Sorry I bought Office 2013

Anonymous

I think I made a huge mistake. At least, I see it as such right now. Maybe, someday, in the far distant future, I might think on it differently. I managed to get MS Office 2013. I hate it. I can't figure it out. They took all the functionality out of it. It opens to some stupid blue and white page that says Open, and has an arrow facing left. I can't find how to find my documents to view or work on. And that ugly, horrid, absolutely stupid "ribbon" is the worst mistake they have ever made -- except maybe for Vista. And there's something on here about "account". Whatever that is. When I did find a way to find a document to look at, half the page was taken up with that "ribbon" thing that is absolutely ugly and a waste of space. What was wrong with the nice little tool bar that had what was needed on it? Is there a way to set up my own personal toolbar? I haven't found a way yet. I tried to do a personalization, and manged to hide that ridiculous "ribbon" so it's not cluttering up my screen. I added the icons I want on the top, but when I click the folder that is supposed to show me my documents, it takes me out to that blue and white page, but not to the documents. I have to figure that out, someday. Otherwise, this is a complete waste of money. I really should demand my money back. And I haven't even looked at Excel yet.

I'd love to get rid of the ribbon thing and get my toolbar back. And, have a way of finding my documents without having 5 steps to get there. I want to just open the little folder and have my documents there to search through. Is there a way to do this? If not, I would gladly trade Office 2013 for Office 2003! At least that was a very functional, easy to use program. This is one definitely not intuitive. I'm not an amateur with computers. I think of myself as being relatively competent.

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Jay Freedman 208.3K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator

2013-08-13T00:41:57+00:00

I don't usually get involved with arguments over how good or bad various versions are, but I have to comment on this.

If your company went from Windows XP and Office 2003 directly to Windows 8 and Office 2013 without a pilot program to find out what would happen; without a comprehensive training setup to get people up to speed; and without finding out what macros and add-ins needed to be reprogrammed -- then the biggest share of the fault lies with the executives who made those decisions for your company.

Microsoft didn't make the changes overnight and force your company to adopt them. The technology you were using before was 10 years old, and both Windows and Office have gone through three major revisions in that time. Of course they're different, and of course some things you relied on wouldn't work. All the company brass had to do was ask a couple of questions, and the pitfalls would have been obvious -- and so would the necessary steps to get around them.
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Anonymous

2013-08-12T21:47:02+00:00

Thank you very much Rohn007, yours is a truly invaluable post that I have already printed out, linked to, and saved to disk so as not to lose track of it!

It sure would have been nice if MS would've included a choice of interfaces or skins. The company that I work at recently went from Windows XP with OFfice 2003 to Windows 8 with Office 2013. Our entire office is pretty much lost, our technical support people are taking four days to get back to users where it used to take one day, and our office' productivity has plummeted. This is the worst thing that has ever happened to us as far as a productivity buster goes.

I don't think there are many people in our organzation that would complain if this "upgrade" were backed out. Office 2003 was so tweaked with macros and add-ins that we heavily relied on--those are all non-working now. If we make it through this fiasco I will be thankful to still have a job.

Microsoft you really fuched [sic] us over bad.
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Charles Kenyon 171K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator

2013-05-30T22:25:50+00:00

Word 2013 is better than Word 2010 which is MUCH better than Word 2007. When I got Word 2007 I uninstalled it. The Ribbon takes getting used to. After a couple of years with Word 2010, I've come to like the Ribbon. Realize that Microsoft did not develop the Ribbon to help experienced users, it developed it to sell to new customers.

That said, I still use Word 2003 for some work.

Learn the keyboard shortcuts. Ctrl-H was Find and Replace in Word 97; it still is. Same with Ctrl-O, Ctrl-S, Ctrl-N, Ctrl-P Ctrl-Z, Ctrl-Y and Ctrl-F.
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Anonymous

2013-05-30T20:19:58+00:00

There is no native way of searching for commands directly in the ribbon.

You have to use tools like the Office Watch commandlist tools (Word & Excel 2010, Excel 2007). Using the macros I included to put the search on the QAT really helps.

For Office 2007/2010 Microsoft research labs created a "search" addon that did search the ribbon. There has been no mention of updating it for 2013. It took over a year for the 2010 version to be released.

2010 / 2007 Search Command Addon www.officelabs.com/projects/searchcommands/Pages/default.aspx
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Anonymous

2013-05-30T19:02:47+00:00

There is a "classic" add on you can buy. http://www.addintools.com/office2010/word/

Also, I think the secret to using Word 2013 is customizing your ribbon with the stuff you use the most. There's a handy list here, since I haven't figured out how to search the ribbon menu yet.

http://office-watch.com/commandlist/Word_2010.aspx
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