What Is Blocking Office Templates From Downloading

Anyone who uses Microsoft Office volition agree on two things: Information technology'due south a powerful collection of applications, and information technology needs improvements.

Here are vi programs that bring Office a lot closer to what it should be. The showtime three work across multiple Office applications, improving the much-loved–and much-hated–ribbon-based interface. The other three are application-specific, giving Outlook, Discussion, and Excel additional capabilities that Microsoft either didn't think of or didn't bother with.

For links to these downloads all in one convenient identify, see our "6 Downloads to Improve Microsoft Office" collection.

User Interface Improvements

Office Tab

If y'all've ever had multiple Excel worksheets open at a time, y'all know the frustrations of switching amidst them and keeping track of which is which. The same goes for Discussion documents and PowerPoint presentations.

Extendoffice.com's Office Tab adds tabbed document direction to those three applications, making the chore much easier. Equally with the tabbed Spider web pages in your browser, you can easily switch betwixt tabs, rearrange them, or right-click for a bill of fare of options.

Extendoffice likewise sells divide tab programs for Give-and-take, Excel, and PowerPoint, but if you use any ii of those applications, the full Part Tab program costs less.

Download Part Tab | Price: $25; 30-day free trial | Supports Office 2003, 2007, and 2010 (does not yet back up PowerPoint 2010)

Search Commands

Do you know, off-hand, which ribbon yous need to change Give-and-take's AutoCorrect options? Or which Excel ribbon yous need for sorting a worksheet? There'south always a feature that you lot merely know is around somewhere, but Help is a far besides slow and painful way to find it.

This freebie from Microsoft Office Labs won't eliminate your need to inquire such questions, but information technology will probably provide answers. Only go to the Search Command ribbon and enter a keyword to bring upward a row of appropriate icons. 1 is bound to be the particular you want.

Search Commands works in the 2007 versions of Give-and-take, Excel, and PowerPoint.

Download Search Commands | Price: Complimentary | Supports Function 2007

Classic Menu for Office 2007

If y'all miss the old Microsoft Office user interface–the one with menus instead of ribbons–Archetype Menu is a dream come true. Install information technology, and you're back to the Discussion, Excel, and PowerPoint y'all love.

And Addintools, the creator of this download, brings back the menu the right way: It augments the ribbon interface rather than replacing information technology. Classic Menu simply adds some other ribbon–one with the old, familiar menus and, as a bonus, the sometime, familiar toolbars. Information technology'south there when you want information technology, but you tin can always click on some other ribbon and use the more modernistic interface when the mood strikes you.

As the name implies, this plan is for Office 2007. Addintools sells like add together-ons for the diverse Office 2010 packages.

Download Classic Menu for Part 2007 | Price: $xxx; xxx-day free trial | Supports Part 2007

Specific Application Improvements

Lookeen

You have a lot of data stored in Outlook–your entire contact listing, appointments, countless email letters. And the but thing yous accept to search it with is…Outlook.

Unless you lot're willing to drop $forty for Lookeen, that is. Then yous'll have all sorts of fast, indexed searches at your fingertips. For instance, you can select an eastward-mail message and click the Conversations icon to bring up all of the messages that Lookeen thinks are office of the same conversation, as well every bit possibly relevant appointments and contacts. Other searches volition discover elements added today or this calendar week, or items that are "more than like this."

Information technology can even search exterior of Outlook, making information technology a desktop search tool.

Download Lookeen | Cost: $40; fourteen-solar day free trial | Supports Outlook 2003, 2007, and 2010

CrossEyes

Word documents aren't sausages–at that place's nada gross nigh seeing how they're fabricated.

With Levit & James'southward CrossEyes, you can see exactly what'southward going on within a Word document. Is that give-and-take assuming and cerise because someone assigned a particular style to information technology, or simply because someone fabricated it bold and cerise? That sort of difference means a lot when you lot're altering a document's look, peculiarly if y'all're non the only person who has worked on that file.

Not every Word user needs CrossEyes; only if you have to reformat other people's work, it'southward a blessing.

CrossEyes is currently on version 4. Version v, which is in public beta equally I write this, supports Discussion 2010.

Download CrossEyes | Toll: $30; 15-day trial | Supports Word 2003 and 2007

ASAP Utilities

This Excel add-in puts all sorts of tools onto the application's ribbon. With information technology, you can format the on-screen view (hiding grids, zilch values, and other possibly distracting $.25), select the cell with the smallest or largest number, select all the cells with errors, freeze panes on multiple sheets at once, and simultaneously relieve the current file and create a backup.

That's only a small sample of all the ways this tool allows you to dispense numbers, text, links, and information. And if its vast offerings become too confusing (information technology'due south really for Excel power users), you lot can put your about-used options in the customizable 'My favorite tools' carte du jour.

And if things go besides frustrating, you can salve some tension past pulling downward the ribbon's Start carte and selecting Funny (mistake) messages. I got 'Fault saving file! format bulldoze now?'

Download ASAP Utilities | Price: $49 for commercial use, later 90-day trial period; free for noncommercial utilize, unless "you lot don't want to be forced to update to the new version twice a year…or if y'all like this program and recall it is worth the money." | Supports Excel 2000, 2002/XP, 2003, 2007, and 2010 (32-flake)

Contributing Editor Lincoln Spector writes PCWorld'due south Reply Line column and blog.