I had dinner with some good friends last night and one of them, who’s just as geeky as me (but not as funny), mentioned that he isn’t totally digging the new Office 2007 interface; that it wasn’t intuitive. I disagreed with him (respectfully, of course) about it not being intuitive and explained that Microsoft changed the interface from a hierarchical menu format to a task-centered ribbon format to make it easier and more intuitive. I mean, think about all of the commands that have been added over the years. They just were hidden away in the menus and submenus and sub-submenus. It was time for a makeover.
I do agree that it was a big change and that there is obviously a tremendous learning curve for everyone using Office XP or 2003. But with the help of these amazing Interactive Guides for Office 2007 and Office 2010 Microsoft developed, you can learn where your favorite commands are in Office 2007 literally within a matter of seconds. You tell the guide what command you want to use in Office 2003 and it demonstrates where that command now lives in Office 2007 and Office 2010.
Enjoy!