MS Word 2007 – The magic button

This post is dedicated to Curlywurlygurly – I have a magic button for you!

When Microsoft introduced the new Office Suite 2007, I went right out and paid full price for a copy. I opened Word with my head full of feel-good marketing stuff about a new look and ribbons. It sounded pretty and superior to the old version

I was totally flustered when I saw it for the first time.

Where the hell were the file menus? What was all that mess across the top of the screen? Why are there tabs all over the place and why don’t they make any sense? Why did Microsoft have to so brutally kick me out of my comfort zone and take away all the stuff I was familiar with?

But I’m no complainer, so I gave it a try. I typed up a blog post in there intending to copy and paste it into WordPress. I generally use a lot of keyboard shortcuts when I type, so at first everything was OK – but everytime I wanted to use something from on of the old toolbars, it wasn’t there. I wanted to change the properties on the document and I couldn’t figure out where to go. I wanted to save the document so I could possibly retrieve it later – assuming Best Buy could sort of broken bits of laptop because I was ready to drop the thing off the roof of the house.

I wanted my damn file menus back!

But then, the fog of frustration rolled back to reveal this:

This is the Office Button – it’s in the upper left corner of the Word screen. Click it to reveal this:

And there they are – all those items you miss from the old File menu.

Look under Prepare for nifty things like changing document properties and encrypting documents.

I am ashamed to say it took me several weeks to realize that Office Button was a button that did anything. I figured it was like the Internet Explorer icon that I see in the upper left of my screen as I type this. Just a little picture to let me know which program I’m using – in case I forget. A mere decoration, but not something useful.

The Office Button is the only complaint I have about Word 2007 now. I like the ribbons – no more searching through menus and drop-down lists for basic stuff; it’s all in the open. I can do what I want to do much, much faster now.

I have let go of my Word 2003 blankie and I am taking my first steps. If I were several years younger, someone would be offering me a cookie and some praise right now – I’m still open to that offer at the ripe old age of 32 – especially if you’ve got chocolate chip!