This year has been an interesting year in many respects. We have seen Barry Bonds receive much attention for approaching and then breaking the home record. Just recently a federal indictment was handed down against him for perjury and obstruction of justice. On the technology gaming front Nintendo Wiis continue to sell like hotcakes a year after they were released. Good luck on finding one for a family member this holiday season! In addition, Microsoft Office 2007 was released early this year to some fanfare, but many of you perhaps haven’t really delved into this new version of Office. Is it worth the upgrade or investment? I say there is some argument for upgrading to this release.
One of the big changes to Office is its user interface or how you access specific commands that you want to run. Before this version you had menus, toolbars, task panes….finding the actual feature you wanted to use was half the battle!
In place of these interfaces the core programs (Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and Access) now use what are called “ribbons”. As an example, in Word you will have a ribbon that contains commands for changing font, color, bolding, etc. This will appear as a panel that runs along the top of the window the application runs in. This panel will contain buttons similar to a toolbar that will display the commands in a fairly logical manner. The first one when you open word will display commands for fonts, formatting paragraphs, using the clipboard….typical items you will use a lot early when starting a document. Another one will relate to page layout, and when you click that tab button its ribbon will appear along the top of your screen with the associated buttons for that category.
While these ribbons are certainly different than the standard menus and toolbars we have used for many years, I would suggest they make it easier to find the feature you want to utilize in your Word document and save you time in the long run. These ribbons will also react based on the context of the document (have you selected something for formatting such as a word or line?). As you do things on your document, the tabs will adjust (new ones appear) as a result of what you might do next.
Another nice feature is the mini-toolbars, which appear when right clicking or performing some other action like selecting text. It allows you then to perform an action (like bolding) very quickly. If you continue on working, the mini-toolbar will disappear. Nice touch!
On a future post I will discuss some other new things available in Office 2007. I know some people have been talking about the interface being too difficult or different and that they want to stay with their older version. Having it on my home computer now and having worked with it for a while, I understand what Microsoft was trying to do. I agree with the approach, and feel that most people will adapt to this new office suite in a reasonable amount of time.
What have your experiences been with the new office version?
Will you be upgrading or getting it soon? Let everyone know your thoughts!
Click here for more information on the Office 2007 suite.