When Microsoft first introduced the ribbon to their Office Suite, it caused quite a bit of division amongst those who spend all day using productivity software. Some people loved it and others preferred the classic menu system that’s pretty much as old as the graphical user interface itself. In the end, the ribbon won the war and seems to be here to stay. Luckily, even if you’re not a fan, you can actually customize the Microsoft Office ribbon to better fit your workflow and needs. Ribbons are meant to organize software functions by their general type. So functions that are usually used in conjunction with each other all share the same ribbon. In an application like Microsoft Word you’ll see a ribbon for design, layout, academic referencing and so on. If you’re doing the same, highly-specific sets of tasks on a daily basis however, you can speed up your workflow by tuning exactly which Microsoft Office ribbons are at your fingertips. Ribbons are further subdivided into groups of related commands. For example, the Home ribbon has a group named “Font”. This has the commands that relate to font formatting all in one place.
LOL! "as old as the graphical user interface itself"...I happen to like the 'ribbon' because it is organize and I know where to go on whatever I will need.
ReplyDeleteBefore this class, I would say the ribbon and its function confused and overwhelmed me. However, taking the time to understand it on the surface level, I can see the genius behind it for the lay person like myself. It still takes me FOREVER to get to the place I need to go to adjust certain aspects of the paper or what-have-you but in the long run it has cut down on the time I used to take to manually do and undo tabs, margins, columns and the like.
ReplyDeleteI remember when ribbons were introduced back in Office 2017. The ribbons were definitely the most visible portion of the significant changes in Office!
ReplyDeleteA less visible change was the file type where the improved file types of Office 2017 (e.g. *.docx, *.xlsx, *.pptx, *.accdb) required the installation of converters to facilitate backward compatibility with earlier Office versions whose file types were *.doc, *.xlsx, *.ppt, *.mdb.
Ribbons are definitely customizable as illustrated by 3.2.3 Customization Facts :-)
I wasn't there for a time where the ribbon didn't exist, so it's interesting seeing how the addition caused controversy. I definitely prefer the use of the ribbon as it provides an organized way to navigate Word.
ReplyDeleteThe ribbon is great it makes customizing our document easy and effective, there are so many different things we can access on the ribbon from font size to inserting pictures.
ReplyDeleteWhile the introduction of the ribbon in Microsoft Office caused a divide among users, and as Shane mentioned, I wasn't there for that time, it has become a standard feature that revolutionized the use of Microsoft office. I have customized the ribbon to make it more user-friendly and increase productivity for my needs at work. :)
ReplyDeleteI think the current ribbon is pretty nice and easy to understand.
ReplyDeleteRibbons helps me located where the tools are. This is probably the fact that I was quickly able finish my Microsoft Word labs.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad the ribbon won, it makes basically any task much more intuitive! I think having a clean and easy to use ribbion in any applications makes the program much more appealing.
ReplyDeleteI've used both versions of Microsoft, and since the introduction of the ribbon I feel like using Word has become more of an organized mess. I like it.
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