Select Tabs of Unresponsive Ribbon in Office 2011

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Jan 21, '11 07:30:00AM • Contributed by: Andrew J Freyer

One of the most desirable features in Office 2011 is the customizability of the new ribbon and toolbars. I disabled the toolbar because its functionality was substantially duplicated within the ribbon.

This presents a problem though: Once the toolbar is disabled, every now and then the ribbon tabs become completely unresponsive. There is a thread on the Office for Mac forums recognizing this problem.

The solution suggested at the forum link is to re-enable and then disable the toolbar. I have found this solution is cumbersome, time consuming, and often does not address the issue.

I found that if you click on the very top edge of the unresponsive tab, it will select as expected. Here's a screenshot.

I have submitted a bug report to Microsoft, as I am sure others have, and hopefully this bug will be fixed soon.

[crarko adds: I haven't tested this one.]

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Select Tabs of Unresponsive Ribbon in Office 2011
Authored by: AlanU on Jan 21, '11 08:50:03AM

A useful hint, but what I would love to know is whether it is possible to add/remove commands from the ribbon. It seems much less customizable than the toolbar.

Select Tabs of Unresponsive Ribbon in Office 2011
Authored by: Anonymous on Jan 21, '11 10:12:11AM

Why would you possibly want to customize the ribbon? Microsoft knows best!

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/officesetupdeploy/thread/16af0d2b-ebc9-46df-aea9-219a0346596a/

(Edited because link: tag redirects back to macworld.com...)

Edited on Jan 21, '11 10:14:31AM by

Select Tabs of Unresponsive Ribbon in Office 2011
Authored by: Jeremy Young on Oct 28, '11 03:58:24AM

Genius - that works fine, it had been really bugging me especially as i find i want to switch between review an home tabs and the home tab frequently goes unresponsive. Very unimpressive of microsoft that this is still an issue

Select Tabs of Unresponsive Ribbon in Office 2011
Authored by: alexestevez on Apr 22, '12 05:42:52PM

I can't believe it. I agree, genius. I've been working for months on a thesis and it's been really annoying to have to restart word every 2 hours because of that. Thanks to you, problem solved. Thanks.

Select Tabs of Unresponsive Ribbon in Office 2011
Authored by: banjopotato on Aug 27, '13 08:43:09AM

What is unbelievable (or would be, if this weren't Microsoft we're talking about) is that here it is nearly September 2013, almost three full years after this was posted, and the problem persists! I'm using Microsoft Word 2011 version 14.3.6 (the most recent) and I still can't reliably select tabs in the ribbon. How many updates to the software have their been since the OP wrote this? And it's still not fixed! I like to work full screen (but not in Focus View). I can usually hit just the top of the tab if I need to but frequently I go to far and the app menu flips down. Seriously, I swear I'm going to switch word processors one of these days...

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