I'm using Office 2013 after MANY years of using and loving Office 2000. I'm reduced to beginner level user all over again and everything in Word is a mystery to me.

For starters, I can't find any way to show the old-fashioned menu bar with ":File Edit View Format etc." headings. I hope it is still possible to show and use in this version of Word.



When I open a Word document the menu titles on top are "File Home Insert etc.".
Below this bar are several boxers (which occupy an inordinate amount of window space) which say, for example" "Ruler Guidelines" or "100%" etc. I believe I understand what these windows' contents are for and what they do. To the left of the document itself is a box taking up still more window space titled "Document Recovery." I don't know why the Word document window must be so crowded with boxes full of basic functions all of which used to b e accessible in the blessedly space-saving menu bar in older versions.

So I basically want to know if I can get rid of all the obnoxiously distracting boxes above and beside the actual document and, I pray, if all that stuff can be replaced by the very good but very antiquated classic menu bar?

Please forgive my curmudgeonly tone but it's hard to find for a gradate of Office 2000 who had earned a master-user proficiency to suddenly find himself in kindergarten again with Word 2013.

Yes, although you might as well start getting used to the Ribbon. It has been around now for 15 years.

See Ribbon Menu Control - Classic UI tab - by Greg Maxey and search for "Classic UI." You should see a link to let you download a template to be placed in your Startup Folder. It gives you the Word 2003 Tab which mimics the menus and the two most-used toolbars from Word 2003. The page, itself is about adding menu commands to the Ribbon interface and it used this as an example. Although designed for Word 2007, it works in the most recent versions of Word. Here it is being used in the most recent version of 365.

THANK YOU, CHARLES! You provided a treasure trove of info, assistance and good advice! You've convinced me that I'd better learn to use the ribbon and it's comforting to know that when overwhelmed with frustration, I can temporarily switch back to my beloved classic interface menu bar. Again, many thanks and much gratitude for your reply.

You are welcome.

If it's any consolation, after nearly 15 years of dealing with ribbons, I still don't find them as straightforward and easy to use as menus. I can't grasp the logic of their organization. For example, in Word, if I want to add a table to a document, I can't wrap my mind around why I can't go a Table ribbon.

And on the topic of the two Table ribbons, I'm constantly guessing when the item I'm looking for is related to the table's "Design" or to its "Layout."

I've experienced ribbons to be so ridiculous that I wrote my own menu system to perform everyday tasks. I use the ribbons to perform the tasks I perform infrequently. My menus might seem ridiculous to an outsider, but at least I have a mental map of where to find the commands I use all of the time.

They were intended to be easier to use for the neophyte, not the experienced user.
You can customize the Ribbon by adding your own Tables tab with your favorite or most used commands including the Table command from Insert.

Greg Maxey's page, linked earlier, is about adding your own menus to the Ribbon and the QAT.

• The base page is Customize the Office Ribbon (It doesn't take rocket science) by Greg Maxey
• Here is my page on Modifying the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) in Microsoft Word