Microsoft Office 2007 easier to use

Microsoft Office 2007 is easier to use, says David Pogue of the New York Times. The User Interface has been completely redesigned. Drop down menus have been replaced by a contextual Ribbon that displays all the features applicable to what you are doing at the time.

1. The tabs across the top are designed to be task oriented. Clicking on a tab the Ribbon will display all the features applicable to that task.

2. Groups within each task break a task into possible subtasks. The most often used features are displayed by group.

3. Task buttons are the same icons we have come to know in previous versions of Office. It will take a little time for experienced users to get used to the new Ribbon, but it really is much more intuitive and easy to use.

David Pogue does a great job summarizing the changes;

After a radical redesign, Word, Excel and PowerPoint are almost totally new programs. There are no more floating toolbars; very few tasks require opening dialog boxes, and even the menu bar itself is gone. (Evidently, even Microsoft saw the need for a major feature purge. "We had some options in there that literally did nothing," said Paul Coleman, a product manager.)

Instead, almost the entire world of formatting options has been dug out of Office's guts and artfully arranged on a top-mounted strip of controls called the Ribbon.

You no longer have to spend 20 minutes hunting through menus for Page Numbering or whatever. It's all right there on the Ribbon. What was once buried four layers deep is now arrayed before you in a big software smorgasbord.

You can try out the new Office 2007 via a free download at www.microsoftoffice.com

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Comments

[Ben]

Don,

I'm cautious, but anxious, to upgrade to Vista and to Office '07. Word on the street has it that Outlook 2007 is no longer using IE, and now uses Word, to render HTML emails.

This might be considered trivial to most users, but significant for others. To my knowledge, Microsoft hasn't addressed this issue publicly, and I'm wondering what your thoughts are on this? Or, if MS has addressed this, what the future holds in store. Technically and personally speaking, I think it's a significant drawback.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=200

[Olivier Ezratty]

I've been using Office 2007 since november. The new UI is nice. But frankly, i'm continuously losing a lot of time wandering around in these toolbards to find the functions I need. Sometime, I do more clicks to do my work because features are scathered around in these toolbars. On top of that, when migrating from Office 2003, my macros and personal toolbar disappeared. I had to recreate myself macros and a toolbar and it's less convenient than before with its small icons up in the Office window.

Net net, O-07 might be well designed for newsbies to Office, and there are not many, but it's a pain for upgraders as far as UI is concerned. There are still many new interesting features, particularly for graphics handling.

I wish MS had better taken into account upgraders in its design process. Like providing a choice to keep the old menus for example.

[Zeithjs]

I can not open file of office excel 2007 haveing the program of office excel 2003. It is very difficult for me to work on this office excel 2007, if it does not open in other computer haveing program of office excel 2003

[DonDodge]

Zeithis, In Office 2007 you can save a file to the Office 2003 format so that your existing version of Office can read it. Have you tried this?

If you are starting with an Office 2003 version...no problem. Office 2007 can read it. Upon opening the file for the first time it will ask you if you want to convert it to Office 2007.

[Leonel]

Office 2007 it's the worst thing i ever seen.

Really I love the toolbars and always need them active.

I use a lot of features in a customized toolbars and i cant do it anymore.

I only going to use office 2007 until microsoft made something to let me customize my own tasks.

[Marsha Johnson]

Office 2007 is very nice in terms of GUI but its totally different from 2003 and takes alot of getting used to and its like fishing continiously for commands. Its like going back to school after leaving school over 20 years.