A LibreOffice developer has once again criticized the Microsoft Office Ribbon, arguing that the tabbed toolbar design does more than change how documents look — it quietly removes options from the people who use the software every day. According to a report by Neowin, the criticism centers on the idea that the Ribbon “forces users into trade-offs they may not want,” leaving office users with fewer real choices about their own workflow than LibreOffice offers.
What exactly is the criticism?
The developer’s argument isn’t that the Ribbon is broken or hard to use. It’s that a well-designed interface should give people the freedom to shape how they work, and Office’s design quietly takes that freedom away. When Microsoft replaced the classic menus and toolbars with the icon-based Ribbon, it shipped a single, curated way of doing things. There was no official switch to revert to the layout that had defined Office for more than a decade.
There’s a real trade-off here worth acknowledging. The Ribbon’s discoverability is one of its genuine strengths — new users can find commands by scanning icons rather than hunting through nested menus. But that same design means power users can lose the compact, keyboard-first workflow they may have relied on for years. The critic’s point is that neither approach should be forced on everyone.
The underlying point is philosophical. LibreOffice markets itself around user freedom — the same principle that keeps it free and open source. Office, by contrast, makes the design decisions for you. The critic frames that as a meaningful difference in how the two products treat the person sitting at the keyboard.
A brief history of the Microsoft Office Ribbon
The Ribbon debuted with Microsoft Office 2007, replacing the menus and toolbars that had defined the product family since the 1990s. It was one of the most visible redesigns in consumer software, and it drew fierce backlash at launch. So many users objected that Microsoft eventually included a “Show Classic Menu” option in Office 2007 and 2010 — a concession to the outcry that was quietly dropped in later releases.
Since then, the Ribbon became the standard. It carried over into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, and it remains the default in today’s Microsoft 365 and Office 2021. Microsoft has refined it over the years — adding a search box, a customizable Quick Access Toolbar, ribbon context tabs that appear only when relevant, and a dark mode — but the core model has not fundamentally changed.
For businesses, that transition carried a hidden cost. When the Ribbon launched, organizations worldwide had to retrain employees on a fundamentally different interface, and IT teams fielded months of support requests. That experience shaped how Microsoft approached later UI changes, which tend to be more incremental rather than disruptive.
LibreOffice’s alternative approach
LibreOffice has taken a different route. With its Tabbed Toolbar, introduced in LibreOffice 7.0, the free office suite offers a Ribbon-like experience that mirrors Microsoft’s layout — but it is explicitly not the only option. Users can switch between the tabbed interface, a traditional menu bar, and a classic toolbar layout, all without installing third-party add-ins.
That flexibility is precisely what the critic says Office is missing. The argument is that a genuinely user-controlled application should let people choose their layout rather than committing everyone to a single design decided upstream. For a product built on open-source principles, offering that choice feels like a natural extension of its identity.
What this means for you
For most everyday users, this debate is largely academic. The Ribbon works well enough that few people notice it, and its visual, icon-driven layout does make many commands easier to find at a glance. If you’ve worked in Office for years, you’ve already adapted, and the idea of going back to menus may feel more frustrating than familiar.
But if you prefer menus, rely on keyboard-driven workflows, or simply dislike the icon-heavy tabs, Office gives you limited native ways to get back to something closer to the classic experience. That limitation is exactly what the critic is pushing against, and it’s a fair one to raise.
How to get more choice in Office
If the Ribbon isn’t your preference, a few options exist. The Quick Access Toolbar can be customized to surface your most-used commands at the top of the window, reducing the need to dig through tabs. Many power users also lean on third-party add-ins that recreate classic menu bars, though these aren’t supported by Microsoft and can break whenever Office updates.
For those who want real layout freedom, LibreOffice remains the free alternative that offers it out of the box. It’s a small but meaningful distinction in a market where most people never think about which interface they’re using — until someone points out that they don’t actually have a choice.
Source: Neowin
Over to you: Would you switch to LibreOffice just to get back a classic menu layout, or do you think the Ribbon’s design is worth the trade-off?
