How To Bring Back the Old Menus in Office 2007
Using the new Ribbon feature in Office 2007 takes time to learn…time you don't have because projects are stacking up. Today we will look at UBitMenu, a utility that puts the familiar Office 2003 menu into the 2007 ribbon.
When I first tried Office 2007 it took a lot of frustrating time figuring out where all of the features were located. It is laid out much differently than previous versions of office. When the "pointy-haired bosses" require deadlines to be met you don't have time to learn where everything is. This is where UBitMenu comes in, it places the classic 2003 menu in as a new ribbon.
It will add the Classic Menu to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007. Not only will it allow you to easily navigate through documents, it also adds elements of 2007's extra functionality. For example in this Excel shot you can see there is the new 2007 means to save the document.
The Ribbon in PowerPoint is full of new features so if you prepare a lot of presentations you should fine UBitMenu extremely beneficial.
While in the UBitMenu you can still access the Mini Formatting Toolbar which is a new feature in Office 2007. If you are annoyed by this feature check out The Geek's article on how to disable it.
This tiny app is based on standard Microsoft Office add-in technology and integrates seamlessly with Office 2007 with no impact on performance. It is a free program for personal use protected by the Creative Commons License. It is a 356KB download that can be installed in just a few seconds. It is currently available in German, English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese. With UBitMenu you will be able to easily complete your TPS Reports by the deadline all while getting to know Office 2007 better.
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It would be so much better if microsoft left Offices UI the same for what it was in the other versions as its so much easier
Downloaded the UBitMenu (UK) and installed. Only problem it doesn't show up in Word nor Excel 2007. Don't even see it listed as a deactivated Add-in in Excel. Que pasa?
I'm assuming there's no Word2008 version of this, eh? Man, M$ really screwed up when they ribbonized everything. Change for the sake of change, without leaving a preferences option to go back, really is moronic.
For the record, however, I think I'm more perturbed by Word's increasing INability to open… Word-created .doc files.
More and more often, I'm receiving .doc files that won't open in Word2004, 2007 OR 2008. In a wonderfully ironic moment, however, I found that both Zoho and OOo open these offending docs just fine.
This looks like an awesome add-in. Unfortunately it does not work for me. I see it in the Add-ins of options, but no menu in Office 2k7.
Thanks! I've been trying to be good and learn to use the ribbon, but though I like the layout, I find myself struggling to find things that used to be easy to get to (to give MS credit, though, I do appreciate easy access to features I didn't know existed before).
I'll definitely be downloading this, even if I purposely try not to use it!
@gyffes
So it might be the right moment to switch to OOo completely. Voila, your problem are gone.
Fritzy, my dear, I would, rilly, but I fear I'll lose some critical bit of formatting or one of the [heavily] commented/tracked-changes docs will not work as needed and I'd not find out in time.
Ultimately, I use Word a fraction of the time, preferring Abiword on linux systems and, well, just about ANYTHING else on Macs or PCs. Actually, v2 of Zoho's productline is quite nice and keeps formatting across all systems, a definite plus.
My ultimate goal: A M$-free system. I'm getting closer…
"Change for the sake of change, without leaving a preferences option to go back, really is moronic."
It was not change for the sake of change, the ribbon was necessary thing to make all the features of Office 2007 easy to use.
Just because you like the ribbon doesn't mean it's moronic.
There are quite a lot of good reasons for the ribbon.
You should check out the articles at http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/11/10/the-office-2007-ui-bible.aspx and see if you still think it's moronic.
"I'm assuming there's no Word2008 version of this, eh?"
Are you talking about Word 2008 for Mac? If so it would make sense that a version doesn't exist for Word 2008 because that version of Word doesn't even have a ribbon.
Didn't work for me either. I see the add-in but it does not show a menu.
More than likely - those things people struggle most to find - is not hidden in the ribbon but in Word/Excel Options. It's very easy to understand after just a little bit of browsing through the menus. You were spoon fed for the first 1-2 years of your life, it's now time to realize you can use a fork and eat solid food.
Guys,
It is there when you install the UBitMenu program. After installation open Word or other Programs and look under the Menu Tab of the Bar, and it is there in front of you then, LOL Good Luck Friends…
It works perfectly for me. I think that its great because it doesn't actually replace the ribbon. That way you can continue benefitting from the ribbon. But when time is short and you can't find that function you want, you can always revert back to the good old 2003 menu. Brilliant!
Yeha the office 2007 ribbon is pretty moronic alright. I have been doing a lot of upgrades from 2003 to 2007 for customers lrecently. They hate the ribbon, they dont care for the reasons why MS changed to the ribbon they just want to get on with their work.
Maybe this little app will help some poor stressed out credit crunched productivitly deprived office workers.
I can't uninstall ubitmenu. If someone can help me on this. I used Control Panel remove programs, and it still appears on my office programs.
Uninstalling UBitMenu will usually run without problems. We have tested that thoroughly. You could try reinstalling and then uninstalling. If the problem should persist you can uninstall the program manually. Remove the Addin from Powerpoint through the Powerpoint Options Dialog. Then search for UBitMenu*.* on your computer. The files are in your user directory (differs between XP and Vista). Delete the files. There you go…
To: Cary (or anybody having problems finding the new menu):
The trick to getting the old (2003) menu to show up in word and excel is that you have to click on the menu tab in the new (2007) menu. This brings the old 2003 menu to the top of the screen.
The one thing that this does not do is bring back the alt-keyboard commands that Microsoft changed in 2007. (In pre-ubit version of office 2007, most of the old alt-keyboard commands still work, but you don't see any menus, however some don't work [leading to billions of wasted man-hours worldwide]). It appears that with ubit, all of the old keyboard commands now work, you just have to use the mouse, so it is moderately less efficient, but not nearly as inefficient as the psychotic office 2007 menus.
If you are having problems installing or using the menu, this British kids youtube how-to video works real well. It solved my problem by showing that the old (2003) menu was under the new (2007) menu tab. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVFLZ3zvw68
I just installed the UBit menu and it works perfectly in all three programs!!! I am technical trainer and this will definiately put a wonderful spin on my curriculum!!! Ubit totally rocks!!! Thank you How-To-Geek, from one geek to another!!!
The UBIT menu for MS Office 2007 seems to mostly work ok, BUT: every time I open Excel I get two messages: "unable to open file" and when I click "OK" I get "Excel cannon open the file '~$UbitMenu04_UK.xlam' because the file format or extension is not valid. Verify that the file has not been corrupted and that the file extension matches the format of the file.' after clicking "OK" it seems to work of, but this is a significant distraction. I tried a fresh download and install; this changed nothing. Has anyone else run across this problem?
What new menu tab? The question raised by several souls now is "how do I get the menu tab to come up if it has failed to do so following installation?" Clearly, for many people the menu does not install correctly - the menu tab is absent. Is there a workaround? I can follow the bouncing ball, but only if it's in sight.
I found this an amazing useful little program and it has saved me a lot of time while educating me on the ribbon at the same time. Thanks for making it available.
Sorry to hear, that the installation doesn't work for everybody. We have found, that there is a problem if some of the path settings in Office 2007 have been customised or due to some combinations of profile security settings. Due to missing documentation on this subject we have not been able to solve this problem in our setup. Most of our users could add UBitMenu AddIns manually. A description can be ordered here:support(a_t)ubit.ch
I have had no problems whatsoever with the add-in and it's helped me transistion an office full of tecnophobes (we still have 3 typewriters that get used DAILY) to Office 2007 with minimal tears and whining. UBit rocks!