Perhaps including these cross-reference files will go some way in assuaging
companies/peoples reluctance to change.


----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this
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http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...-ab42fde09a07&dg=microsoft.public.office.misc
 
G

George Nicholson

This is not the proper forum for comments regarding the beta version of
Office 12.


I suppose it's good to know that Microsoft is using a large cross-section of
people as beta testers. Even those who evidently can't follow instructions
about where to send comments, even when failure to follow those instructions
violates the non-disclosure agreements they signed in order to be a tester.
 
A

Alan R. C.

I am not a beta tester of Office 12.

Having read the presentation Beyond Menus and Toolbars in Microsoft Office
(see http://www.baychi.org/calendar/20051213/) by Jensen Harris, the lead UI
designer for the Office UI suite, and learnt that the menu interface had been
removed from most of the programs in Office 12, I sent a post to his Office
User Interface blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh and in response,
received an email which included the following :-

Suggesting a Feature
If you would like to suggest a feature for a future version of Office, click
the Make a Suggestion link at
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/contactus.aspx. Your suggestion will be
forwarded to someone on the relevant product team.

My post below was merely following the instructions in the email.
 
G

George Nicholson

Ah, my bad. My very bad. Please accept my apologies for leaping to
conclusions.

Not sure why MS considers "Suggesting a feature to a future version" and
"commenting on a feature in a product that anyone who has actually seen
can't legally talk about" to be the same thing (or appropriate for a public
newsgroup), but that's not your fault.
 

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