Make it yours: Customizing the Word ribbon

re: Make it yours: Customizing the Word ribbon

Joannie Stangeland — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 17:07:05 GMT

gull012 --

In the Options dialog box, under Customize the Ribbon, click the arrow and then click All Tabs.

-- Joannie

re: Make it yours: Customizing the Word ribbon

RGillmann1 — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 16:14:30 GMT

Joannie, can you tell us how to customize the (Table) Design or Layout tabs? They don't appear in the Options / Customize Ribbon. Thanks.

re: Make it yours: Customizing the Word ribbon

Joannie Stangeland — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 18:37:28 GMT

Beryl --

You need table borders! The gridlines won't print, but borders will. The instructions are the same for Word 2007 and Word 2010: office.microsoft.com/.../format-a-table-HA010034301.aspx.

I hope this helps.

-- Joannie

re: Make it yours: Customizing the Word ribbon

Beryl — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 18:28:58 GMT

Dear Joannie, So frustrating, have spent ages in here trying to print gridlines for a table in Word 2010. Cannot find how to do it, figured out how to show gridlines, but not print with the gridlines, I cannot imagine anyone wanting to print without the gridlines, it looks so much better with. Please help me Joannie. Thanks

re: Make it yours: Customizing the Word ribbon

Rblack40 — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 18:22:14 GMT

Joannie, Where on Office Online would it talk about how to manage Table Properties in Word 2007 and Exporting and Importing Macros?

re: Make it yours: Customizing the Word ribbon

Joannie Stangeland — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 16:48:25 GMT

Adg --

I'm looking into your button image question.

As far as commands moving to new locations, have you had a chance to try the Interactive Guides? office.microsoft.com/.../learn-where-menu-and-toolbar-commands-are-in-office-2010-and-related-products-HA101794130.aspx. The guides can help you quickly find commands that you aren't seeing on the Ribbon.

-- Joannie

re: Make it yours: Customizing the Word ribbon

Adg — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 06:31:34 GMT

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

Re: Customized Button Images

For many year I have been using a Thinkpad computer with the Word 97 program. Very easy to use, very stable, hardly ever problems of any kind. Very userfriendly in that it allows for fairly sophisticated features without one’s having to become a computer expert. Recently I was given a Thinkpad Edge computer with the Word 2010 program. Very complicated to use, unstable, and many problems. The Help feature is amazingly poor now.

One of the many problems is what appears to be the increased absence of freedom for the user to decide for himself how he wants things to be. For example, on the old program, I was able to modify the appearance of the toolbars, the font for all the various commands, etc., including for example the page colour, which I had light blue. This very convenient feature seems to have been removed, but it is not so important. A more troublesome problem is the absence of freedom for the user to make his own button images.

The work I am doing requires many little formatting adjustments, and other operations all for which I make macros. On the old program, I could insert the the macro onto what is now called the ribbon, and then go into ‘Customize’ and there was an easily accessible feature allowing me either to copy another button image onto the macro or to design my own button image. Then whenever I wanted to make the insertion, I would just click the appropriate button, with an image appropriate to the said operation. None of the images provided by Word, however, were of any use, unless I were to have an array of buttons the images of which would have no bearing on the operation in question: ‘Light blue square means this operation, which has nothing to do with light blue’, ‘A chequered square means this other operation, which has nothing to do with checks’, etc.

This very convenient feature seems now to have been removed, or?

There are also some styles that I need to apply very frequently to certain words, and in the old one again, I would just add the style to the ribbon and then design a button. That is now impossible. I can only make keyboard shortcuts, but I do not like using very many keyboard shortcuts, especially as I am already using very many for various foreign letters.

As mentioned, the Help feature is especially poor. Everything has now been scattered all over the place, and I spend very much time to find out where certain things now have been moved. Very often, however, I ask for information, and there only information about things I have not asked about. For example, I wanted to find out where the tabs feature is and nothing. Having new problems with spacing between letters, I also wanted find out what ‘kerning’ means, and the ‘Help’ feature just asked me whether I had spelled the word correctly. Yet the word ‘kerning’ occurs on the ‘Advanced’ part of ‘Font’. Wanting to find out how to access desktop from a document (rather than minimize what might be a number of open documents), Help again had nothing. After more than a month, I by accident discovered that one presses on the end of the taskbar. This is how I need to proceed: discover things by accident. Where ‘Tabs’ is I have still not discovered, except by going via ‘Paragraph’.

All these things one can live with, I suppose, but having a very small array of bizarre button images as the only option for marking customizations is very inconvenient indeed.

I should be most grateful if someone could kindly tell me of a way to make my own button images for the Quick Access Toolbar or the Ribbon.

Best Wishes

Adg

re: Make it yours: Customizing the Word ribbon

Adg — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 06:25:34 GMT

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

Re: Customized Button Images

This very convenient feature seems now to have been removed, or?

All these things one can live with, I suppose, but having a very small array of bizarre button images as the only option for marking customizations is very inconvenient indeed.

I should be most grateful if someone could kindly tell me of a way to make my own button images for the Quick Access Toolbar or the Ribbon.

Best Wishes

Adg

re: Make it yours: Customizing the Word ribbon

carush — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 22:11:24 GMT

I agree with @jtwoodfield. I have been required to move to this "upgrade" from Word 2003 against my wishes. It is unusable for a Word 2003 power user. I agree that it is designed primarily for computer illiterates, not people who are intensive users of Word every day.

It is incredibly arrogant of Microsoft to completely take away a user's ability to optimize his or her own writing environment and on top of it, to not allow customization at all.

I have purchased an add-in that simulates Word 2003 menus. I'll report back on how well that works.

re: Make it yours: Customizing the Word ribbon

jtwoodfield — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 23:52:54 GMT

The blurb prefacing this article states "If you're migrating to Office 2010 from Office 2003, the Office ribbon is the most striking change you'll immediately notice. Once you get the hang of it, it's great."

NO IT IS NOT! I personally have yet to find anyone who likes it. It is designed for illiterates and slows everything down as one is forced to click on each tab instead of the menus flowing. I have used Word since v.1 and both 2007 and 2010 are the worst iterations ever. Not least because Microsoft having come up with the ribbon is too arrogant to simply offer a "Classic" interface for those who prefer fluidity and text to messy little icons scattered all over the place. Functions are much harder to find than they were and the basic concepts that make Word such a good productivity tool are obfuscated in exchange for emphasis on "pretty" formatting.

By all means keep the ribbon to avoid losing face but please offer a classic interface for those of us who actually want to use the program to achieve real results. After all, it was Microsof which came up with and insisted on drop down menus in the first place.

As things are my recommendation would be that anyone with 2003 stick with it. 2007 was the ultimate "downgrade" and 2010 undoes some of the damage by restoring customisation but increments it with the absurd "backstage view".