Is there a “revert to classic menus” option in Outlook 2007?

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Hello everyone.. My company has recently upgraded to Outlook 2007, and I’m not a huge fan of the new menu structure…

I’ll admit that I can appreciate the ease at which many “common” tasks can now be found, and the new menu structure itself doesn’t bother me … but I’m not a entry-level and get frustrated that the old keyboard shortcuts don’t work anymore (ctrl-e, s for “paste special” for example) …

Are there any ways to get Outlook 2007 to revert back to the “classic” menu structure, or for the “classic” keyboard shortcuts to work with the new version?

My company only moved Outlook forward to 2007, all other office apps are at the 2003 level..

thanks in advance!
..dane

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There are third-party add-ins that provide the “classic” interface, for example Show Classic Menus and Toolbars on Ribbon of Outlook 2007 (not free).

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There are third-party add-ins that provide the “classic” interface, for example Show Classic Menus and Toolbars on Ribbon of Outlook 2007 (not free).

Yes, I saw that one on Google … but thought surely there must be some built-in and/or freeware mechanisms to do the same thing.. ??

Thanks Hans…

..dane

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Microsoft definitely does *not* provide a built-in way to revert to the Outlook 2003 interface! The Ribbon is here to stay.

There are free “classic” interfaces for Word, Excel and PowerPoint but I don’t know of one for Outlook (the main Outlook application isn’t all that different anyway, it’s the mail editor that is radically changed).

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Microsoft definitely does *not* provide a built-in way to revert to the Outlook 2003 interface! The Ribbon is here to stay.

There are free “classic” interfaces for Word, Excel and PowerPoint but I don’t know of one for Outlook (the main Outlook application isn’t all that different anyway, it’s the mail editor that is radically changed).

Agreed — it’s really the mail editor that’s so frustrating… Even the keyboard shortcuts are all radically different..

I’ll be downloading pschmid.net’s RibbonCustomizer and trying it out soon..

thanks,
..dane

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Agreed — it’s really the mail editor that’s so frustrating… Even the keyboard shortcuts are all radically different.

FWIW, if you press the either ALT key you’ll see the letter or number displayed to active a particular section of the ribbon. For instance ALT+P will activate the “Options” section and display a set of letters and numbers that you can then use ALT+(letter or number) to accomplish.

If you really want to get into changing the Ribbon you can start at Office Fluent User Interface. This is the Microsoft MSDN site. It has a wealth of information and links on customizing the Office UI.

Joe

--Joe

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Outlook 2007 is just about the only Office app that does not use the new ribbon interface. If you mean the Word e-mail editor then no there is no ‘classic’ setting. See my [post=”694431″]Post 694431[/post] for a link to a utility which will allow you have a pseudo classic interface available. Also, see [post=”708457″]Post 708457[/post] for a link to a free addin that makes finding commands easier in Offfice 2007.

Joe

--Joe

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