I can see why. Office 2007 looks like the computer decided to vomit up a bunch of buttons. 2003 is actually organized.
And actually 2003's interface is a very significant step backwards from 2000 and even 97. It puts all that CRAP on the right side of the screen, you have to use the mouse for too much stuff (like styles) which not only slows you down but is not good for your hands. For example, when you wanted to change a style in 97/2000, it popped up a chooser window (EDIT this should have been called a "Dialog Box"), you picked the style, then hit "enter" or if you are a mouse junkie click OK. It also had a Straightforward way to modify existing styles or create new ones.
In 2003, applying a style means popping up a huge pane on the right which you can't access by keyboard, only by mouse, and which has a really pain in the neck way to modify or build styles.
Yes, I think I've seen that before, it looks annoying that the top toolbar takes up on third of the screen. Surely there must be a way to set it back to the classic veiw? I can't believe Microsoft would do something this stupid.
From what I understand, No. MS wants you to get used to it.
Which, you know, just blows the whole "use MS stuff because that's what everyone is used to" argument to smithereens. The new MS uses incompatible formats and a brand new interface. It's entirely new software. If another company tried to sell this, it would be dead in the water.
