14 DAY TRIAL // An upgraded version of a game/training tool offered by Microsoft to help users master the Ribbon/Fluent GUI of Office 2010 and 2007 is now available for download. Ribbon Hero allows customers to play games testing their knowledge of the latest two iterations of Microsoft’s productivity suite, with a focus on the Ribbon graphical user interface. The recent update introduced to Ribbon Hero expands the number of Office components covered by the training tool to four, adding OneNote to Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
“That's right, you can now earn a lot more points by using Ribbon Hero in either OneNote 2007 or OneNote 2010. OneNote is a great app with lots of exciting features to discover, which makes it a perfect match for Ribbon Hero. Here are just a few of the OneNote features around which we've created challenges in Ribbon Hero: converting handwriting to text; copying text from pictures; playing audio; using tags to create powerful to-do lists,” a member of the Office Labs team revealed.
In addition, Microsoft has worked to simplify the setup of Ribbon Hero, per the feedback it has received from users since the tool was launched. The Redmond company is inviting Office 2007 and 2010 customers that attempted to deploy Ribbon Hero in the past and failed to try again. There are two versions of the tool, one for Windows 7 and Windows Vista and another one for Windows XP.
“We've heard your feedback about setup. The biggest issues most people reported were (1) having to be an admin to complete the install, and (2) having to install an additional component (VSTO). We've changed setup to address both of these issues. You no longer have to be an admin to install Ribbon Hero, and we no longer require VSTO to use Ribbon Hero,” the Office Labs team representative added.
The last aspect of the Ribbon Hero upgrade is the new Launcher now available to users. Via the launcher application, customers can start playing Ribbon Hero right from the Windows Start menu. At the same time, the launcher is capable of centralizing all the scores in a single location. Just a reminder, users can share their Ribbon Hero scores on Facebook.
Ribbon Hero is available for download here.