The Microsoft Office ribbon isn’t going anywhere – at least, not until Microsoft decides to revamp Office again, which likely won’t happen until the end of this decade.
Don’t take this to mean that what you’re presented with the first time you open Microsoft Office is set in stone. It is possible to trick out the interface of Office 2010 in a number of ways, although the method of doing so isn’t obvious while you are using the software. Changing the interface requires that you go Backstage and open the Options menu, then navigate down to Customize Ribbon.
The ribbon interface is, by default, fairly busy. However, it actually does not represent the vast majority of potential commands that are available in any particular piece of Office software. The entire point of the Ribbon interface was to reduce clutter, and this meant getting rid of deep menu trees and getting rid of command buttons for functions that were rarely used.
Of course, rarely used is not the same as never used. Those commands are still there, and you can find them in the Commands, not in the Ribbon section.
Let’s say, for example, that I wanted to have quick access to the Borders and Shading menu, and I want to add this button in the Insert tab. I can’t add commands to any of the default groups, so to do this I have to highlight the Insert tab and then click New Group. Once I’ve created a custom group, I can then highlight that group and bring over the Borders and Shading command. Presto! Now, Borders and Shading appears in my Insert tab.
That’s just the beginning. You can also create new tabs, so if you’d like you could create an entire tab full of custom groups with custom commands. Although I’m not enough of an interface junkie to want to do this, the tools are available to you if that’s what you’d like to do.
