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When Office introduced the “ribbon” menu, I stopped using it. A lot of the keyboard shortcuts stopped being viable, and when I can’t use shortcuts and must use a mouse, it really slows me down.

Hubby uses that godforsaken Office 365 on Windows 11. Insane. Most of my systems are Windows 7 with Office 2003. I do have a laptop and desktop with Windows 10 and it drives me nuts. There’s an “Edge” thing that demonically possesses the devices for no apparent reason and I can’t make it stop.

When Office introduced the “ribbon” menu, I stopped using it.

Have switched to LibreOffice (LO), which is more to my liking including the inherent menu/ribbon combination that is simpler to navigate, IMHO. Also, LO puts functional utility options in a side-panel that makes good use of total screen real-estate, by using the screen width more optimally.

Yeah, I've found the large ribbon that MS Office uses to be ridiculous - it eats up too much of the top of the screen for my taste. Admittedly, I haven't used MS Office in a few years, so my critique might be outdated, but that was what put me off the most. Also, I found the LO word processor ('Writer') to be easier for doing small community newsletters, for example. Easier to position graphics. Simple 'flowing' text boxes (or 'frames') to split an article across pages, etc. Cheers!

When Office introduced the “ribbon” menu, I stopped using it. A lot of the keyboard shortcuts stopped being viable, and when I can’t use shortcuts and must use a mouse, it really slows me down.

Noooooooooo... You've missed out incredibly. The Ribbon enhanced the keyboard shortcuts exponentially.

Microsoft did a terrible job explaining the Ribbon when they launched it in 2007. Users really need to take a one-hour session to familiarize themselves with the new shortcut methodology. Back in 2007 it was mostly in-person at work or if you were lucky, you could even find an evening course for adults. Since then, there are a bunch online.

Prior to the Ribbon, shortcuts were limited because they were single letter (Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, etc.) With the Ribbon, almost every command in Office applications can be done with key commands because they're built with multiple letters in progressive options.

For example, instead of Ctrl+V for paste, you could press Alt to bring up the Ribbon Home menu, press V for paste, and hit enter to paste it - or you could press:
K (Keep Source Formatting)
M (Merge Formatting)
T (Keep Text Only)
U (Picture)
S (Special) which goes to a submenu where you could tab through the selection for
- Microsoft Word Document Object
- Formatted Text (RTF)
- Unformatted Text
- Picture (Enhanced Metafile)
- HTML Format
- Unformatted Unicode Text

That same logic applies to hundreds, if not thousands of commands. Basically, almost every command in Office can be accomplished with keystrokes. And they don't require memorization at all. You call up the Ribbon with the Alt key, and then select from the letters that appear in small black hovering squares to use progress to the command you want to use.