How in the Tech

Bring Back the Classic Menu in Office 2007

By Adam Myers ⋅ April 28, 2009 ⋅ Tags: Microsoft Office

It’s been about two years now since Microsoft released the radical ribbon user interface in Office 2007 to the general public. Microsoft is in a tough position when it comes to maintaining and updating their software. Most would imagine that having a monopoly in a marketplace is a great thing, and usually it is. However, Microsoft is hamstrung by that same monopoly – they have a responsibility to all end-users to maintain status quo and not make drastic design decisions and changes with each release. Everyone, myself included, is quick to point out the bloat in the Windows product but the reality is Microsoft is forced to bring forward all the legacy code from prior releases. Consumers, for one reason or another, expect software written 10 years ago to run on today’s systems. As Microsoft catered to this ideology in the beginning, rightly or wrongly, they are now bound by it – which is why the departure from the classic menu system in Office was quite alarming.

Nevertheless, Microsoft ditched the old layout for a fresh approach in Office 2007. Much as been written about the ribbon interface but how have you coped two years in? For most organizations, it has been a training and support nightmare. Office admins have been trained to do a few things quickly and efficiently; with Office 2007 everything changed and they were back to being intimidated by computers. But, did you know there was a plugin that would restore the classic menu to Office 2007?

Classic Menu for Office 2007 from UbitMenu is free for private use add-in to Office that restores the menu layout look and feel from Office 2003 and older – limited to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Installation is as simple as a download and then a double-click install. A restart of the affected applications will cause the add-in to load automatically; the result should be obvious. The add-in is pretty slick in that the ribbon interface remains but a new tab on the ribbon titled menu houses the classic UI of yester-year.