Elements Gallery on Word 2008
jasperb...@gmail.com
I find the elements gallery on Word 2008 for Mac extremely annoying.
This is the bar that contains "Document Elements" "Quick Tables"
"Charts" "SmartArt Graphics" and "Word Art" in the window you work in.
I do not plan to ever use any of those features.
Is there a way to remove this bar? If not, is it likely Microsoft will
include a way to removeit in the next product update?
Thank you.
Jasper Goldman
John McGhie
Click one of the headings and it will collapse.
You will be using these in the future: you may use it extensively. Word
2008 documents are "assembled" from predefined dynamic components. So you
will be in there quite often.
Eventually, you will create your own document parts and add them to your
gallery. When you get adventurous, you can remove the standard components
(by editing the XML hat creates them).
So: You may not actually want to get rid of the Elements Gallery, since
it's an essential part of the user interface. In much the same way as you
wouldn't remove the steering wheel from a tourist bus, just because you did
not like the destination it was heading for. The other passengers would
become understandably concerned...
Hope this helps
On 20/01/08 1:09 PM, in article
bf0bc966-7645-4f94...@f47g2000hsd.googlegroups.com,
"jasperb...@yahoo.com" <jasperb...@gmail.com> wrote:
--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/
Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.
John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:jo...@mcghie.name
jasperb...@gmail.com
elements gallery in the future, right now it's a distraction when I
want to type and I'm very confident I don't need any of the features
at this time. Do you know how it can be de-activated? Thanks very
much, Jasper
John McGhie
Cheers
On 20/01/08 4:45 PM, in article
0b2ea947-5eec-4fff...@z17g2000hsg.googlegroups.com,
"jasperb...@yahoo.com" <jasperb...@gmail.com> wrote:
--
mlo...@officeformac.com
Like Jasper, I DONT WANT the Elements bar in Print Layout mode (fortunately it does not show up in Draft mode.)
Yes, it is possible that I might want it in the future. Fine, that is feature, which software should have. But not all users want to use all features. To take up valuable screen real estate, especially in Print Layout mode, where I am trying to see how my document will look when it is printed, is totally unacceptable.
(I know the MBU is supposed to be a semi-autonomous unit at MS, but is this a shadow of Vista-ness creaping on to my Mac? Please, I hope not...)
John, with all due respect, your comment.....
In much the same way as you wouldn't remove the steering wheel from a tourist bus, just because you did not like the destination it was heading for. The other passengers would become understandably concerned...
I sure hope someone, somewhere comes up with a cleaver way of hacking this bit of stupidity out of the Office 2008 interface.
CyberTaz
remove/restore the Gallery. I do have to take issue with your assumption
that "some (many?) users may NEVER use" it. I believe you'll find at least
some aspects of it quite useful - if not indispensible - possibly more
sooner than later.
In a collapsed state it occupies very little screen space and - although
there's no doubt it will take some getting used to - it really proves to be
less of an imposition than it seems... It's just "different".
Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac
On 1/20/08 10:32 AM, in article ee89...@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw,
mlo...@officeformac.com
Indispensable? I do my serious layout work in InDesign. I use Word, like just about everyone I know (I'm not in corporate america) for one purpose only, as a word processor. To write letters or other documents. I need it to be clean, fast, and not get in the way. For better or worse, it is the industry "standard", so I am forced to use it to remain compatible with the outside world.
In Print Layout mode, with the zoom set to Whole Page, Word 2008 displays the document at 89%
In Word 2004 in Page Layout mode, the same view gives me 94%.
On a large monitor, it is not that big a deal. On a laptop it is significant.
Another bizzare thing I just noticed is that Word now includes the toolbar as part of the document !! So if I have more than one document open, I get more than one set of toolbars ! This seems very un-Mac user interface guideline behavior.
"One small step forward for Microsoft, one giant step backwards for their customers."
Daiya Mitchell
Make sure you have UNchecked the preference to open the Elements
Gallery--in Word | Preferences | Personal Settings | Elements Gallery.
This will keep it collapsed it by default. But you can't get rid of the
basic bar (via the UI, no clue re a hack).
Phillip Jones
candy than anything else.
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CyberTaz
On 1/20/08 1:19 PM, in article ee89...@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw,
"mlo...@officeformac.com" <mlo...@officeformac.com> wrote:
> Bob,
>
> Indispensable?
Welllll, perhaps I exaggerated just a teensy bit;-)
> I do my serious layout work in InDesign. I use Word, like just
> about everyone I know (I'm not in corporate america) for one purpose only, as
> a word processor. To write letters or other documents. I need it to be clean,
> fast, and not get in the way. For better or worse, it is the industry
> "standard", so I am forced to use it to remain compatible with the outside
> world.
I fully understand & agree. Unfortunately there are [at least] 2 things
working against you: 1) an awfully large number of people want a word
processor to serve as the computer-based equivalent of a Swiss Army knife,
and 2) MS seems hell-bent on making them think that's what they have in
Word:-) There is a campaign under way to adorn the Gallery with an On/Off
switch, but how successful & how soon remain to be seen. Of course, you do
have alternatives to Word if you choose to use them.
>
> In Print Layout mode, with the zoom set to Whole Page, Word 2008 displays the
> document at 89%
>
> In Word 2004 in Page Layout mode, the same view gives me 94%.
>
> On a large monitor, it is not that big a deal. On a laptop it is significant.
Quite so... And you'd think that in this age of totable computers that
screen real estate would be a determining factor. But I do have a different
result than your 89% - is that on a laptop? My 17" LCD on my G5 tower gives
me 93% for Whole Page @ 1280x1024.
>
> Another bizzare thing I just noticed is that Word now includes the toolbar as
> part of the document !! So if I have more than one document open, I get more
> than one set of toolbars ! This seems very un-Mac user interface guideline
> behavior.
That I'm afraid is Apple's doing - MS is just complying with the standards
set forth by Apple. Of course they have the option to *not* comply, in which
case they'd take the same flak from the opposite side. I guess MS figured
that if they're going to be wrong either way they might as well err on the
side of compliance.
>
> "One small step forward for Microsoft, one giant step backwards for their
> customers."
Regards |:>)
jasperb...@gmail.com
that you can't turn off the elements gallery. (I'm sure some folks
will love it. Maybe one day I'll be one of them. The issue is that if
you don't, you're stuck with or you don't use the program)
For those who don't understand why this is such a big deal, it has to
do with the fact that the text of the elements gallery menu bar is so
close to the text that you type. Visually, it competes and distracts.
Normally that space is occupied by a ruler, or icons, or something
that isn't text.
As someone who mainly upgraded to '08 to get a native intel-chip
version of word, I'm frustrated to have to downgrade back to '04. I
really hope this gets addressed soon.
Jasper
JE McGimpsey
mlo...@officeformac.com wrote:
> This seems very un-Mac user interface guideline behavior.
On the contrary, it's very *Mac-like* user interface guideline behavior:
JE McGimpsey
<66d5ccb8-9d52-42f0...@v4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>,
"jasperb...@yahoo.com" <jasperb...@gmail.com> wrote:
> As someone who mainly upgraded to '08 to get a native intel-chip
> version of word, I'm frustrated to have to downgrade back to '04. I
> really hope this gets addressed soon.
Make sure you send feedback via Help/Send Feedback or
Jim Gordon MVP
article bf0bc966-7645-4f94...@f47g2000hsd.googlegroups.com,
on [DATE:
Hi,
At the present time there is no way to turn the elements bar off. Since it
is so cool, I am sure that the folks at Microsoft would wonder, "Why would
anyone want to do that?" ("That" meaning turn the elements bar off).
So tell them why at this URL:
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/suggestions.mspx?product=word
If you are convincing enough, perhaps Microsoft will add a preference or
other way to toggle it on and off.
-Jim
--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP
MVPs are not Microsoft Employees
MVP info http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
John McGhie
Mac BU. They ran out of time and people in this release: what we have is
all they had time to do before on-sale date. There's more to come.
What they tried to do was remain Mac-like, while bringing us as close as
possible to Word 2007's Fluent User Interface ("The Ribbon" to you and I...)
There are many "opinions" about the result, including yours and mine :-)
I am a power user, a specialist long-document technical author. I make my
living in Word, and I use it for all my serious projects (1,000-pages and
up). So it took me a very long time to stop saying rude things about The
Ribbon :-) It's one of those things you have to use, in my case for a
couple of months, before you really appreciate it. After that, you start
noticing that everything is more difficult and more fiddly when using a
version of Word that doesn't have it.
In Word 2008, we did NOT get the Ribbon. We got "The Something Like It".
And I am afraid we have ended up with an unholy mixture that seems to have
kept some of the less enticing features of both. I am (now) firmly in the
camp that says "The Ribbon is seriously good idea, and I want it on the Mac
too."
My comment about the steering wheel stands: If you don't have the Elements
Bar, you can't drive Word. It is not possible to access all the functions
without the EG.
If you want an uncluttered writing layout, use Draft View. If you want an
uncluttered proofing layout, use Print Preview.
Really, I think you should spend more than two days learning to use Word
2008 before you decide what you will "never" use. I say this with the
benefit of embarrassing hind-sight :-)
However, it is true that Word has "changed" with the Word 2007/8 release.
It is now designed for a different audience, with different requirements.
You may not be among that audience!
Since you've paid for it, I would give it a little longer, if I were you.
It is a HELL OF A LOT more powerful and stable than it was. I also suggest
that you sit back and look at the "direction" the design is heading in. If
you are interested, find a PC running Vista and have a play with Word 2007.
Then you can see where this design is heading. Yes, I know Vista is a mess:
forget Vista, you never see it when you are using Office 2007. But it does
add some power features that Windows XP doesn't have and that Office 2007
benefits from.
We do need to appreciate that on the Mac, we do not have the whole concept,
yet. This particularly affects the Elements Gallery: There will be a lot
more stuff on it in future versions.
However, the reason I suggest that you analyse the direction of the design
is so you will see that the old usage paradigm is dead (or dying...).
Word was originally designed for the following use case:
1) A professional decides what to write, and either dictates it, or
hand-writes it.
2) A Secretary types it up. She had to spend years learning to make
complex business documents in a word-processor. She has a similar level of
technical expertise to the professional, but as a word-processor.
3) The Secretary hands the file off to a Publishing Professional. The
Publishing Professional imports the file into a Page Layout application and
typesets it for professional printing. The Publishing Professional had to
spend many years learning graphics design.
4) The Publishing Professional hands the result to a Printer. The Printer
spent many years learning to make a four-colour offset press do its thing
reliably.
People are not doing that any more. As a corporate professional, you now
have full authority to deeply embarrass your corporation by producing,
publishing and distributing a ransom note to all the clients with the click
of a single button!
In the current working world, nobody has the time to "learn" how to do
word-processing. Or graphics design. Or printing. They are too busy
learning their core skills. They need to produce written communication with
things that "just work".
That's the market Word is heading for.
1) The busy professional types some stuff.
2) They choose an appearance. They add some components. It starts right,
stays right, and looks right.
3) They email it to all the clients.
And the result looks smart, modern and professional. The page numbers are
all correct, the TOC all works, the Index has no bad page numbers, the
equations are all correctly numbered, the spelling is all correct and the
colour gamut is adjusted for the output medium.
OK, we're about 70 per cent of the way there in Word 2007, and Word 2008 is
catching up going there too, as quick as they can code. The idea now is:
1) You do not construct a layout, you choose one.
2) You do not construct tables, you insert them.
3) You do not lay things out, you "pour" text into existing streams.
4) You do not choose appearance, you choose a theme.
The new way is designed to enable users to "assemble" documents by choosing
pre-built components. As a concept, this works well for the 80 per cent of
users that buy/use Microsoft Word ‹ better than the old way did. On the
Mac, lack of time means that many of the pre-built components are not yet
available. Expect many of them to be available for download as soon as they
get built.
Publishing professionals will now be engaged by corporations to create a
suit of design templates and document parts in the corporate style, which
the knowledge-workers will "choose". System administrators will install it
and lock it down so users can't choose anything else :-) If you want
something else, call your corporation's Publications Department. They will
run it up from your ideas in a day and send it to you. You will be able to
double-click to install it. Third-party vendors will be into this market
tomorrow or the next day :-)
Microsoft has given up on trying to "Teach" users how to drive
word-processors and page layout applications. The users don't WANT to
learn, and the effort was eating into the profits. "Don't try to teach a
pig to sing: it wastes your time and annoys the pig!"
So, in Word 2007/2008, you are looking at the vanguard of the new way of
doing things. We're out of the InDesign market. We're out of the
FrameMaker market. And we're out of the old word-processing market too.
For the sake of making the point, let me thoroughly over-state the case:
"This thing is not designed to work the way the old one did. It can't and
it won't. If you take the Elements Gallery off it, it won't work at all!"
Of course, the reality is that you can still find a way to do nearly
everything you used to be able to do. The benefit is that many of the
things that used to be difficult or unreliable are now one-click easy and
very robust.
Now: "everyone" has "an opinion" on the new way of doing things. Some of
those opinions are not fit for a family publication like this :-) Mine, for
example! Largely fuelled by self-interest, I want the "old way" back;
because that's how I make my living :-) But I would like to keep the
ribbon. And I would like the ribbon on the Mac, too :-)
I think you will come to appreciate the Elements Gallery. Maybe not this
month or next :-) It's not the Ribbon ‹ it's not as good. But it is close
enough :-)
Cheers
On 21/01/08 2:32 AM, in article ee89...@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw,
"mlo...@officeformac.com" <mlo...@officeformac.com> wrote:
--
Phillip Jones
CyberTaz wrote:
-------------------------snip-------------------------
>> Another bizzare thing I just noticed is that Word now includes the toolbar as
>> part of the document !! So if I have more than one document open, I get more
>> than one set of toolbars ! This seems very un-Mac user interface guideline
>> behavior.
>
> That I'm afraid is Apple's doing - MS is just complying with the standards
> set forth by Apple. Of course they have the option to *not* comply, in which
> case they'd take the same flak from the opposite side. I guess MS figured
> that if they're going to be wrong either way they might as well err on the
> side of compliance.
I think that statement is downright funny :-D Since when has Microsoft
cared anything about standards??
If they had years ago. Web pages on internet could viewed accurately
with any web browser. Instead of having to endure using IE to view many
web pages.
I can't even get into certain section of the website for my cell phone
company, because they use certain proprietary features only found in
IE6/7. And Mac's can't even use IE.
>> "One small step forward for Microsoft, one giant step backwards for their
>> customers."
>
> Regards |:>)
> Bob Jones
> [MVP] Office:Mac
>
--
Daiya Mitchell
> For those who don't understand why this is such a big deal, it has to
> do with the fact that the text of the elements gallery menu bar is so
> close to the text that you type. Visually, it competes and distracts.
> Normally that space is occupied by a ruler, or icons, or something
> that isn't text.
>
Send that point via Help | Feedback, because it's a reason I don't think
has come up--just the screen real estate issue. That one hasn't swayed
them, so maybe a new point will help. :)
Although--I'm seeing a ruler between the body of the text and the
Elements Bar. But View | Ruler is even more of a waste of space, in my
view.
Daiya
dlee
mode other than "Draft" mode. It consumes valuable vertical screen
real-estate. I hope that hiding the bar will be an option in future
updates of Word.
Daiya Mitchell
votes--the more votes, the bigger the chance for changes. They aren't
tabulating posts in the newsgroup.
CyberTaz
to max your vertical space if they haven't occurred to you:
1- Use the "jelly bean" at the right end of the doc Title Bar to hide the
docked toolbars altogether,
2- Turn the Formatting Toolbar off or dock it vertically,
3- Make sure you set all toolbars (including Standard) fro Icon Only rather
than Icon & Text.
HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac
On 2/28/08 3:09 PM, in article
12e3c870-b79f-4026...@n58g2000hsf.googlegroups.com, "dlee"
hsmo...@gmail.com
hsmo...@gmail.com
>
> I find the elements gallery on Word 2008 for Mac extremely annoying.
Hilda Smolash
Irish genius
> > I find the elements gallery on Word 2008 for Mac extremely annoying.
And just at the last hurdle, a defunct, irritating and immoveable slice of screen wasted. Like an obstinate little boil on my arse. I would gladly take a fart in a space suit before this. Cheers Microsoft! :)