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diff --git a/wired/old/published/msoffice2007/office2007.txt b/wired/old/published/msoffice2007/office2007.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..45e37c0 --- /dev/null +++ b/wired/old/published/msoffice2007/office2007.txt @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +Today Microsoft Office 2007 hits the shelves of your local retailer. Office 2007 is the first major upgrade to the popular Office suite in over four years is being billed as the "killer app" for Windows Vista, which also arrives today.
The Office franchise is Microsoft's second-biggest cash cow behind Window and with the increasing popularity of open source alternatives to Office and growing web-based office tools, Microsoft has a lot riding on both of these releases.
Office 2007 introduces a new default document format (OOXML story link) and features a radically overhauled interface dubbed Ribbon. Ribbon replaces the toolbar menu features of previous versions with tabbed window bar that provides easier access to features that used to hide in a labyrinth of submenus.
Paul Coleman, Senior Marketing Manager says one of the goals for Office 2007 was "unlocking the power of the user interface and helping users create professional looking content." He goes on to add that "9 out of 10 feature requests we got for 2007 were already in the 2003 product, people just couldn't find them."
Office 2003 had 1500 items buried in menus, "we sort of ran out of space to add new features," Coleman notes.
Ribbon will likely introduce many users to previously buried features they might never have found. Some might argue that Ribbon isn't all that different from the style pallets that existed in previous version of Office, but the old pallets were mainly limited to styling tools whereas Ribbon exposes nearly every menu feature.
Coleman says that usability studies "showed that average user of Office 2003 regularly accesses about 23 core features, but with the new Ribbon interface that number has climbed to 60 or 70."
The old style question and answer dialogues still exist for power users, but casual and non-technical users will likely welcome the more visual, icon-oriented tools.
###Word
Probably the best known of the many applications that comprise the Office suite, Word 2007 has a number of significant enhancements. The Ribbon toolbar, though it takes some getting used to, really does make it easier to access frequently used tools. Ribbon also provides some nice enhancements to existing tool such as style previews. When you select text and hover your mouse over a style setting, Word 2007 does a live preview of what the changes will look like when you apply them.
Highlights of Words new features include a document comparison tool that divides the Word window into a three pane workspace and lets you see differences between documents, and a new blogging mode which can connect to most popular blog hosting services.
##Outlook
After Word the next most used program in Office is undoubtedly Outlook, which has also received a massive overhaul. Outlook's main interface doesn't utilize Ribbon, as Coleman says, "Outlook is more of a 'explorer' that helps you get to your information, there wasn't the UI crunch that exists in other programs."
Still Outlook 2007 does use ribbon in compose mode and other viewing modes where menu options exist. New features in Outlook include a new To-Do panel, and RSS reader and auto account set up. The To-Do replaces and improves upon what was called "daily view" in previous versions, and data in the new To-Do panel is fully editable. The RSS reader in Outlook uses the same back-end data as the Internet Explorer RSS reader which means the two will always be in sync.
The auto account set-up is a much-touted attempt to auto-magically configure your Exchange Server, IMAP, or POP3 email accounts when you enter your user name and password. As you might expect it works best with Exchange accounts, but it was also able to auto configure my GMail account. However it failed to discover my IMAP info, but for those cases where it doesn't work, it's easy to slip into advanced mode and fill in the information yourself.
##conclusion
We tested Office on both Windows XP and the new Vista and found that it performed well on both versions of Windows. Using Vista with Aero Glass enabled, the Office apps get a glassy, shiny look, and the Vista Explorer will show Office document text in the preview pane, but for the most part there's no need to upgrade your system to take advantage of the new Office interface.
Oh yeah and the best reason to upgrade -- that stupid paperclip is gone.
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