Jumped from Microsoft Office 2003 XP to 2010....

[BrendaBrick]

recently and I am extremely frustrated with the so-called "new & improved" 2010 version.

It's almost as if the company had nothing especially new or better to offer, so decided to just add some willy-nilly bells & whistles for the sake of saying that it is now 'different"...not to mention just WTF is going on with a blanket 8 point font on everything!!!! 8 font!!!!! Grrrrrr....

I am NOT a happy camper!!! Also - something else I noticed is that I am having a much harder time signing out on sites...like say, amazon.com for example then before.

I am of the school...."if it ain't broke - don't fix it!"

So, I'm wondering, I do have the option of changing to Office 2007 and wanted to know if anyone here might be familiar with all three and can tell me if 2007 is more akin to 2003 than this ridiculous 2010?

Thanks.

[ChromeFoundry]

1. 2007 is actually worse...

2010 actually gives you the option to restore some of the 2003 menu, look and feel, and such. It's a learning curve coming from 2003. My best advice would be to tough it out for a little while (try not to rip out all of your hair). It gets easier. I love the active preview of styling changes before you actually select the option. Some of the features in Excel are a nice addition.

Best of luck!

[BrendaBrick]

3. Thanks for the tip!

I didn't realize that I could restore some of the 2003 menu. I will definitely look into doing that!

It's mostly Outlook that is giving me fits with a confusing layout and the "Save In" option in Word has extra steps...and of course, the font size. (Control + has become my new best-friend!)

[ChromeFoundry]

4. This may be a helpful link...

Switches Office 2007/2010 back to 2003 style and removes ribbon bar...
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/19323/bring-office-2003-menus-back-to-2010-with-ubitmenu/

download link (free) at bottom of article.

[BrendaBrick]

5. THANKS!

Looks like it just might be the ticket. Gonna download this weekend! Thanks again :-)

[TheBigotBasher]

11. If you want the 2003 look and feel

as well as most of the compatibility try open office (it is free as well).

[Old and In the Way]

2. I'm perfectly happy with Outlook 2003.

I don't know what I'm missing in newer versions, but I doubt it's anything that would compel me to upgrade....except patches for exploits, I guess. I'm pretty sure that MS is still supporting 2003, though.

[BrendaBrick]

6. Nope...not missing much at all IMO.

based on my experience and from the posts/frustrations of others!

[Old and In the Way]

7. I suppose, from a marketing standpoint, you are compelled to

repackage your product every few years. And that's fine if you are starting as a newbie with an application. But I see no benefit to MS's installed base of customers to have to learn their way around the application all over again. They should have an easy switch to convert the interface back to an experienced users preference for the 'old style'. Or, better, just supply any new features as a software upgrade to integrate into your current version of Outlook. I hate that they date their products with reference to year of release. It makes us look like Neanderthals, stuck in the computer Stone Age. Fact is, Outlook 2003 has delivered exactly what I needed with very few problems for the past 8 years. Why would I want to waste my time learning a new interface and trying to figure where the commands are located, all over again?

BTW, I upgraded to a new computer and Win 7 from XP a few months ago. MS Office 2003 works totally fine....just runs better and faster than it did on the old machine.

[gtar100]

8. Office 2007 is where the big changes took place. Yes it can be frustrating but if you stick with it

you'll get the hang of it and possibly see the change is for the better. I struggled with the 'ribbon' for awhile but now that I use it regularly, it makes sense and it's nice having all those functions laid out in front instead of buried in menus. But it was a minor struggle to get to see it that way.

Office 2010 improves on 2007 for some things that I actually like, including being able to customize the ribbon and better right-click menus. But I don't care for the Print Preview as much. Still, it all works and there is a system behind it.

If you like keyboard shortcuts, such as getting into the menus, just press the ALT key and watch the ribbon. You can get to everything from the keyboard and I like that.

I'm no MS evangelist. It's what we've got at work and it's better to know the tools at hand. My favorite editor is actually vim, a far cry from anything MS has come up with.

[ohheckyeah]

9. I jumped from 2000 to 2010...

big changes.

[Pacifist Patriot]

10. Pretty much the only thing I like about it is the ability to save documents as .pdf

I jumped from Office 2000 so I was still having to print to a .pdf writer.

Oh wait, there are a few things about Outlook 2010 I like over the MicroSoft mail program I was using before. Still has way too many bells and whistles than I need though. I'm more of a KISS person when it comes to computers. Consequently, they have been known to drive me to tears.