Want to upgrade to Office 2007, but will it change all my menus, e

[tjsmags]

I have Office 2003 right now. I'm considering upgrading to 2007, but I don't
want it to change all my settings. For example, in Outlook I have all my
FLAGS customized, I have LABELS within CALENDAR customized (colors and label
names), my toolbars in Word/Excel are set up the way I want them, etc. Will
these all be changed back to the default once I upgrade?????

 

[Alias]

I have Office 2003 right now. I'm considering upgrading to 2007, but I don't
want it to change all my settings. For example, in Outlook I have all my
FLAGS customized, I have LABELS within CALENDAR customized (colors and label
names), my toolbars in Word/Excel are set up the way I want them, etc. Will
these all be changed back to the default once I upgrade?????

Just curious, why do you want to get rid of a perfectly good office
suite for one that millions are complaining about?

Alias

 

[Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]]

Millions? Care to provide statistics?

As for the OP, your calendar categories will be upgraded to allow for countless categories with many more assigned colors unlike Outlook 2002/3 with limited colors and categories.


--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact.
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/KB/555375


After furious head scratching, Alias asked:

| tjsmags wrote:
|| I have Office 2003 right now. I'm considering upgrading to 2007,
|| but I don't want it to change all my settings. For example, in
|| Outlook I have all my FLAGS customized, I have LABELS within
|| CALENDAR customized (colors and label names), my toolbars in
|| Word/Excel are set up the way I want them, etc. Will these all be
|| changed back to the default once I upgrade?????
|
| Just curious, why do you want to get rid of a perfectly good office
| suite for one that millions are complaining about?
|
| Alias

 

[Alias]

Millions? Care to provide statistics?

You don't read this group and how people are just madly in love with the
ribbon?

Alias

As for the OP, your calendar categories will be upgraded to allow for countless categories with many more assigned colors unlike Outlook 2002/3 with limited colors and categories.


--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact.
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/KB/555375


After furious head scratching, Alias asked:

| tjsmags wrote:
|| I have Office 2003 right now. I'm considering upgrading to 2007,
|| but I don't want it to change all my settings. For example, in
|| Outlook I have all my FLAGS customized, I have LABELS within
|| CALENDAR customized (colors and label names), my toolbars in
|| Word/Excel are set up the way I want them, etc. Will these all be
|| changed back to the default once I upgrade?????
|
| Just curious, why do you want to get rid of a perfectly good office
| suite for one that millions are complaining about?
|
| Alias

 

[Gordon]

I have Office 2003 right now. I'm considering upgrading to 2007, but I
don't
want it to change all my settings. For example, in Outlook I have all my
FLAGS customized, I have LABELS within CALENDAR customized (colors and
label
names), my toolbars in Word/Excel are set up the way I want them, etc.
Will
these all be changed back to the default once I upgrade?????

Toolbars are dramatically changed. The Ribbon allows for no customisation,
BUT is (IMHO), with the Quick Access Toolbar which IS customizable, more
intuitive in the long-term than the old style menus....

 

[tjsmags]

Crap! I had no idea people did NOT like it. Tell me where and what to read!
What is 'ribbon'...the new name for the toolbar?
--
Thank you.

Millions? Care to provide statistics?

You don't read this group and how people are just madly in love with the
ribbon?

Alias

As for the OP, your calendar categories will be upgraded to allow for countless categories with many more assigned colors unlike Outlook 2002/3 with limited colors and categories.


--Â
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact.
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/KB/555375


After furious head scratching, Alias asked:

| tjsmags wrote:
|| I have Office 2003 right now. I'm considering upgrading to 2007,
|| but I don't want it to change all my settings. For example, in
|| Outlook I have all my FLAGS customized, I have LABELS within
|| CALENDAR customized (colors and label names), my toolbars in
|| Word/Excel are set up the way I want them, etc. Will these all be
|| changed back to the default once I upgrade?????
|
| Just curious, why do you want to get rid of a perfectly good office
| suite for one that millions are complaining about?
|
| Alias

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Gordon,

The Ribbon can be customized, the right click menus can be customized, task panes that float can be added, just not through the User
Interface

============
Toolbars are dramatically changed. The Ribbon allows for no customisation,
BUT is (IMHO), with the Quick Access Toolbar which IS customizable, more
intuitive in the long-term than the old style menus.... <<
--

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

 

[Gemini]

tjsmags, there are no more menus, as you know them, in Office 2007. You may
want to download a trial version from the MS site and/or look at the various
screenshots of the new Ribbon UI. Your menu customizations will be history
once you install Office 2007.

I used the trial version for a few weeks. I primarily use Excel. It had a
tendency to crash randomly. I found the new UI to be illogical, slow and
counter productive. For these two reasons, I opted not to shell out more $$$s
to MS and instead reverted to Office 2003. Voila! No more crashes and
productivity was back to normal.

Here's a survey of Excel users re the Ribbon UI.
http://www.exceluser.com/explore/surveys/ribbon/ribbon-survey-results.htm

An excerpt from the above:
"You can read comments about the Ribbon, both good and bad, in the columns
at the right. Because I received many more negative comments than positive
ones, I included all positive comments but not all negative ones."

hth!

-- Gemini

 

[Gordon]

Hi Gordon,

The Ribbon can be customized,

Please tell me how then, because AFAIK it cannot.

 

[Gordon]

Hi Gordon,

The Ribbon can be customized,

A quote from Office 2007 help: (my emphasis)

"The Ribbon, which is part of the Microsoft Office Fluent user interface, is designed to help you quickly find the commands that you need to complete a task. Commands are organized in logical groups that are collected together under tabs. Because each tab relates to a type of activity, such as writing or laying out a page, it is not possible to customize the Ribbon without using XML and programming code."

 

[Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]]

you mean the hundreds of posts by Gemini? that hardly counts as millions.

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact.
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/KB/555375


After furious head scratching, Alias asked:

| Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook] wrote:
|| Millions? Care to provide statistics?
|
| You don't read this group and how people are just madly in love with
| the ribbon?
|
| Alias
||
|| As for the OP, your calendar categories will be upgraded to allow
|| for countless categories with many more assigned colors unlike
|| Outlook 2002/3 with limited colors and categories.
||
||
|| --
|| Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]
||
|| Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact.
|| How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/KB/555375
||
||
|| After furious head scratching, Alias asked:
||
||| tjsmags wrote:
|||| I have Office 2003 right now. I'm considering upgrading to 2007,
|||| but I don't want it to change all my settings. For example, in
|||| Outlook I have all my FLAGS customized, I have LABELS within
|||| CALENDAR customized (colors and label names), my toolbars in
|||| Word/Excel are set up the way I want them, etc. Will these all be
|||| changed back to the default once I upgrade?????
|||
||| Just curious, why do you want to get rid of a perfectly good office
||| suite for one that millions are complaining about?
|||
||| Alias

 

[Gemini]

LOL! Milly, your addiction to sarcasm has surfaced yet once again.

Did you take a look at the link I posted? It points to a survey. That
contains opinions from actual users. That survey clearly indicates that the
Ribbon is NOT popular among intermediate & advanced level Excel users.

Now, do you have a link to a survey, etc. that indicates otherwise? BTW,
merely a snippy answer from you doesn't count as a survey.

-- Gemini

 

[Bob I]

Excerpt below taken directly from the survey text. So that would make
about 150 people? IF they only made one entry.

"First, fewer than 200 people have responded so far. Second, online
surveys don't produce a random sample of responses."

"Even so, this chart shows that that the results have been relatively
consistent during the past two months. It appears safe to say that the
majority of experienced Excel users dislike the Ribbon."

LOL! Milly, your addiction to sarcasm has surfaced yet once again.

Did you take a look at the link I posted? It points to a survey. That
contains opinions from actual users. That survey clearly indicates thatthe
Ribbon is NOT popular among intermediate & advanced level Excel users.

Now, do you have a link to a survey, etc. that indicates otherwise? BTW,
merely a snippy answer from you doesn't count as a survey.

-- Gemini

:

you mean the hundreds of posts by Gemini? that hardly counts as millions.

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact.
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/KB/555375


After furious head scratching, Alias asked:

| Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook] wrote:
|| Millions? Care to provide statistics?
|
| You don't read this group and how people are just madly in love with
| the ribbon?
|
| Alias
||
|| As for the OP, your calendar categories will be upgraded to allow
|| for countless categories with many more assigned colors unlike
|| Outlook 2002/3 with limited colors and categories.
||
||
|| --Â
|| Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]
||
|| Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact.
|| How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/KB/555375
||
||
|| After furious head scratching, Alias asked:
||
||| tjsmags wrote:
|||| I have Office 2003 right now. I'm considering upgrading to 2007,
|||| but I don't want it to change all my settings. For example, in
|||| Outlook I have all my FLAGS customized, I have LABELS within
|||| CALENDAR customized (colors and label names), my toolbars in
|||| Word/Excel are set up the way I want them, etc. Will these all be
|||| changed back to the default once I upgrade?????
|||
||| Just curious, why do you want to get rid of a perfectly good office
||| suite for one that millions are complaining about?
|||
||| Alias

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Gordon,

As you chose not to quote the part of the sentence that read

..."just not through the User
Interface "

Then the part of help you quoted is sort of correct, except that it could also add something that 'or without a utility/tool' (that
creates the customizations for you. Yes, you would need to do spend some time learning things, but then none (or very few of us
<g>) were 'born' with Office tweaking knowledge It depends a bit on various factors, including - how much of your time you'd
want to spend on using Office apps rather than being out and about or learning other non-computer things in life<g> [I think this
one, for example is a bit more fun
http://research.microsoft.com/resea...25c6-cf4f-4408-8cab-8b1f0cabe0bb/Details.aspx
; your level of interest in changing things; whether you work in a company where even if you wanted to change things it's locked out
so you can't or just general curiousity on understanding how things work.


You could learn some new techniques (it's much like learning a new language I suppose [not necessarily a 'computer' language)
http://www.rondebruin.nl/ribbon.htm
http://gregmaxey.mvps.org/Customize_Ribbon.htm

or use one of the 3rd party ribbon products
http://ribboncustomizer.com

or , dev tools such as MS Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) Ribbon designer
http://blogs.msdn.com/kathleen/archive/2007/05/09/vsto-my-favorite-feature-ribbon-designer.aspx

or, as many folks do from the web, download and use a tool, or an already made customization that might come in handy, or just to
try out
http://www.officelabs.com/projects/chartadvisor/Pages/default.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/tc/scholarly_communication.mspx (Article authoring and Microsoft Math add-ins)

http://gregmaxey.mvps.org/Table_Cell_Data_Word2007.htm (download at end of the article)
http://research.microsoft.com/resea...86b6-0bb0-4668-9ebc-c3e9b43a0683/Details.aspx

The Ribbon, is driven by XML files. As with a lot of XML, can be looked at as an outline type of hierarchy.

Ribbon
Group
Tab
Element/Button

it's getting into the details that fill the outline that get a bit more involved

===========

Hi Gordon,

The Ribbon can be customized,

A quote from Office 2007 help: (my emphasis)

"The Ribbon, which is part of the Microsoft Office Fluent user interface, is designed to help you quickly find the commands that you
need to complete a task. Commands are organized in logical groups that are collected together under tabs. Because each tab relates
to a type of activity, such as writing or laying out a page, it is not possible to customize the Ribbon without using XML and
programming code." <<
--

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

 

[Gemini]

First of all, that survey is definitely more than anything MS has published
re user opinion of the Ribbon UI, esp. from longterm/power users.

Secondly, if you're going to quote from that survey, at least do so
accurately and honestly.

The actual phrase from the survey is:
"First, only about 200 people have responded so far."

The little difference: "only about 200" (original) v/s "fewer than 200"
(yours).

BTW, as I've said before, Jensen Harris has claimed great success for the
Ribbon. However, when asked by several posters re the specifics, which users
comprised the research, etc., JH maintained a solid silence. That speaks
volumes.

Oh yes, I do hope you read the section, "Why Does The Ribbon Hurt
Productivity" carefully.

-- Gemini

 

[Bob I]

Perhaps you have a comprehension problem? I copy/pasted what appears in
the quotes directly from article text. You just don't get it, do you?

 

[Gordon]

Perhaps you have a comprehension problem? I copy/pasted what appears in
the quotes directly from article text. You just don't get it, do you?

just killfile the idiot....

 

[Bob I]

just killfile the idiot....

Tempted, but providing counterpoint keeps the "me too" factor under
control.

 

[Gemini]

Bob, my comprehension is excellent, much better than yours. You, otoh, appear
to have an integrity problem.

I quoted from that survey, word for word. The phrase used in the survey is:
"First, only about 200 people have responded so far."

The phrase you used, "fewer than 200", does NOT appear in the survey at all.
Anyone who reads that survey can see that, despite your weak attempt to
misstate the said phrase.

As I said, you appear to have an integrity problem. I do feel sorry for you.

-- Gemini

 

[Gemini]

So, that's your response when you can't argue with facts. It clearly shows
immaturity and poor manners.

If you think your opinion matters to me, you are sadly mistaken.

-- Gemini