There has been a long and involved thread on the Word-PC list that has been, for the most part, anti-Office 2007. The complaints about it have made a lot of sense to me, especially Don Funkhouser's comments below:
This is the very reason why Office 2007 is such a poor piece of software. Anyone who was fairly proficient with previous versions of Word in the past could sit down at a computer with a newer version and within a very short time be productive. Sure there were changes with each new release, but the bulk of it remained close enough to the previous version that re-training wasn't necessary for most users. This all stopped with 2007 and that's why it will never gain a strong enough foothold. Even a hard core WordPerfect user (except for the die hard WP5.x Dos users) could sit down at previous versions of Word and be productive. Even users who have been trained extensively on 2007 aren't nearly as productive as they were with previous versions, and I doubt that very many of them ever will be. It isn't that they don't want to, it's that the abysmal format of 2007 prevents them from doing so. There is a reason why a fairly standard Menu system was adopted by most better software programs (and I can't believe that I am going to classify Microsoft programs as 'better' since most are inferior second tier programs at best) and that was to keep the learning curve to a minimum. Microsoft has always pushed that gentleman's agreement concerning anything to do with standards, but they went way overboard with 2007.
Office 2007 was a mistake from the get go and will remain so until the ability to return to normal "Standardized" menus is returned to the user. And I don't consider having to pay extra for what should have been included in the package to begin with as acceptable.
I think with every piece of software, even if you've used previous versions, you have to adapt. Should Microsoft allowed you to show the old menus? Maybe. They have a track record of that because you could have "Classic" XP instead of the fancy UI. But... here's the thing. With every new version, I'd bet that there are fundamental coding differences that must happen. When you have to support the old version, you probably cannot take advantage of the technology you are switching to which, I'd imagine, Microsoft felt they needed to do.
What I find interesting is that other software tools I use - mainly thinkng of Snag-It - have adapted the Office 2007 look and feel. And know what? I like the new UI. I used a reference guide on the MS site where it tells you where stuff is in Word 2007 by clicking a menu option in Word 2003 and then it shows you where it is in Word 2007.
Yesterday, I got an e-mail from a Word 2003 user. He was on a tight deadline and said, "I cannot find where to change the font color. Can you help me?" This is in Word 2003, the version before the UI redesign, and there was a user who couldn't find how to change the font color. I directed him to Format ==> Font. Word 2003 is not the perfect UI that some - not Don above - would have you believe.
I've been using Word 2007 for nearly a year - I think 3/1 is when I got my current PC at work. I am using Word 97 at home (sheepish grin) and will continue to do so until I get a new PC - which I don't see happening for a few yers as my XP box works fine. There is a marked difference between Word 2007 and Word 97 and anytime I write music reviews at night, after writing end-user documentation during the day in Word 2007, I'm reminded of the differences!
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