Tell Me About... Office 2007

Office 2007

by Michael E. Callahan aka Dr. File Finder

This question submitted by Amanda Greely, Donovan Adams, ShawnaWilliams, Donna Picolo, Walt Kovinski, and numerous others

The last two weeks I've been talking about Windows Vista which isslated to be out early in 2007, possibly late 2006. Right now, however,Vista is not the only new and/or update product being worked on byMicrosoft. There's a new server edition, a virtual machine test, and ofcourse, Office 2007. Many of you have written me asking aboutthis new version of office so I'm going to spend a little time tellingyou about it.

The tools you use in an office environment consist of aword processor, a spreadsheet, a presentation maker, and more. Theseprograms help you to get the job done while giving you professionalresults. People get very attached to these programs because they usethem every day. These type of products have evolved over the years andI'm going to take just a few minutes to reflect back on that.

Back in the early days of DOS (Disk Operating System) the big wordprocessor of the day was WordStar. Almost without exception, ifyou used a computer WordStar was your word processor. Eventually,however, products like WordPerfect and Microsoft Word cameout and challenged WordStar. Eventually WordStar disappeared from thescene.

Around 1986 the competition between WordPerfect and Word was fierce. Notnecessarily by the companies, but by the users. People defended the wordprocessor they used and would respond to anyone who implied the productthey used was not the best. On some of the early online systems, likeThe Source, there were entire forums devoted to the debate ofwhich word processor was better. At that time I personally usedWordPerfect, but many used Word. It was interesting to see how peoplewould defend their choice of word processor from attack.

To the best of my knowledge, Microsoft was the first to release apackage of tools that included all the thing you need. Wordprocessor, spreadsheet, database, presentation ... it all came out inthe form Microsoft Office. Over the years "Office" has hadnumerous improvements to the way it works. It's also had improvements tothe thing it can do. With Office 2007, however, they've alsochanged the way the product looks!

Office 2007 has a totally new "look and feel" about it. LikeVista it's "different". If you've used Office, or any of itsparts, for any length of time, you're going to be surprised by Office2007. The interface is changed. Take Microsoft Word. You'll now findthings on "tabs" that go across the page. You have a "home" tab,one for "Insert", one for "Page Layout", and so on. The benefit of thisnew system is that everything that pertains to page layout is onthe Page Layout tab. Click to the "Insert" tab and you can easily insertpictures, clip art, charts, hyperlinks, drawings, and more.

These changes can be found in all the programs that make up Office 2007.The top bar is now called the "ribbon" and you find it throughoutthe Office suite of programs. The biggest question I've been asked is:

"How do you like Office 2007?

Personally, I like it! A lot! Yes, it takes a little time to getused to the changes, but that's true with anything. It takes me timewhenever I get a new vehicle to find where they put the light switch. Myimpression is that it makes Office easier-to-use and for a wider rangeof users. Heck, it's downright easy to find things you tend to use most.They've added cool features like displaying the new font and size as yougo to select it, so you can see exactly what you're getting. I think thechange of interface actually improved the functionality of Microsoft PowerPoint. The changes if Office 2007 are huge and Ithink they make each product a bit better and a bit easier to use. Iknow that's important for me.

In a time when many are willing to let success stand rather than "rockthe boat", Microsoft, in my opinion, dove right in! They sunk the "boat"and then brought it back even better than before. Yes, it's differentand to those of you who think that's wrong I say, "So what?" Oftendifferent is good and in this case it absolutely is good. So, giveOffice 2007 a try and download the beta version. When you doemail me and tell me what you think. I think it rocks!

I'd like to thank Amanda Greely, Donovan Adams, ShawnaWilliams, Donna Picolo, Walt Kovinski, and numerous othersfor asking this question.

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