How do I get rid of ribbons and go back to old office menus?

Anonymous
2011-06-02T20:48:28+00:00

I have just purchased Office 2010. Sorry Microsoft but I hate it. Worst update of a familiar software product I have seen for a long time (and have worked in IT industry for 25 years) Why? Its the changes that have been made to the menus and the introduction of those dreadful ribbons. I can't find anything and waste ages looking for what should be the most obvious functions. Am seriously considering un-installing 2010 and going back to use older version.

Before I do that thought might ask if there was way of making 2010 suite look and feel like older versions without just binning it and starting again.

Many thanks

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2011-06-04T08:36:45+00:00

The contributors to this forum are not Microsoft employees, do not speak for Microsoft and have little to no influence over Microsoft's design process. The reasons for the change to the ribbon have been well documented since its introduction, with the pre-release versions of Word 2007, at least 5 years ago and the arguments for and against have been waged ad nauseam in this and other forums and are resurrected time and again by late adopters - which is why, reasonable or not, Hans can say for certain that there will be no return to the menu driven structure of earlier versions. First and foremost this was a business decision to stimulate sales.

Microsoft's response to the demand for more hands-on user configuration has been to add a ribbon editor to Office 2010. There will be no patch to make Word 2010 use the interface of Word 2003.

The idea of a third party add-in, which attempts, but ultimately fails, to recreate the menu structure of Word 2003 is a cul-de-sac that ultimately will inhibit your ability to adapt to the new menu ribbon driven system. Better to fine tune the ribbon to your own requirements.

When I was first exposed to the ribbon - in Word 2007 - I can confirm that I too was annoyed at the change, and I did not like the change from 2007 to 2010 either, but now I use the latter all the time and only ever refer to the others for reference in connection with user support.

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HansV 462.7K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
2011-06-02T21:20:14+00:00

It is possible to return to the old interface, but I seriously recommend taking a bit of time to get used to the ribbon, for the following reasons:

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  1. Anonymous
    2011-10-19T17:27:29+00:00

    Any thoughts as to where to go where comments will be seen by Microsoft employees? 

    These forums seem to be caves they send unhappy people to when they don't want to hear from them.

    I understand that at this point, those who are hitting the new environment are "late adopters," but this likely means that they were already using MS products and haven't bought a new machine for a while.  They are the bulk of the MS customer base.  The early adopters are largerly either new to computers, or just happen to be on machines old enough to be up for renewal. 

    I do find it sadly amusing that I have seen comments along the lines of "you will eventually get used to it," but never even the suggestion that it is as good or better than what it replaces. 

    Graham, you use it now all the time. Is it because you like it better, it saves you loads of time, or is it because that is what everyone else is using and as you support it you have gotten used to it?

    Like everyone else, I will get used to it.  It is that or never use the products again, so not much choice there.  For practical purposes, the visual format is truly awful.  Menus at the top, fine.  Then groups of vague icons with their names in seeming random groupings (visually random, sometimes in rows, sometimes in columns, sometimes in clusters) and then further down the sub menu names.  The gap between the menu and sub-menu titles is visually difficult.  Most of the icons are vague enough to have no meaning.  There are the tried and true, but for most of them, if you had the icon without the text, they would be unidentifiable.  Guess no one ever told them that an icon that has no intrinsic meaning has no value.  The menus are generally logical, except for Home.  That one would be better labeled as "other" or "miscellaneous" as half of the things in there should be elsewhere (I'm thinking about Excel for these examples).

    As to someone's comment that it was a business decision to drive more sales... I suppose they see Apple as a threat and the thought is to emulate them visually, lots of pretty buttons and pleasant tones.  Sadly, trying to get office to emulate the look of an Apple product without having people who understand function, makes a product that can sell to the uninformed and to the masses, but only where there are no viable alternatives.  Lucky for them, for the moment there are none.

    And into the cave my comments go...

    Not surprising.  Many of their help searches go directly into Bing, so when I ask how to do X, I have to hope that "Jimmy's Skin Rash Blog" has a decent answer as to what I am trying to do.

    I could go on and on... and what is the worst that can happen?  It's not like anyone can say that my comment was NOT helpful.  The choices are "Yes" or silence on answers.microsoft.com.  To those who have seen this a thousand times and get it, I do apologize for wasting your time.

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  2. Anonymous
    2011-10-03T01:22:26+00:00

    If your organization would be willing to funnel just a tiny fraction of those millions to people who have taken the time to learn how to customize the ribbon I think you would be surprised at just how much it "can" be customized.

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  3. Suzanne S Barnhill 279.4K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2011-10-01T22:00:55+00:00

    You most certainly can customize the Ribbon in Word 2010. Right-click on the QAT and choose Customize the Ribbon. You can add new ribbon tabs, and, although you cannot add buttons to existing groups, you can add new groups to existing tabs.

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