Excel Trivia: Why Did Microsoft Replaced the Menus and Toolbars in 2007 Version?

If you are an Excel 2003 super user and your company decided to upgrade your Microsoft Office version you'll be shocked with the change. The menu, toolbars and task pane have been completely removed from Excel 2007.

Why did they change this?

Excel 2003 had 1,223 commands on 127 command bars. If you tried to display them all at once, you would not be able to see the Excel grid at all. I guess the image below will definitely help you visualize what I'm saying.

Microsoft figured that if it didn't make some sort of big change, this problem would only get worst in future versions of Excel.

And they come up with the current design.

Special toolbars (like Picture Toolbar, Pivot Toolbar etc) only appear when they are needed.

This trivia came from Bill Jelen of MrExcel.

Pinoy Excel Guru,
Elvin Peria