My thanks to Dave who offered some helpful advice about the Office ribbon over the weekend. In case you missed the comment, here is a quick repeat.

“I love the ribbon. I'm a pretty hardcore office user: word, excel, and
powerpoint are essential components of my daily life.

1) When the mouse cursor is in the ribbon region, you can flip through
all of the ribbon categories with the mouse wheel. This essentially
makes every ribbon menu option a 1-click option. The classic menu
sometimes requires up to three clicks (unless you're willing to wait
for sub-menus to pop up on their own). 1-click is better than 3-clicks;
therefore, the ribbon is an improvement on the interface.

2) I hate clicking through menus! If you're using the mouse at
an angle then it's way too easy to "slide off" the menu option you're
trying to select. The assortment of differently sized buttons on the
ribbon solve that problem perfectly. This is another improvement.

3) The largest complaint I've heard here is that its not intuitive and
you have trouble finding things. Well, if you have trouble finding
things, then spend the 20 minutes and learn the interface first. It's a
different interface; it's something that you have to learn. The fact
that it's so easy to learn (it's very visually oriented) is what makes
it "intuitive". “

I’ll just add on Dave’s last point a link to the Interactive Guide: Word 2003 to Word 2007. It’s a clever little Flash app. Find the option you want in the Office 2003 menu system and it will show you where to find it in Office 2007.