So just how customizable is it?

Wednesday, November 04, 2009 7:58 PMdrfsupercenter

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Alright, so, I've been messing around with Office 2010, including a cool *free* Classic Menus addon for Office 2007/2010.

But I still don't see just how it's that customizable. I took a screenshot, as I have a couple questions.

http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/8693/powerpoint.png

1. What's up with the preview on the left? All I did was the delete the two text boxes "Add title" and whatever, as I almost NEVER use the premade title slot, since I'm a big fan of WordArt and custom textboxes. But shouldn't it be white and not see-through?
2. On that note. I figured out how to make it edit and save by default in the normal PPT mode, not that stupid, pointless, OOXML format that it wants to use now... but can you make it always start on a BLANK slide, rather than having to change the type each and every time you ever open PowerPoint? As I said, I only ever use blank slides and go from the ground up, call it wasted effort but that's how I do my presentations.
3. Okay, so you see that Drawing menu I arrowed to? Well one nice thing I loved about 2000 and 2003 was the fact that you could MOVE STUFF AROUND - that being, you could put it at the bottom and not at the top. This is one of several major complaints I've heard about the Ribbon - how they stockpile everything on top of the program and take up more pixels than needed... so what I'm curious is, could I move some options (not necessarily from the premade addon, but under "customize Ribbon") to a different area of the screen, like the sides or bottom? Or is it still forcibly confined to the top? (IMHO, I think they need an "Unlock Ribbon" option, kinda like "Unlock Toolbars" in Firefox...
4. Kinda like #3, you know those buttons on the bottom-right of 2007/2010 that can switch between slide view, slide-thumbnail view and start the slideshow? Well I've been used to that on the bottom LEFT for years, not the bottom right. Again, I may be nitpicking, but is it physically possible to move that over a little bit to the left side of the screen?
5. So that gradiented bar at the top looks interesting - but can get annoying very quickly. Can that be turned off and just a normal titlebar like any other Windows program? (Using Windows 7, if you couldn't tell by the very-blue Aero theme)

Other than that, I'm a lot happier with Office 2010 than I was with 2007 - simply because in 2007 you couldn't move or rearrange *anything*, you were forced to use the stupid pre-determined order, and that drove me crazy.

Oh, another question I have. Firstly, is it possible to get a button again for superscripts and subscripts? I know in 2000/2003 they weren't visible by default but could very very easily be added - and I use superscripts and subscripts quite a lot when doing math and chemistry homework. I didn't see an option for either under "Customize Ribbon", that's why I'm asking.
And the second part - How come new versions of Office are physically incapable of using superscripts in subscripts in Excel? I know you could never type it natively in the program, but when I've made presentations for my chemistry class, my usual method is to open Word, type out a formula, then copy and paste it into Excel. Works great. But when I was using 2007 (and now with 2010), when I paste it, the superscripts and subscripts go away and become normal text. Talk about getting points off for n00b-looking formulas! When using the school's Office 2007 machines I was forced to type the chemical formula in word, PrintScreen it, paste it in Paint, then copy and paste THAT into the spreadsheet - because the godforsaken software was physically incapable of doing it any other way.
Not to sound rude, but why is that? And does anybody know of a registry tweak/addon that allows you to use superscripts and subscripts outside of Word?

Actually, you know what, I somehow managed to get it to work going from Word 2000 to Excel 2010, still kinda a hassle though. If I could get the icon back in Word, though, that would be nice!