Work Menu - Word:mac 2008

[borninva]

I find the Work Menu to be very helpful. It is certainly obvious and easy enough to add items to the Work Menu in Word 2008.

However, the key combination to remove an item from the Work Menu that was to be used in Word 2004 to remove an item does not seem to function with Word 2008.

Does anyone know how to REMOVE an item from the Work Menu of Word 2008?

Thanks,
Michael Hughes

 

[CyberTaz]

I think the keystroke was removed because too many people were hitting it
accidently & wiping out menu content without realizing what was happening...
Or it may have been that the stroke conflicted with an OS X assignment -
can't remember for sure.

You can still assign a keystroke if you wish - but as a thought - I added it
as a command to the bottom of the Work Menu itself leaving no possibility of
inadvertently keying it. I believe you still can do either in 2008.

 

[aliquis]

Hmm. Not sure about this. I can't find any command at all (let alone a keystroke) to remove something from the Work Menu. Result: I have items that I managed to add to the Work Menu that are now still stuck there. What's more the item actually appears as a command in the command list, which seems rather odd. Would be grateful for a solution to this

 

[aliquis]

I've found an answer, though it's a pretty dumb one.

Open Customize Toolbars and Menus
Choose Commands
Go to 'Tools Customize Remove Menu Shortcut'
Drag this to the Work Menu on the floating Menu toolbar
When added, double click it to change the name.
Exit Customize

When you now select that item it will delete the next Menu item you select. If you do all this in a blank document it will save the settings in the normal template (I think.)

Use with care - when trying to sort this I accidentally deleted the Customize Toolbars and Menus item. What a pain that was.

But there must be a better way surely. What kind of software is this??

 

[CyberTaz]

Glad you found the solution even if you're not overjoyed Just keep in
mind that we don't write the program, we just use it. If you have any
comments or viable suggestions feel free to use Word's Help> Send Feedback
option to let MS know what they are.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[aliquis]

I wasn't criticising anyone on this forum. But even on the last version of Word there was no simple way to remove items from the Work menu. It seems a bit crazy to have an 'Add' item but not to have the equivalent 'Remove' item. OK so last time there was a keyboard shortcut (now gone it seems). Is it that difficult simply to have a 'Remove'? If my memory serves me there used to be such an item a couple of versions back. Surely this can't just be oversight can it?

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

You just put the Remove item on the menu. What you did is pretty much
exactly what the Word developers should have done by default. There you
call it stupid--here you ask for it?

In the last 3-4 versions, there has been a keyboard shortcut---but then
Apple used it for the system (zoom in Tiger 10.4?) and it became all
confusing. I'm guessing that's why they removed it--if they did. You
could of course set up your own shortcut as well.

Use Help | Send Feedback to suggest the Remove item be in the menu by
default. I'm guessing it is just oversight.

By the way--when you change menus, it always gets saved to the Normal
template. No need to do it in a blank document.

Re "what kind of software is this?"--one of Word's strengths is that it
has thousands of built-in commands in Tools | Customize. But if they
were all on the menus, it would be impossible to use. It's designed to
let you tweak it to suit you--as you just did. This particular missing
item is just silly--but the general concept of customizing your own
menus is one of the best things about Word.

Daiya

 

[aliquis]

No I haven't done what the Word developers should have done. I've used the general command for removing any menu item from any menu, which is a pretty powerful thing to leave lying around on any menu, as I've already found out to my cost. As you say, it's quite possible to add the old keyboard shortcut (or a different one if you want to avoid the conflict with zoom), and therefore to make the latest version like the previous one. That's what I managed to do.

The 'oversight', if you like, (or anyway my complaint) is the absence from this version and the previous one of an item for the Work Menu which is the equivalent in reverse to the 'Add to Work Menu' i.e. 'Remove from Work Menu'. The current arrangement will take anything off any menu - not very sensible IMHO. (Or , as you say, 'just silly'.)

You will find another post just a few days ago from someone (like me) who has repeatedly forgotten how to take things of the Work Menu and in that post Cyber Taz (like me) has imagined that there actually is such a simple item. But not in Office 2004, nor in Office 2008. Looks like we'll have to wait till 2012. Mind you, as far as I can see this is just a Mac issue since I don't think the Windows version even has a Work Menu...

 

[aliquis]

Because I can't believe that nobody has ever raised this with them before since the release of Office 2004. And what action did they take? On the other hand I could be the only person who's bothered, in which case they are hardly likely to take notice now.

In fact a quick Google will show that people have been complaining about this for years. From PC World in 2002:

'If you think the procedure for adding the Work menu is hidden, wait until you get a load of how to remove files from the Work menu: To remove a file from the Work menu, first you must wait until the third Thursday of the month, but only if it's rainy. Then you must position your monitor so that it's facing Italy, and press the Home key seven times while chanting... Sorry. It's not quite that bad. Here's really how you do it: Hold down the Ctrl and Alt keys and press the Hyphen key. Your mouse pointer will turn into a large green minus sign. Now, open the Work menu and carefully click the file you want to remove.'

In fact the whole arrangement is quite bizarre, but someone at MS obviously thinks it a feature worth hanging on to.

 

[John McGhie]

I think so far we have five or maybe 20 "users" who have complained about
this using the "Send feedback" control on the Help menu in Word.

They need to get up to about 1,000 before the item gets enough traction to
make it onto the "Must Do" list.

And that's the only feedback that counts Complaints in here may
entertain us, but the Software Architect with the "To Do" list who is
currently designing the next version of Word will never see them... He will
see the "Send feedback" items. All of them

Cheers

Because I can't believe that nobody has ever raised this with them before
since the release of Office 2004. And what action did they take? On the
other hand I could be the only person who's bothered, in which case they are
hardly likely to take notice now.

In fact a quick Google will show that people have been complaining about this
for years. From PC World in 2002:

'If you think the procedure for adding the Work menu is hidden, wait until you
get a load of how to remove files from the Work menu: To remove a file from
the Work menu, first you must wait until the third Thursday of the month, but
only if it's rainy. Then you must position your monitor so that it's facing
Italy, and press the Home key seven times while chanting... Sorry. It's not
quite that bad. Here's really how you do it: Hold down the Ctrl and Alt keys
and press the Hyphen key. Your mouse pointer will turn into a large green
minus sign. Now, open the Work menu and carefully click the file you want to
remove.'

In fact the whole arrangement is quite bizarre, but someone at MS obviously
thinks it a feature worth hanging on to.

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[aliquis]

So what you're saying is that the Software Architect (just 1?) only takes notice of what's submitted via the Help menu? And only then when there's a large enough number saying the same thing? You mean MS does its software design by plebiscite? They never read reviews, look at forums, blogs and the rest? They don't even take any notice of the MVPs? (See: http://word.mvps.org/FAQS/General/WorkMenu.htm) I don't think so. C'mon John - you're an expert - you know it's not like that.

Wouldn't this mean that the reason the Work Menu has disappeared from Word 2007 is because more Windows users than Mac users pressed the feedback button? Of course that's not how it happened. The fact that it's gone is because the Word developers know it's a BAD feature on whatever platform and have actually made a half-decent attempt to address it in Word 2007 through pinning the Recent Items. (But there of course you can unpin them as well.) So why not fix it in Word 2008? Certainly not because they're saying 'Well if you'd only told us you didn't like it...'

 

[CyberTaz]

Hello again -

So what you're saying is that the Software Architect (just 1?) only takes
notice of what's submitted via the Help menu? And only then when there's a
large enough number saying the same thing? You mean MS does its software
design by plebiscite? They never read reviews, look at forums, blogs and the
rest? They don't even take any notice of the MVPs? (See:
http://word.mvps.org/FAQS/General/WorkMenu.htm) I don't think so. C'mon John
- you're an expert - you know it's not like that.

Wouldn't this mean that the reason the Work Menu has disappeared from Word
2007 is because more Windows users than Mac users pressed the feedback button?
Of course that's not how it happened. The fact that it's gone is because the
Word developers know it's a BAD feature on whatever platform

Absolutely not. The Work menu is absent in Word 2007 because *MENUS* are
absent in 2007, as are just about all customization capabilities Mac Office
users still have at their disposal... And if you look at the PC Word groups
you'd find quite a few who are quite perturbed about it.

and have actually
made a half-decent attempt to address it in Word 2007 through pinning the
Recent Items. (But there of course you can unpin them as well.) So why not
fix it in Word 2008? Certainly not because they're saying 'Well if you'd only
told us you didn't like it...'

Pinning & unpinning is useful, but 2007 still gives you no way to *remove*
individual items from the list... Nor can you rearrange or group them.

In your previous post you lambasted the dangerous aspect of the removal
command, but there are a few points to consider here:

First of all, *any* technique to remove commands from the menu structure is
going to be a "powerful" tool. That's why it & the Work menu are not a part
of the default UI - you have to specifically seek out & activate both.

Any powerful tool can be dangerous in the hands of careless, inattentive or
irresponsible individuals - and yes, even accomplished professionals make
mistakes. I'm not sure that justifies taking scalpels away from surgeons,
taking saws away from carpenters or yanking torches out of the hands of
welders. The appropriate cautions are there and, IMHO, anyone who chooses to
use the features must also assume the responsibility of using it wisely.

Objectively, the accidental removal of a menu command is little more than a
trivial inconvenience which can readily be corrected. Compared to other
"features" of the program which can literally destroy documents - even if
used "as directed" - the entire argument about this feature pales to the
point of transparency.

BTW - just for the record - contrary to you allegation in an earlier
message, I haven't imagined *anything* The removal tool *is* a "simple
item" & it works like a charm. I believe you're missing a key part of it's
being available because you are viewing exclusively in the context of
removing items from the Work Menu. What you are failing to take into
consideration is that the removal command is a feature to be used more
globally by those who customize a wide range of menus, literally redesigning
the UI... Taking items from the Work menu is but one minor aspect of its
purpose & usefulness.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[aliquis]

Hi Bob,
You raise some interesting points. I take your point about the menus being absent in 2007, but my own point is that the very concept of the Work Menu has been abandoned, whereas it could easily have been retained, even as an item on the Quick Access toolbar for example. Although in fact menus have not really gone, since the Office Button opens up what is essentially a menu list. And yes, you are right that there is no way to remove Recent items (very odd) or re-order them (not so odd for a Recent Items menu.)

I also agree absolutely with what you say about the 'dangerous' tools. Of course they have a reason for being there and I can see why the one one we're talking about can have a function on a menu, for the reason that you say. But you guys are the Word surgeons - I'm not. In fact when I was struggling with getting the thing working for removing things from the Work Menu I made the mistake of activating it and then selecting the Customize Menu item. Try getting that one back when you're fumbling around. It was not quick, I can tell you. (I think that little problem is almost worth a thread of its own.)

Most of us using Word just want the most popular commands and functions to be readily available and to be able to make adjustments to suit our own way of working when they're not. What we don't really want is what is almost a developer tool (and therefore rarely used by the non-surgeons) to be necessary as an everyday device for doing something quite simple. I repeat: given that there is an 'Add to Work Menu' command, isn't it reasonable to expect that there should be a 'Remove from Work Menu' command as opposed to a 'Remove Anything from Any Menu Command'? I don't actually hear anybody disagreeing with me on this. Or do I?

My point was not against the Remove Menu Item command as such but against using it as a substitute for a command which intuitively everybody really knows ought to be there. OK so you deny imagining anything (it wasn't an accusation) but what you actually wrote was:

'Add the Remove Work Menu Item command - I think that's the right wording - to a toolbar or menu (I've added it to the Work menu itself).'

Well it was not the right wording, but your wrong wording actually captured the right idea - but it just doesn't exist in reality. And that is really my beef.

So while the command remains absent there will regularly be people who forget how to remove a menu item and you heavy-duty Word guys will be regularly and repeatedly writing articles and giving handy hints to help us out. Somehow I think MS could quite easily have helped us all out. Mind you I think it's now very unlikely that I will ever forget how to remove a menu item ever again. In fact my brain now holds more information about removing menu items than I would ever really consider sensible for an ordinary person.

Just one final thing. Suppose all those people using Word 2007 who don't like the loss of the Work Menu all press their feedback buttons, and in response to popular demand MS bring it back in Word 2011. Do you think they'd be likely to leave out the 'Remove from Work Menu' item again? I doubt it.

 

[MC]

You raise some interesting points. I take your point about the menus being
absent in 2007, but my own point is that the very concept of the Work Menu
has been abandoned, whereas it could easily have been retained, even as an
item on the Quick Access toolbar for example.

I hateto sound ike a complete novice, but could someone briefly explain
what the Work Menu is (was?) supposed to do?

 

[aliquis]

Sure - in Word 2008 it's the 3rd menu in from the right (next to the help menu). You'll see it at the very top of the screen on the menu bar. It's supposed to be where you lodge links to documents that you might want to return to. If you just rely on the Recent Items list, items will disappear if not recently used. Those on the Menu bar won't. Ever. They are stuck there for good. Permanently. Even when the document is deleted. Hence the question at the start of this thread.

 

[John McGhie]

Yep, I am an expert. Yes, I do know how it works. It does indeed work the
way I said

Yes, there is only one Software Architect for Word (and one for Office
overall). Yes, I know them personally. I meet them roughly once a year.

No, they are far too busy to be reading forums, blogs, reviews, and the rest
They sometimes WRITE entries in their blogs, but trust me, they do not
spend a large fraction of their lives READING any

No, Microsoft software is not designed by plebiscite. Not exactly. It is
designed by a very extensive statistical analysis of the feedback arriving
from normal users. If you do not put your feedback in via the mechanisms
provided, it's not in the database to be analysed

Within this context, MVPs are NOT considered "normal users". So YES,
Microsoft's ability to ignore MVPs is practically limitless While some
Microsoft staffers may indeed have time to read blogs and forums and such,
what they read there will have little or no effect on the process.

Software Architects do not get to design things the way they want them.
They must the product Marketing specifies that it wants to sell. And
Marketing obtains its ideas almost exclusively from the feedback mechanisms.

And yes, the Work menu did indeed disappear because no PC users wanted it
either.

The MOST important feedback mechanism is the CEIP program (Customer
Experience Improvement Program). Look it up in the Help under " Provide
feedback".

That enables Microsoft to retrieve anonymized data that shows exactly which
commands we are using, and which we are not. That is producing gigabytes of
feedback a month, straight into the database where the statistical weenies
in Marketing are having a field day with it.

Sadly, it has removed our ability to fib about how important things are
If you wish to claim that the Work menu is "critically important and in
daily use for 20 per cent of users" they can see at a glance that it just
ain't so

So it's a very democratic process. You get a vote. So do I, but my input is
automatically reduced by a weighting factor because I am outside the target
market for Microsoft Office. Anything arriving via the Send Feedback menu
is automatically up-weighted by a very large factor, because whatever it
was, a real user was sufficiently engaged to go to the trouble of sending
feedback. So Send Feedback easily drowns out a 1,000 CEIP records

You can choose to turn CEIP off. If you do, you have declined to vote. You
can choose not to Send Feedback. If you do, you have declined to vote. The
product will be designed according to the votes received. Whether yours is
amongst them or not A president will be elected, whether you vote or
not. Out here in the rest of the world, we are really really hoping that
you WILL vote this time

Cheers

So what you're saying is that the Software Architect (just 1?) only takes
notice of what's submitted via the Help menu? And only then when there's a
large enough number saying the same thing? You mean MS does its software
design by plebiscite? They never read reviews, look at forums, blogs and the
rest? They don't even take any notice of the MVPs? (See:
http://word.mvps.org/FAQS/General/WorkMenu.htm) I don't think so. C'mon John
- you're an expert - you know it's not like that.

Wouldn't this mean that the reason the Work Menu has disappeared from Word
2007 is because more Windows users than Mac users pressed the feedback button?
Of course that's not how it happened. The fact that it's gone is because the
Word developers know it's a BAD feature on whatever platform and have actually
made a half-decent attempt to address it in Word 2007 through pinning the
Recent Items. (But there of course you can unpin them as well.) So why not
fix it in Word 2008? Certainly not because they're saying 'Well if you'd only
told us you didn't like it...'

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[aliquis]

Hi John,

Thanks for your very interesting and informative post and I must obviously defer to your better knowledge. But does this mean that nobody at MS with any influence on the software design ever reads or takes notice of software reviews, forums etc? You seem to be saying that the ONLY form of feedback that is taken into account is users’ direct responses. This strikes me as very strange. But if you say so, I’m sure that must be right.

But I'm also aware that this has gone a bit off-topic, so let me relate it back to the Work Menu item. If what you’re saying is correct, then not enough people complained about this after 2004, so they kept it in 2008. (This was not the case with PC users who did complain about it in sufficient numbers, in fact enough to get the whole Menu removed.) This must also mean that the very principles of good software design are decided solely by users’ feedback channeled through Marketing. OK, but wow!

But Word is a very complex piece of software and most of its features are not used by most people. So if there’s a really duff feature that’s tucked away deep in the entrails but relied on by just a few people, it’s hardly going to turn up much in the responses is it? Even if the weighting takes this into account. The Work Menu could just be one of these. It’s not exactly buried away, but maybe it’s not used by a sufficient number of people to generate the responses that will cause someone at MS to say, ‘oops, we have an issue here.’ It’s hardly anything other than a minor feature and hence a minor irritant. So my one vote isn’t ever going to get my president elected. Not after all this time anyway.
On the other hand just look at the public comment that there is on the Work Menu. There are very few people who comment with any authority on this who don’t think that it’s a bit rough when it comes to removing items. But nobody at MS knows that, and if they did know they wouldn’t care? When it came to the detail of the 2008 design, it must have gone like this: ‘OK guys, what do we think about the Work Menu. Did we do alright? Do we need to change it? Never mind the reviews and the know-it-all MVPs. Does it turn up in the users’ feedback? Not much. Right then it must be OK. We did good so it stays. OK, so what about the Help Menu?...’

On the other hand it is possible to construct an argument in support of the current position. Since nobody is going to argue with me on the substance of the issue I may as well do it myself:

‘Listen up aliquis. You really haven’t got a clue about menus. The whole point about menus is that they are the setting within which you do your day-to-day work. Documents come and go; the menus stay fixed. The whole point about the menu is that you don’t change it. But hey, MS are not software fascists like those guys at Apple who don’t let you change a thing. If you want to alter your menu then sure they’ll let you do it, but you’re not going to want to be doing this every day. You’ve got to know what you’re doing. So if you’re dumb enough to put a letter to your Aunty Betty on your Work Menu then don’t cry if you can’t get it off. Menus are menus – they’re not scratchpads.’

Now this is an argument I can kind of respect. I don’t agree with it in terms of the end-user experience (which is, after all, the reason for this thread), but at least it’s an argument (and there could be other, better ones) from certain design principles, not the lowest common denominator of mass feedback. I’m not decrying the use of user feedback as such, just the idea that it can or should be the sole source of software improvement.

So it really seems to me that in all this there are 3 separate issues:

1 Is the Work Menu operation a poor piece of software design and does it need changing? (I think so, but I could be persuaded otherwise.)

2 Is the answer to this question entirely one to be decided by popular acclaim? (Is Madonna better music than Mozart? - I guess Mozart might lose on the popular vote.)

3 How does MS decide what’s going to feature in its next release? Principles of good design or vox pops? Or maybe they’re the same thing to MS. I don’t know.

Hey John, perhaps you could mention the Work Menu to the Architect next time you meet him. I know he’ll probably tell you to use your feedback button, but it might be worth a shot.

BTW – I did send my feedback after all as you suggested. I may be obstinate but I’m not totally stubborn.

 

[MacBUer]

I can assure you that many Microsoft employees do read these forums. It's one of the ways that we try to listen to customers.

John is, of course, (more or less) correct that some of the folks leading the development of the product are quite busy, and they usually don't have a lot of time to read the forums. That doesn't mean that feedback in the forums doesn't get to them - it usually does, one way or another (although it's subject to filtration and interpretation by those of us who *do* lurk here).

John's also correct that sending in feedback is a good way to ensure your "vote" is counted. One of the challenges in a large organization that's trying to do many things at once is how to keep track of and prioritize all the user feedback, especially when there's lots of that, in a variety of different formats. Things that are sent directly to us on a specific subject are somewhat easier to manage and act on than newsgroup postings (which, as I'm sure you've noticed, can be unfocused, rambling, and often drift from their original subject). This is something we're working on.

Anyway, rest assured, there are Microsoft MacBU folks who read these posts (but by all means, PLEASE "vote" as John suggested above).

Cheers.

 

[John McGhie]

Now we get to try to figure out "who" that was I think I recognise the
style: My guess is ... Nope, I won't give it away.

The challenge for today, ladies and gentlemen, is to figure out WHICH
Microsoft Mac BU staff member that was

{Giggle}

Yeah, they're in here reading right at the moment. But if you think they're
going to "remember" our vapid ramblings when they sit down to prioritise
their feature list for the next version, then don't forget to leave a
stocking beside the fireplace for Santa Claus next Christmas

Cheers

I can assure you that many Microsoft employees do read these forums. It's one
of the ways that we try to listen to customers.

John is, of course, (more or less) correct that some of the folks leading the
development of the product are quite busy, and they usually don't have a lot
of time to read the forums. That doesn't mean that feedback in the forums
doesn't get to them - it usually does, one way or another (although it's
subject to filtration and interpretation by those of us who *do* lurk here).

John's also correct that sending in feedback is a good way to ensure your
"vote" is counted. One of the challenges in a large organization that's
trying to do many things at once is how to keep track of and prioritize all
the user feedback, especially when there's lots of that, in a variety of
different formats. Things that are sent directly to us on a specific subject
are somewhat easier to manage and act on than newsgroup postings (which, as
I'm sure you've noticed, can be unfocused, rambling, and often drift from
their original subject). This is something we're working on.

Anyway, rest assured, there are Microsoft MacBU folks who read these posts
(but by all means, PLEASE "vote" as John suggested above).

Cheers.

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[aliquis]

Well thanks for your intervention Mr (or Ms) Microsoft employee person.

Don't forget to look out for my vote - it's the one headed Work Menu in big red caps. You can't miss it.