Show Office 2007 Who's the Boss 267
jcatcw writes "Microsoft knows how you like your Office Suite. You like Ribbons ... they're a given, right? Well, if not, Computerworld reviews some third-party packages that allow you to customize the software's interface. Classic Menu gives you an Office-2003-like set of menus. It'll help you navigate old menu structures to find favorite commands, but don't expect to use all the familiar keyboard shortcuts. ToolbarToggle lets you customize the menus. However, Classic Menu has two advantages over ToolbarToggle: It's available for PowerPoint today, and it includes Office 2007 commands on its menus, a modification you can't make to ToolbarToggle menus. RibbonCustomizer works within the Ribbon's own constraints to let you change the display of icons and commands on existing tabs or any new ones you create."
Re:Ah, Office - the Brazil of software (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Ah, Office - the Brazil of software (Score:4, Informative)
IIRC, Word has a "paste as" or "paste special" option that will offer "unformatted text" as a possibility. OpenOffice does. Else, there's always notepad as a middleman...
Oh and for sure, you will hate ribbons.
Keyboard Shortcuts (Score:3, Informative)
Flash Guides (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Man, just get used to it (Score:5, Informative)
This thread is pointless. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Man, just get used to it (Score:4, Informative)
--jeffk++
Re:Man, just get used to it (Score:2, Informative)
Umm, no, they don't. I forget the statistic but it's something like 80% of users use only 20% of the features - they'd use the rest but they don't know they're there.
I use Office 2007 daily and it's a revelation. Producing complex cross-suite documents is now much quicker and more intuitive.
in which a 20-year Word vet learns about ctrl-z... (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, and if you've been using Word since 1986, you should know by now that Undo is Ctrl-Z, just like it is in every other Windows, Linux, and Mac application (s/Ctrl/Command/). You shouldn't ever have to use a mouse to undo or redo something.
Next!
Next!
As for changing the style of line numbers, it's basically the same in Word 2003 and 2007: Set it up using the style palette. In both versions, by default, the "Line Number" style won't be shown in the palette until you are using line numbers. If you're planning on changing styles, you really ought to know how to use the style palette.
Next!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office_200
One of the less obvious new features that's actually a really huge improvement, is the "Building Blocks" system. You can create and re-use "things"; for example, you can create a specific format, layout, and text content for a presentation of your company's mission statement, or maybe it's just a set of paragraphs you use over and over between a lot of documents. You can get a sense of how this works by going to the Insert menu and playing around with the Text Box and Quick Parts features.
I write user interface design documents as part of my professional work, and this one feature alone has saved me hours of time, and my documents look better to boot. Word 2007 has already paid for itself several times over.
Re:Man, just get used to it MOD PARENT UP! (Score:4, Informative)
As for line numbers - It's still easy to insert line numbers. However, What I WROTE was try changing the STYLE (e.g., font) of the line numbers - try it, it ain't that easy.
Alt-E-U doesn't work reliably either. Yes, there are new icons for undo and redo next to the Office button, if you notice them and realize what they are. There are an AWFUL lot of icons up there.
Re:Man, just get used to it MOD PARENT UP! (Score:2, Informative)
References->Insert Footnote (the big icon in the second group)?
I didn't even know line numbering was possible -- I've never used that before, nor felt a need for that feature. So, first I had to guess how I could enable them, and my first guess -- the Page Layout tab -- was fine.
Then I saw what you meant: there's no easy way to work on those numbers. But due to my knowledge of styles, I guessed there would be a style named "Line Number" -- and, again, I guessed it right. Maybe I was just lucky to find it in a few seconds; I guess an unexperienced user would never really find it -- but then again, I don't expect an unexperienced user (the kind that doesn't understand indenting, tabulations, margins, styles, etc.) to use automatic line numbers either.
But the way you say it, it seems on older versions it was easier. How would you change the style of line numbers on earlier versions?
YMMV, naturally, but I have no idea what you are talking about... it seems to me it works fine. But I never use that shortcut, nor do I know anyone who uses it when there's Ctrl-Z, so I can't really say.
Huh? There's just three icons there by default: save, undo and redo/repeat [wikipedia.org]. Any other icon has been placed by you (or by somebody else).
Re:Man, just get used to it (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Man, just get used to it (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I have 13 years invested in the old interface (Score:2, Informative)
Alt-F, Alt-O, etc work just fine.
Alt-I, B, N, Enter
Plus there is a difference between favouring keyboard use and never using the mouse. I don't throw the mouse out.
LaTeX (Score:3, Informative)
I had to write 170 pages of notes for an online course and using LaTeX (which I had only been dabbling with for a month or so) was much easier than Word would ever have been. I wrote the whole thing as an outline, and I can only imagine how crazy 170 pages of nested numbered lists would have driven me in MS Word or Openoffice. But \begin{enumerate}...\item{stuff}...\item{stuff}... \end{enumerate} is easy to keep track of visually, especially if you properly indent.
But if you're one of those people whose ground premise is "I will not learn a markup language" then continue enjoying the "help" that the GUI word processors give you. Some things are easier with a word processor (tables, for example) but for any complex or long document I'd prefer to use LaTeX.