Lifehacker posted a screenshot tour of Microsoft Office 2007 yesterday. For me, It confirms what I'd already decided -- that I have neither need nor desire to buy Office 2007. I prefer extreme simplicity in my Word layout. Here's what a Word window looks like on my computer:
I have only a handful of icons along the left margin: New, Open, Save, Save As, Zoom, Read, Print Preview, Print, and Format Painter. I do all sorts of things (font, italics, indents, margins, and so on) from right-click menus and the keyboard. (This image by the way is from a Windows XP computer on which everything has been made to look nicer with FlyakiteOSX.)
Here for contrast is Word 2007:
According to Walt Mossberg's favorable review of Office 2007 in the Wall Street Journal, the large blue "ribbon," as it's called, cannot be customized. There is though an option to auto-hide it.
Me, I'm sticking with my simple Word set-up.
[Update: I've since switched to OS X and iWork's Pages.]
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comments: 6
I'm not sure I follow you. As you say, if you double click on any of the tabs and put it in autohide mode, its actually the same as your setup. So your point is..?
It's not the same at all, Darren -- my Word window has a handful of carefully-chosen icons down the left margin. The new ribbon is a matter of all or nothing at all (sorry, Mr. Sinatra). With Word 2003 I can choose the icons I want to have visible (always visible) and put them where I want -- along the left margin, leaving lots of space for a document, with minimal distraction. I think the difference between having a few icons always available and having or hiding the ribbon is pretty marked. For someone else, the ribbon might be useful. For me, it would count as a distraction.
Your page identifies you as "the UK Product Manager for the 2007 Microsoft Office system" -- obviously, you're committed to the new design. But it's not the same as what I'm working with.
The Quick Access Toolbar in Word 2007 is your friend. You can get all your commands up there, and then hide the ribbon.
Correct, the quick access toolbar takes up even less space than your current setup.
I have my small set of buttons actually on the menu bar, to the left of 'File'. Saves some space...
Peter, what version of Word are you using? I can't make this happen in Word 2003.
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