As a teenager, I learnt to use Microsoft Office products such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint relatively quickly, applying the experience I’d had with other software products and figuring the rest out as I needed to.

Once I’d mastered the basics of Microsoft Windows, it was easy getting to grips with programs that worked the same way, and Office did so flawlessly.

Over the years, Microsoft released updated versions of Office (Office 97, 2000, and so on), adding features and improvements along the way. For us in the computer industry, each upgrade was an opportunity to sell you another tool, even if it was essentially the same tool we’d sold you a few years before, in a nicer box. Getting to grips with the latest Word or Excel wasn’t too painful, as the fundamental operations remained the same. For people like me, this is as important as the universal placement of a clutch, brake and accelerator pedal in a car. It’s seldom a good idea to mess with something that everyone has embraced and settled down with. Or so I thought…

Have you been happily using good old Office 2003 for ages? Pop in an upgrade to Office 2007 or 2010, and you’ll be scratching your head. Where are File, Edit, View and Help – our steadfast and trusty menus, bursting with the commands and options we used for decades? They are gone, my friend, relegated to the big recycle bin in the sky. What we have instead is a wide band of buttons, knobs and whirly things that looks like it belongs on the deck of the Starship Enterprise.

This is what Microsoft calls the “Ribbon”, although there is a good chance you’ll call it something less salubrious on your first meeting, especially if you’re working to a deadline.

The Ribbon is a fixed-size panel across the top of the program window, where File, Edit, View and other menus used to appear.

It replaces the menus and toolbars found in earlier versions of Office products. A dramatically different approach to the user interface, it contains an array of buttons and icons relating to each program’s commands and functions. A few tabs sort these commands into various logical groups, the idea being that you will spend less time looking for the function you need. And that may well be the case, if you’re just starting out. It’s the relearning that’s such a pain for grumpy Office stalwarts like me.

When I first saw the Ribbon, all I wanted to do was make it go away. Sometimes, I still want it to go away.

I can understand why Microsoft think it’s a good idea, and I can see that several of the functions I use regularly are now immediately accessible, but I’m just too programmed, too hard-wired and almost robotic. I don’t “do” change easily, and I don’t like having changes forced on me. I have used Office in the “old” way for so long that by now, most of what I do frequently, I do instinctively. With the Ribbon, I’m often hunting to find something I could always find before. That slows me down. When it comes to infrequently used commands, the hunting takes longer and words we can’t print here come to mind.

Maybe I’ll feel differently in 10 years’ time.

What about you? Are you using the Ribbon? Maybe you waited until you bought a new computer before upgrading to the latest version of Office. Maybe you had no idea it was going to be any different from what you were used to? Maybe you love the Ribbon? Let me know: e-mail your thoughts, for or against, to online@intech.co.za.

Next week, I’ll tell you how I manage to get along with the Ribbon and some of Office’s other changes, despite being so stuck in my ways. I’ll also describe a utility that restores the familiar “old” menu system I hold so dear – well, sort of.