Microsoft Word Menu Tools Cut Ribbon Delays - Ribbon Customizer (
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To actually change the ribbon in Word you have to load XML code that conforms to a specific XML schema Microsoft created for that purpose. Creating and loading the code smoothly into Word is, you'll be shocked to learn, not a user-intuitive process.
Ribbon Customizer is a free utility that does use Microsoft's XML schema to change the ribbon, promising to let users customize ribbons in the whole Office suite: Access, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint and Word.
"Customize," in this case, means "load one of a pre-configured list of rearrangements that will run as COM or .Net add-ins and can't be changed without restarting the application and choosing a different configuration."
There is a facility by which you can use Ribbon Customizer as a scripting engine to create your own, genuinely customized ribbons; but for most people that will be far more effort than it's worth.
Far quicker, easier (and cheaper, most of the scripting capability comes in paid editions) is to download the version that adds a Classic UI tab to your ribbon.
Click on that tab and what appears is a ribbon-like window with all the old, familiar Word or Excel commands, which you can use exactly as if you're still using Office 2003.
They work without flash or drama—that is, they work. They don't crash your application; they don't suck up more and more memory in the background until your machine drags or hangs; they don't blink off when you click on them or tell you they don't know what you're asking them to do.
I've seen each of these behaviors in other classic Office-menu emulators.
Efficiency or Rigor?
Ribbon Customizer, once you install it, runs so plainly and reliably that you don't even notice anything is different until you accidentally click on one of the other ribbon tabs and have to figure out what function you might find under the Mailings or Developer tabs, and why anyone would put it there.
The Starter edition of Ribbon Customizer is free and allows you to regroup tabs, add classic menus for Excel, PowerPoint or Word 2007, customize the ribbon dialog and run predefined RibX layouts, and turn customizations on or off.
The Pro edition, $29.99, adds the ability to add or remove tabs, add your own commands to a tab, add separators between groups of your own commands, and show or hide all customizations.
If you work at one of those companies whose need for efficiency is so great -- or whose documents and text are so specialized -- that you see changing the tabs and commands in Office as de rigueur, this should give you the tools you need to do it. If you just want the efficiency, without the rigor, just switching to the Classic UI will give you and your users a boost.
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