Microsoft Office 2007

Microsoft Office 2007

Brad Wardell on 13 May 2006 - 20:06 · 31 comments & 35976 views

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As previously reported by Neowin, Word 2007 will support blog posting. To add to this, Microsoft has commited to having the HTML posted from Word be very very clean.

In addition, Office 2007 will run both on Windows Vista and Windows XP. The article below gives a more detailed first look including screenshots of what Office 2007 currently looks like under Windows XP vs. Windows Vista. The new UI is a major departure from the past.

Many developers are wondering whether this UI should be adopted elsewhere. Microsoft has begun using the orb-like UI (from the Windows Vista Start button) in other applications as well despite there being no mention of it in the Windows Vista UI guidelines.

Link: A First look at Office 2007 and its new UI

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#1 JorgeIvan on 13 May 2006 - 20:14

It looks so nice

#2 tibi08 on 13 May 2006 - 20:19

It looks much better in Vista

(1 reply) #3 Audhumla on 13 May 2006 - 20:24

I guess the top toolbars are supposed to be intuitive but it just seems.. awkward when you're so used to the old design.

#3.1 strekship on 13 May 2006 - 20:33

Im sure that most people will get used to it after they have used it a few times. I really like the new UI compared to the old one.

(1 reply) #4 *John* on 13 May 2006 - 20:32

Windows XP compatability is excellent news for people like me, who wont be confident upgrading to Vista until SP2 (If at all! )

However, as an Office 2003 user, i'm still wondering whether making the jump (considering the cost) to Office 2007 will be worth it?

#4.1 Julius Caro on 13 May 2006 - 20:46

By looking at the screenshots this seems the only release that has substantial UI changes compared to the previous one. It better be worth it, lol!

(4 replies) #5 KenLin on 13 May 2006 - 20:54

I can't help thinking that upgading to office 2007 will be a major challenge for your average non-technical office worker.

So, we would incur training costs if we did this upgrade. Add the cost of the upgrade and lack of compelling features, and we will definitely pass on this version.

... might even evaluate openoffice

#5.1 SomeAzn on 13 May 2006 - 21:14

Why would you evaluate open office? The UI is different. If anything, the new MS Office UI is easier to learn than open office because it uses lots of pictures and little preview windows. And the ribbon lets the user "hunt" for options faster.

If companies dont want to pay for training costs, they will stick with Office '03

#5.2 markjensen on 13 May 2006 - 21:29

^^^ Huh?

Microsoft fans have often cited "training" as a cost of changing from MS Office to OpenOffice.org. Now, Microsoft makes a huge change to their UI, and the OO.o interface is much more like the traditional MS Office, and people still throw training out against OpenOffice?

Seems there is more work in learning MS Office 07, than in OpenOffice 2. SomeAzn even things that there will be NO training costs with this new MS Office version - seems very odd...

EDIT: Changed MS Office 03 typo to 07. D-oh!

Last edited by markjensen on 13 May 2006 - 23:23

#5.3 KenLin on 13 May 2006 - 21:39

Office XP -> Office 2007 is a much more difficult transition than Office XP -> OpenOffice

#5.4 excalpius on 13 May 2006 - 21:48

I think the new interface looks effortlessly easy to learn and use. Whereas the current Office and OpenOffice iterations are not...

#6 excalpius on 13 May 2006 - 21:46

I don't care about a LONG overdue interface refresh.

Will they LOWER THE PRICE enough to make upgrading from all of the past, more than serviceable, versions of Office reasonably? Especially since I can guarantee this thing will be loaded with WGA/WPA up the whazoo...

I really want to upgrade all of my purchased, legit versions of office to this new one. It's the first one that seems WORTH upgrading to. But I'm only upgrading my main machine's license if they keep jacking up the prices...period.

And MS loses money, in my case at least. At $100 an upgrade, I'd update 5 machines, but at $300 an upgrade, I'll only update 1 of them.

#7 Lee® on 13 May 2006 - 21:50

It looks so pretty.

#8 mattrobs on 13 May 2006 - 22:38

It's all good, except for that title bar. It's just too curved and ruins the whole "professional word processor" look.

And how exactly does this follow the Vista UI Guidelines? (not referring to the mention in the article)

#9 m-head on 13 May 2006 - 23:02

I think I will like using Office 2007 much more than previous versions, when the establishment I am with at the time upgrades to it, that is.

#10 Galley on 14 May 2006 - 00:46

I love the interactive toolbars; something GoBeProductive had 10 years ago.

http://www.gobe.com/

#11 ruey on 14 May 2006 - 02:16

when was the last UI change before this? coz the last few times I checked the UI, it looked the same as it does now.

(3 replies) #12 g_denne on 14 May 2006 - 04:18

Microsoft Office has been so overpriced in recent years I can't believe people actually buy it when there are free versions just as good, i.e. Open Office. Sure, if it comes bundled with a PC I'd use it, but to pay the $300-400 for Office?

At that price, I'd want it to write for me while I sit back drinking a pina colada.

#12.1 MrCobra on 14 May 2006 - 05:33

Whether OO is just as good or not, it may be, but the application I depend on is Outlook. Nothing can touch Outlook for what it does. Nothing else that I have seen or tried can connect to an Exchange server reliably or if at all.

#12.2 g_denne on 14 May 2006 - 07:23

Agree, Outlook is a killer app. Probably what keeps MS Office alive.

#12.3 theyarecomingforyou on 14 May 2006 - 09:08

Outlook and Word are the killer apps... the new interface for Word really improves things and saves a lot of time.

#13 X-NITRO on 14 May 2006 - 04:33

Its neat this new version of office. I like the layout because it organizes everything rather than the previous 2003's layout. It's going to be a challange though because think about it, we've been using the same layout since 97 or earlier came around. As for buying this product, It's seriously up to you. You can buy it because it looks pretty and might do jumping jacks for you, or you can use 2003 and save the money. The reality behind it is that when this "advanced office" comes out, half the worlds population will get it for free through pirated copies on the internet. But, I use this a lot at my school, and it looks very nice compared to the 2003 version that I'm using.

(1 reply) #14 callumy on 14 May 2006 - 04:45

At last Microsoft has added an automatic word counting feature to the status bar in Word. 2003 (to my knowledge) doesn't have this, yet Office X for Mac (2002) does! Finally I won't have to do a manual word count!

Cal

#14.1 Sacha on 14 May 2006 - 06:53

Manual word count? Are you kidding me? That would be sad, sad, sad!
Unless by manual you mean pressing in one key combination or clicking your mouse twice, afaik it has always done automatic word count.

In any version of Word you should be able to highlight the text or highlight nothing to mean all text and then do Tools->Word Count. This will show you how many sentences, characters, paragraphs *AND* words.

I don't have word installed, but I believe previous word versions even had your words counted in the status bar (possibly an option you have to turn on and is not on by default).

#15 Phi on 14 May 2006 - 08:39

I reckon the UI (layout etc.) is a fantastic evolution of previous versions, however, these images are from the second Beta, correct me if I'm wrong... really ugly glassy idea... the original UI from Beta 1 was really sexy, I think it's a real shame they didn't carry on with that.

(1 reply) #16 ozgeek on 14 May 2006 - 08:54

No more Microsoft Office for me. I have stopped using MS Office when I discovered that OpenOffice does same and more.

MS Office is overpriced and bloated. The "ribbon" interface looks like it's easy to use but in reality it might be as hard to use as the interface of the previous office version would be.

Can you do a very nice poster about a wedding in Word? OpenOffice's Writer can too. Can you do nifty slides in PowerPoints to show off your unprofessionalism with overhyped animations and fancy sounds? OpenOffice can do same. I don't care about outlook because Sunbird + Thunderbird = FREE alternative.

It's just that those who diss Openoffice have not tried OpenOffice hard enough, hence wasting their precious $$ that would be better spent elsewhere such as a nice new video card or mainboard+cpu for your current computer so you can enjoy more games.

#16.1 Emphatic on 15 May 2006 - 10:27

Funny you say it's bloated when by some way the Office apps are the fastest opening and running applications on my system - Word opens instantly (seriously - faster than Firefo

. You look at the time it takes Adobe/Macromedia or Quark etc... to get going and it's pretty fantastic.

Also Free is only free if your time means nothing to you - if I have to spend time getting a program to do what I want or working round it's limitations it's not free - my time is money at work and I'd prefer not to waste it at home.

That I haven't checked out Open Office for a while so I'm not sure where it's at these days but it certainly used to lack the review and proofing tools I use in Word a lot as one example of a previous deal breaker.

#17 Kaspers on 14 May 2006 - 10:16

Is it possible to use the old classic menu style with office 2007 ?

#18 TruckWEB on 14 May 2006 - 12:34

Where is Office 2007 Beta on MSDN?? Once again, MSDN users are left in the dark. MSDN used to be good, to let people see what was comming from MS. It's the same thing with Vista.

#19 Tran Huu Phuc on 15 May 2006 - 09:52

link download office 2007 + Serial
thanks

#20 Yun4 on 17 May 2006 - 10:10

yeah i like that too

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