The WOW is NOW

I would like to start out by saying sorry I have not posted in a while. But lets get reading.

A lot of my friends have given great feedback about Windows Vista but, I personally have not had my go at Vista just quite yet. However I have been using Office 2007 since September and I must say that the "WOW" has arrived. I know many companies are advising against upgrading to Vista or Office 2007. I must disagree even though it has a lot of changes and it may be scary, it is a definitely worth the upgrade. Many things have changed in Office 2007 and the sooner you jump in and learn the better off you are.

Office 2007 is more productive and simply better looking. New in Office 2007 is the "ribbon" system that spans the top of the user interface. The ribbon system replaces the old file-view menu system and places everything in one space. Depending on what element you have selected different tabs may appear. For example when an image is selected a drawing tab appears which may remind you of the old drawing toolbar that would popup. Another thing added to the top is the new "office button" which looks almost identical to the new start menu in Vista. This menu has all the important functions such as print, save, and properties.



Another wonderful feature in Office 2007 is that when you select an element and highlight a configuration setting it auto previews what it will look like. For example if you have text highlighted and go to one of the preconfigured styles it will auto preview on mouse over what the text will look like.


Something I have heard a lot of complaining about is that Microsoft decided to change the format of the Office documents. They changed them from the standard format (.doc, .ppt, .xls, etc.) to an XML format (.docx, .pptx, .xlsx, etc.). The main reason people are complaining is because Microsoft will not be releasing a converter for Mac until later this year. Microsoft has already released a converter for Windows though. This really is not a very big deal because you can always save the file in the old Office 97-2003 format or you can save it as a PDF or XPS file. The nice thing about the new XML format is that it takes half the space of a normal file, of course until all your coworkers switch over it either takes half the space more than the old one since you will have two files on the computer.


I mentioned earlier that you can now save directly to a PDF file without the need for Adobe's multi-hundred dollar program. You can also save in an XPS format which is Microsofts new PDF killer. Microsoft develop this due to the popularity of the PDF whether XPS will come out on top only time will tell.


Microsoft's intention in Office 2007 was to make your lives easier and more productive. Do I think they accomplished this, absolutely I think they accomplished their goal with 110% satisfaction. I know a lot of people are complaining about this being hard drive based rather than following the other guys and using Web 2.0. Microsoft did not do this because Office 2007 has been in development since 2003. If you do not remember all the way back to 2003 there was no Web 2.0 and for Microsoft to change it to a web application would have delayed the release. If you are disappointed however do not go anywhere because in the coming weeks we will be taking a look at Office 13 and Office 14 which are Office 2007's predecessors. One of which will be a web application and one of which we will just have to wait and see.

This has been your daily dose of eNews.