What Happened to the tab key in Excel 2007

R

Russell Stevens

The online help in Excel 2007 states that the TAB key moves one cell to
the right in a worksheet. Well, on mine, it jumps one screen to the right. I
cannot find anywhere to set this option. Is the help file wrong? This option
could be set in previous versions - is it no longer an option? This is a
major annoyance for fingers that have been using the tab key for many years.
There appears to be nothing on any of the menus, nothing on the ribbons, and
nothing in the help system on how to fix this. Does Microsoft think this is
an improvement?

Thanks
Russell Stevens
 
B

Bob Phillips

Sounds like you have Lotus compatibility Transition navigation keys set.

Lick the Office button and select the Excel Options button, pick Advanced
from the left pane, and scroll to the foot of the right-hand pane. It should
be in the last but one section.

--
---
HTH

Bob

(change the xxxx to gmail if mailing direct)
 
B

Bob Phillips

Probably best to click the office button, not lick it <G>

--
---
HTH

Bob

(change the xxxx to gmail if mailing direct)
 
R

Russell Stevens

Bob/Mike,

This was a fresh Office 2007 install on Vista 64 RTM. I never turned on
the option for transition keys. Turning that off fixes the problem but I am
not sure why a fresh Office install on a fresh OS gives a default setup that
doesn't agree with what the help file says. I think my major problem was
that my brain cannot see the Options button at the bottom after you click
the Office button. Placing a button at the bottom of a fly out menu on the
right just seems totally out of place. But I see that Word does it, Access
does it, Power Point does it, but Publisher does not do it, Outlook does not
do it and OneNote doesn't do it. So much for consistency across the Office
products (related to whether the app uses a ribbon or not). I think I am too
old for ribbons - lots of fancy icons that make no sense, so you have to
read all of the text, and if you need to read the text, then the old menu
system is much more efficient. If you want to sort some stuff in Excel, go
to the Home ribbon - ooops - you can also go to the Data ribbon which uses
totally different icons to do the same sort. On the Home ribbon, sorting is
considered "Editing" but on the Data ribbon, sorting is considered "Sorting
and Filtering". Not quite sure who the target group was for this ribbon
stuff, but I am not in it <g> - I will keep looking for the option to turn
the ribbon off (not just hide it but replace it with a real menu)......

Thanks for the help,
Russ Stevens

****************************
 
B

Bob Phillips

Russ,

You won't get too much argument here. It strikes me that the ribbon is aimed
at a totally new market, which is obviously what MS feel they need to
attract to continue to move forward. We old codgers don't like it, but hey,
we're already aboard.

As for turning it off for classic menu, keep looking, but I think you will
be out of luck.

--
---
HTH

Bob

(change the xxxx to gmail if mailing direct)
 
B

Bill Sharpe

Russell said:
Bob/Mike,

This was a fresh Office 2007 install on Vista 64 RTM. I never turned on
the option for transition keys. Turning that off fixes the problem but I
am not sure why a fresh Office install on a fresh OS gives a default
setup that doesn't agree with what the help file says. I think my major
problem was that my brain cannot see the Options button at the bottom
after you click the Office button. Placing a button at the bottom of a
fly out menu on the right just seems totally out of place. But I see
that Word does it, Access does it, Power Point does it, but Publisher
does not do it, Outlook does not do it and OneNote doesn't do it. So
much for consistency across the Office products (related to whether the
app uses a ribbon or not). I think I am too old for ribbons - lots of
fancy icons that make no sense, so you have to read all of the text, and
if you need to read the text, then the old menu system is much more
efficient. If you want to sort some stuff in Excel, go to the Home
ribbon - ooops - you can also go to the Data ribbon which uses totally
different icons to do the same sort. On the Home ribbon, sorting is
considered "Editing" but on the Data ribbon, sorting is considered
"Sorting and Filtering". Not quite sure who the target group was for
this ribbon stuff, but I am not in it <g> - I will keep looking for the
option to turn the ribbon off (not just hide it but replace it with a
real menu)......

Thanks for the help,
Russ Stevens

****************************
Click to expand...
The transition to Office 2007 is fairly reasonable IF (and that's meant
to be a big if, not shouting) you are used to using keyboard shortcuts.
They seem to still work. Mouse and menu users face a somewhat difficult
transition.

Bill
 
T

T. Valko

lots of fancy icons that make no sense, so you have to read all of the
text, and if you need to read the text, then the old menu system is much
more efficient.
Click to expand...

Oh, that's so eloquent! I agree 1000%. I've hated GUI's since they were
"invented". Keep your fancy little stupid childish icons, give me a word. I
instantly know what Sort means while I can't quite figure out what that
stupid icon means! So you do a mouse-over and see a word. Well, that's
redundant and why we need 500gb hard drives.

Bleh!

</rant>

Biff
 
B

Bob Phillips

Yeah, but if they had pandered to this luddite <G> view as held by people
like you (and myself I admit) back in the 80's, personal computers would
still be the preserve of the 'enlightened' few, they would not be the
ubiquitous item that they are today, and MS would not be the company that it
is today (can you see a rationale here?).

However much we may foresee the problems, regret the paths taken, they are
obviously irreversible, but they are probably inevitable given the society
that we have forged. In short, go with the flow, and pick out the good bits
(I love >256 columns, gazillions of colours, et al).

The Preacher
 
T

T. Valko

can you see a rationale here?

Of course!

Maybe my reaction is a sign of having achieved "old fart" status!

Biff
 
H

Harlan Grove

Bob Phillips wrote...
....
However much we may foresee the problems, regret the paths taken, they are
obviously irreversible, but they are probably inevitable given the society
that we have forged. . . .
Click to expand...
....

Society's fault?!

Anyway, time and the version after this will tell just how committed
Microsoft is to the new UI. If large corporations don't adopt for
whatever reason, the next version of Office is unlikely to look like
Office 2007. Still way too early to tell.

Those large corporations could draw the VERY reasonable conclusions
that Office XP or 2003 running under Windows XP behind a firewall
preferably NOT running any version of Windows is going to be adequate
for quite a while to come. And those companies not using Outlook,
Exchange, SharePoint, etc. (e.g., those still running Lotus Notes,
which includes a very large portion of the financial services industry)
will have even less motivation. And with respect to Excel, maybe
there'll be a few IT people who figure out that if SARBOX makes it a
nightmare to certify spreadsheets with 256 by 65536 grids, the Excel
2007 grid size will be much, much worse.

Also it's wonderful to see that Microsoft doesn't learn from other's
mistakes. The Gnome Project released Gnome 2.0 with an XML-based menu
but without any tools for modifying the XML menu files, assuming that
the people who SHOULD attempt modifying menus would know how to use
text editors to modify XML. Seriously hurt adoption. What a surprise!
 
B

Bob Phillips

Harlan Grove said:
Bob Phillips wrote...
Click to expand...
Society's fault?!
Click to expand...


I did say the society that WE have forged, so yes society's fault, we are
society (despite Mrs Thatcher's beliefs)

Anyway, time and the version after this will tell just how committed
Microsoft is to the new UI. If large corporations don't adopt for
whatever reason, the next version of Office is unlikely to look like
Office 2007. Still way too early to tell.
Click to expand...


I am surprised at how many corporations already have plans to migrate. I
expected far more caution. But as you say, the real big players are playing
wait-and-see.

And with respect to Excel, maybe
there'll be a few IT people who figure out that if SARBOX makes it a
nightmare to certify spreadsheets with 256 by 65536 grids, the Excel
2007 grid size will be much, much worse.
Click to expand...


Not only that, but Excel will also be put to uses that it isn't now because
of the previous grid limitations, so the problem could well get worse.

Also it's wonderful to see that Microsoft doesn't learn from other's
mistakes. The Gnome Project released Gnome 2.0 with an XML-based menu
but without any tools for modifying the XML menu files, assuming that
the people who SHOULD attempt modifying menus would know how to use
text editors to modify XML. Seriously hurt adoption. What a surprise!
Click to expand...


But that is because we aren't really supposed to modify it. Patrick Schmid
has already built a Ribbon Customiser, haven't tried it yet, but it's not
surprising.
 

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