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That pesky Ribbon Menu.

Ever since its introduction in Office 2007, I’ve been struggling to come to terms with it. I much preferred the Office 2000/2003 method of “hiding” tools that you don’t use often – and I don’t think I’m alone in the preference. I also don’t like being “shouted” at.

Similarly, I think it’s fair to say that I was disappointed to see the Ribbon Menu incorporated into the Windows 8 pre-release versions. Although there might be some benefit to having all of the controls where they can be quickly and easily accessed, there are plenty of reasons not to do this. For instance, you wouldn’t leave a self-destruct button on the outside of a car, would you? Someone might accidentally knock it.

That might be an extreme comparison but let’s be serious for a moment – we’re talking about user data here, files and folders that you have created or relied on. Making tools openly available that can change your files irreparably is pretty risky.

Fortunately there are a few tweaks that can be applied to the Ribbon Menu in Office and in Windows 8 that can improve the situation somewhat.

While it might not be so bad in Windows 8, the Office 2013 Ribbon Menu is rather… aggressive. The reason for this is that for some reason, Microsoft have opted to head each tab on the menu in capitals.