Microsoft – Restoring Open/Save dialogue experience for Microsoft Office apps

Microsoft – Restoring Open/Save dialogue experience for Microsoft Office apps


Problem

When using the latest Microsoft Office on Windows 10/11 with JAWS or ZoomText users may discover the traditional Open/Save dialogue box experience has been replaced by the backstage user interface which is confusing to use.


Applies to

  1. Microsoft Office 2010 and later


Resolution

Please choose from the below methods how to resolve this problem:


Method 1 - Use new hotkeys

One can access the traditional open/save experience using the following hotkeys:

  1. Open File - Control+F12 – Open file
  2. Save File - F12


Method 2 - Restore Open/Save experience

One can also restore the Open/Save experience previously attached to CONTROL+S and CONTROL+O for convenience.  This will disable access to the Microsoft backstage UI experience using the same hotkeys.

Using the mouse

  1. Click File > Options > Save.
  2. Then click to check the option “Don’t show backstage when opening or saving files with keyboard shortcuts”.
  3. Then click OK button.

Using the keyboard

  1. Press ALT+F and press down arrow to Options and press ENTER.
  2. In the Options dialogue press DOWN ARROW until you reach Save in the categories list.
  3. Press TAB until you reach the option and press SPACEBAR to enable “Don’t show backstage when opening or saving files with keyboard shortcuts”.
  4. Press TAB to reach OK button and press SPACEBAR on it. 

After making the above changes; Microsoft Office app will respond to pressing the CONTROL+O or CONTROL+S keystrokes by providing the Open/Save dialogue experience instead of the backstage UI.

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