How would you make Microsoft Office better?

Slimy · Aug 11, 2009

Two Microsoft employees have launched a new website, MakeOfficeBetter.com, that asks users to make suggestions on how to improve Microsoft Office.

Full Story: How would you make Microsoft Office better? - Ars Technica

raj11650 · Aug 11, 2009

so did the problem in last technical preview of office 2010 sorted out

few said it cant be uninstalled!!!

blackroseMD1 · Aug 11, 2009

raj1402 said:
so did the problem in last technical preview of office 2010 sorted out

few said it cant be uninstalled!!!

That was the Mondo build that WZOR leaked...yeah, it couldn't be uninstalled. I had to reformat.

I'm running the Tech Preview from Connect, and the only annoyance I have with it is, for some reason, it will work fine for a while, but then I will open up one of the programs, and the installer will launch. I tell it to cancel, it tells me to run the installer and repair it. Really, really annoying.

Other than that, not sure I would change much. The programs open up almost instantly, the UI is really nice and we finally got a 64-bit version.

They should ask again a couple of months after RTM/GA though, as I'm sure a lot of people will have better ideas afterwards.

antt · Aug 11, 2009

anyone who is running the 64bit office, does onenote finally get a 64bit virtual printer?

MasterEvilAce · Aug 11, 2009

PLEASE improve excel.
The company I work for deals with a LOT of excel reports. When creating SIMPLE graphs and pie charts Excel is terrible. Absolutely terrible. Not only does it take a lot of fumbling around to get it to look right, the labels do not arrange themselves properly. They decide to stack themselves on top of each other so none of them can be read, rather than space themselves out. ESPECIALLY when given lots of room.

This is dealing with Office 2007, by the way. I have spent hours on putting together working graphs in Excel. There are lots of strange issues i've encountered when dealing with them. It has a mind of its own.

Everything "automatic" in Office annoys me as well. Word and Outlook's automatic bullets and indentations are a pain in my ass. They don't work when I want them to, and they continue to work when I'm trying to get them to go away.

I just spend so much time FIGHTING with Office's automatic features.

Carl Forster · Oct 17, 2009

MS, YES get rid of the "RIBBON" Interface or at least let us users that want the"CLASSIC" inferace the option to use it, BOTH Offiee and WIN7.
And MS wonder why people still prefer to use Office 2003, and as they have "MS") NOW stated Office 2007 has NOT had the uptake they would have expected. WIN 7 will sufer the same FATE (NO "Classic") interface.
Sorry to tell you I use VISTA Ult 64bit and Vista 32bit PRO and Office 2003, and am happy, have tried WIN7 for 3 weeks SORRY RIBBISH (Librarys UI, START,) and NO OPTION to use the "CLASSIC" as in VISTA.
I and 115 users will be skipping WIN7.

Martin · Oct 17, 2009

blackroseMD1 said:
raj1402 said:

so did the problem in last technical preview of office 2010 sorted out

few said it cant be uninstalled!!!

Click to expand...

I'm running the Tech Preview from Connect, and the only annoyance I have with it is, for some reason, it will work fine for a while, but then I will open up one of the programs, and the installer will launch. I tell it to cancel, it tells me to run the installer and repair it. Really, really annoying.

Same issues here, running the on from Connect and that installer is very annoying plus, Ive notice after 30 days it asked me to activate (which when installed I entered a valid key obtain at connect) but when tried to do it, it does but nothing. I do can use it with no restrictions

Antman · Oct 17, 2009

Carl Forster said:
MS, YES get rid of the "RIBBON" Interface or at least let us users that want the"CLASSIC" inferace the option to use it, BOTH Offiee and WIN7.
And MS wonder why people still prefer to use Office 2003, and as they have "MS") NOW stated Office 2007 has NOT had the uptake they would have expected. WIN 7 will sufer the same FATE (NO "Classic") interface.
Sorry to tell you I use VISTA Ult 64bit and Vista 32bit PRO and Office 2003, and am happy, have tried WIN7 for 3 weeks SORRY RIBBISH (Librarys UI, START,) and NO OPTION to use the "CLASSIC" as in VISTA.
I and 115 users will be skipping WIN7.

You have been skipping 7 for some time now.

Slimy · Oct 18, 2009

Carl Forster said:
MS, YES get rid of the "RIBBON" Interface or at least let us users that want the"CLASSIC" inferace the option to use it, BOTH Offiee and WIN7.
And MS wonder why people still prefer to use Office 2003, and as they have "MS") NOW stated Office 2007 has NOT had the uptake they would have expected. WIN 7 will sufer the same FATE (NO "Classic") interface.
Sorry to tell you I use VISTA Ult 64bit and Vista 32bit PRO and Office 2003, and am happy, have tried WIN7 for 3 weeks SORRY RIBBISH (Librarys UI, START,) and NO OPTION to use the "CLASSIC" as in VISTA.
I and 115 users will be skipping WIN7.

Office 2007 sold very well.

Dark Nova Gamer · Oct 18, 2009

Carl Forster said:
MS, YES get rid of the "RIBBON" Interface or at least let us users that want the"CLASSIC" inferace the option to use it, BOTH Offiee and WIN7.
And MS wonder why people still prefer to use Office 2003, and as they have "MS") NOW stated Office 2007 has NOT had the uptake they would have expected. WIN 7 will sufer the same FATE (NO "Classic") interface.
Sorry to tell you I use VISTA Ult 64bit and Vista 32bit PRO and Office 2003, and am happy, have tried WIN7 for 3 weeks SORRY RIBBISH (Librarys UI, START,) and NO OPTION to use the "CLASSIC" as in VISTA.
I and 115 users will be skipping WIN7.

Thats a very interesting opinion. I personally love the ribbon. Why can people just not learn to adapt? We are humans. That is something we should be able to do.

I understand having your opinion, preferences, etc. but obviously MS does not intend to bring back the classic way, eventually newer versions of Office will stop supporting things from the older versions that had the classic look, right? Then what will you do?

jimbo45 · Oct 18, 2009

Carl Forster said:
MS, YES get rid of the "RIBBON" Interface or at least let us users that want the"CLASSIC" inferace the option to use it, BOTH Offiee and WIN7.
And MS wonder why people still prefer to use Office 2003, and as they have "MS") NOW stated Office 2007 has NOT had the uptake they would have expected. WIN 7 will sufer the same FATE (NO "Classic") interface.
Sorry to tell you I use VISTA Ult 64bit and Vista 32bit PRO and Office 2003, and am happy, have tried WIN7 for 3 weeks SORRY RIBBISH (Librarys UI, START,) and NO OPTION to use the "CLASSIC" as in VISTA.
I and 115 users will be skipping WIN7.

Hi all

If you want the simple Interface on Office 2007 ( I hate saying RTFM) but why not just press CTRL F1 to minimize the ribbon and if you right click quick accesss toolbar you can customize it to your hearts content.

I find the Full ribbon a bit horrible myself but I've customized the quick access toolbar so its fine for me.

I Found the Insert new rows / colums in a table in a Word 2007 document impossible to find until I scrolled around with the menus.

I do agree about the horribleness of the ribbon in 2007.

Whist the functionality of the Office 2007 is good -- why not let users START with a small classic interface (as per 2003) and they can USE the extra options as they become more proficient.

Also the default on a small Netbook with an 8 inch looks REDICULUOUS -- so much of the screen real estate is taken up by that ribbon unless you minimize it.

Cheers
jimbo

H2SO4 · Oct 18, 2009

DarkNovaGamer said:
Thats a very interesting opinion. I personally love the ribbon. Why can people just not learn to adapt? We are humans. That is something we should be able to do.

I don't work for MS or any of its affiliates, but I feel it is my solemn duty to stand up and be counted in support of The Ribbon.

I frickin' love the ribbon. I want to marry it and have its babies. It's the best thing to happen to GUIs since the introduction of the mouse. It adapts to me, so that I don't have to do the opposite.

As an Office user, I am quite hopeless. Most of the time I don't even know what I want to do with the document, and if I did know I wouldn't be able to articulate my plans in a way which would lend itself to searching Help. That's when I look up to find the Ribbon has magically morphed to show me functionality which is relevant to what I'm currently doing! I mash some buttons on the context-sensitive menu, and Robert's my father's brother - the document looks ten times better than I ever dared to dream

Colonel Travis · Oct 21, 2009

H2SO4 said:
DarkNovaGamer said:

I frickin' love the ribbon. I want to marry it and have its babies.

Click to expand...

me and the ribbon eloped last week.
sorry.

Lemur · Oct 21, 2009

Borrow heavily from Google Docs. Real time collaboration, for me, is an essential part of working with documents.

Adamd · Oct 21, 2009

I would add this feature.

Have a prompt when you click the print that can be turned off if you wish but have it say.

"Did you spell check yet?". If that would come up when people push print I think it would be a killer idea. So many people I talk to forget to spell check or waste paper printing it out and then having to print it out again because they had forget to spell check the first time.

Just think it would be a little nice feature for those who forget.

pezzonovante · Oct 21, 2009

I love the ribbon too. This has been a great innovation by Microsoft.

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