Although newer versions have bells-and-whistles that older versions, like Word 97, lacked, every version released during the past 25+ years has almost the same basic formatting and styling capabilities.

And because Word 97 has menus and toolbars -- ribbons weren't introduced until 2006 or 2007 -- you may discover that you can figure out what you want to do better than you could with ribbons.

For example, Word 97 has a Tables menu. If you want to insert, modify, format, or delete a table, the commands are probably in the Tables menu. Simple.

In versions of Word that have ribbons, there is no Tables ribbon... unless you've already added a table to the document. To add a table, you must use the "Insert" ribbon. Huh?

Once you've inserted a table into a document and you want to do something to it, you must do two things: 1. Ensure the cursor is within the body of a table. 2. Figure out which of TWO Table ribbons contains the command you want.

A common, table-related task that cannot be done with the Tables ribbon is insert a table!