Office XP and 2003 compatibility sounds good. At our school, half of our
PCs are still using Office 2000. We try to be meticulous with our licenses
and not upgrade without one (smile). I think MS will rethink the "classic"
menu thing. They even had one that emulated WordPerfect a while back (95 or
97). I think it will help sell the product. Even IE 7 lets you have the
menu bar. Having it available (why not with the alternate key as with IE)
would help newbies a lot. Those of us using the Beta will be used to the
ribbon by the time the product ships, but how about the people they want to
buy the product. Most of them are not as adventuresome as us.

"Patrick Schmid" wrote in message
...
Milly is right. Only Office XP and 2003 will be supported with the
Compatibility Pack and Awareness Update

MS will NOT provide classic menus for Office 2007 ribbon applications.
There is no assuming about this one, this is a totally definite thing.
Menus are dead in those applications and will NOT come back. MS is not
going to reconsider this decision nor is there any surprise for everyone
in store. MS had made very, very clear that the ribbon is here to stay
and that there won't be any alternative UI. Anything belongs into dream
world and simply represents wishful thinking.

Microsoft didn't introduce the ribbon just because they felt like
providing a new argument for marketing. If you read the User Interface
blog (search for Jensen Harris on Google), you will find out that they
had no other choice. The menu-style user interface simply would have not
been able to accommodate all the new features of Office 2007. In
addition, most users only use 20% of the available functionality. A
chief reason for that was that they couldn't figure out how to use the
rest or didn't even know that they existed.

People have asked for a classic menu mode since the first day of this
beta back in November, and the responses by Microsoft on this topic were
crystal clear: no, it won't happen.

Office 2007 is going to be a relearning experience for most Officer
users. If a user is not willing to go through this learning process,
then they should choose the existing classic menu mode: Office 2003.

Patrick Schmid
--------------
http://pschmid.net


"SteveC" wrote in message
:

Office XP and 2003 compatibility sounds good. At our school, half of our
PCs are still using Office 2000. We try to be meticulous with our licenses
and not upgrade without one (smile). I think MS will rethink the "classic"
menu thing. They even had one that emulated WordPerfect a while back (95 or
97). I think it will help sell the product. Even IE 7 lets you have the
menu bar. Having it available (why not with the alternate key as with IE)
would help newbies a lot. Those of us using the Beta will be used to the
ribbon by the time the product ships, but how about the people they want to
buy the product. Most of them are not as adventuresome as us.

"Patrick Schmid" wrote in message
...
Milly is right. Only Office XP and 2003 will be supported with the
Compatibility Pack and Awareness Update

Windows sees the Navigation Pane as a menu so:
Right click the desktop, choose "Properties"
Click the "Appearance" tab.
Click the "Advanced" button.
From the "Item" dropdown, choose "Menu" and set the Font to whatever
you like.



Melelina wrote:
Is there a way in Outlook 2007 beta to reduce the size of the icons in the
Navigation pane and across the top of the page? They are GIGANTIC. Horrible
looking. It makes Outlook appear to be a comic book instead of a business
application. I will never use this version of Outlook (or Word for that
matter) if I can't reduce the icon size to very small, neat and nice
looking. I also cannot see how to reduce the font size for the listings in
the Navigation pane. That is also way too large.

I like the size of the icons on the top of the "inbox page". Those are nice
and small and neat. I hate the gigantic size icons on the "new message" page
though. Why are those so huge? I don't have a vision problem with icons. I
assume Microsoft must think everyone has low vision and thus needs gigantic
icons. How do I change the size of the icons in the Navigation pane and on
pages such as "new message" so they are very small and don't take up such a
ridiculous amount of room?

Note that this will affect all menus, not just the navigation pane.

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Coauthor, OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)
Need Help with Common Tasks? http://www.outlook-tips.net/beginner/
Outlook 2007: http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/ol2007/

Outlook Tips: http://www.outlook-tips.net/
Outlook & Exchange Solutions Center: http://www.slipstick.com
Subscribe to Exchange Messaging Outlook newsletter:



wrote in message
oups.com...
Windows sees the Navigation Pane as a menu so:
Right click the desktop, choose "Properties"
Click the "Appearance" tab.
Click the "Advanced" button.
From the "Item" dropdown, choose "Menu" and set the Font to whatever
you like.



Melelina wrote:
Is there a way in Outlook 2007 beta to reduce the size of the icons in
the
Navigation pane and across the top of the page? They are GIGANTIC.
Horrible
looking. It makes Outlook appear to be a comic book instead of a business
application. I will never use this version of Outlook (or Word for that
matter) if I can't reduce the icon size to very small, neat and nice
looking. I also cannot see how to reduce the font size for the listings
in
the Navigation pane. That is also way too large.

I like the size of the icons on the top of the "inbox page". Those are
nice
and small and neat. I hate the gigantic size icons on the "new message"
page
though. Why are those so huge? I don't have a vision problem with icons.
I
assume Microsoft must think everyone has low vision and thus needs
gigantic
icons. How do I change the size of the icons in the Navigation pane and
on
pages such as "new message" so they are very small and don't take up such
a
ridiculous amount of room?