Thoughts on Office 2007

Z

Zinn

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I just purchased and installed the academic copy of Office 2007 Ultimate, thanks to that promo in HotDeals. Anyway, I like it a lot. The new Outlook is just that much slicker than the old one... and I might be off base since my PC is a lot faster than the Pentium Ds we have at work, but it seems a lot more responsive and quick to start up. The RSS reader is a welcome, although useless (for me) addition.

The new Word interface, really that Ribbon interface in general is just sweet. It's a pretty big step forward after years of doing things the same since Windows 3.1. It was instantly more intuitive for me to start working in Word with the new interface.

I rarely use Powerpoint, and never Excel, Access or the other junk that comes with Office, so no comment on those.

For $60, it seems like a pretty good deal. Could I see paying $700 for the non-Academic copy? No fucking way! OpenOffice is a great alternative.
 
I am also a huge fan of '07. Every thing seemed well thought out and functional. Sure there are some quirks at first, but after that, I love it! Oh, and PowerPoint got a lot more powerful/easy. It's almost impossible to make an ugly presentation now!

I think that OpenOffice is a good competitor to Office '03, but it doesn't come close to '07. Just my opinion though.
 
The interface is a PITA if you want to make it do anything other than the basic things it wants to let you do. Charting in Excel is particularly borked.

Word's a bit nicer, Outlook is bloated as usual.
 
I'm still adapting to the new UI, which is somewhat annoying since I use 2003 at work but I have 2007 software on the notebook.
 
I like office 2007. I'm more used to office 2003, but i'm quickly adjusting to Office 2007. :)
 
I like the new interface, except for in Access. I don't use it a whole lot but when I do, damn, it's hard to maneuver if you used 2003 quite a bit.
 
I just rolled it out this week to my company of 30...and many of them are non-technical. They've all loved it so far, and have shown me several ways it is easier or has saved them time over Office 2003.
 
I like 2007 a LOT, love the new interface. 03 was getting long in the tooth - it was turning into "how many different ways can Microsoft do icon shadows?" I think Powerpoint seems to benefit from the new SmartArt the most - presentations are no longer limited to boring bullets.

I just feel that 07 was half-fast. Why didn't they apply the ribbon to all the programs? And why didn't they fix some of the blatantly obvious issues, like the 2GB pst limitation in outlook?
 
Vette5885 said:
I like 2007 a LOT, love the new interface. 03 was getting long in the tooth - it was turning into "how many different ways can Microsoft do icon shadows?" I think Powerpoint seems to benefit from the new SmartArt the most - presentations are no longer limited to boring bullets.

I just feel that 07 was half-fast. Why didn't they apply the ribbon to all the programs? And why didn't they fix some of the blatantly obvious issues, like the 2GB pst limitation in outlook?
Click to expand...

The claim is that the ribbon interface will be in all programs in the next version of Office. They have to give you a reason to upgrade. ;)

As for myself, I like Outlook 07, not fond of the other programs.
 
I recommend Office 2007 to everyone at work. I love it. But to be fair, I warn employees that if they're too busy to learn something new, Office 2007 might not be for them. But I have it installed on a sample laptop and allow them to give it a try for a couple hours, and if they like it, I'll upgrade for them.

So far 76 employees have Office 2007 and 3 continues to use 2003. Not a bad track record for Microsoft.
 
Vette5885 said:
I like 2007 a LOT, love the new interface. 03 was getting long in the tooth - it was turning into "how many different ways can Microsoft do icon shadows?" I think Powerpoint seems to benefit from the new SmartArt the most - presentations are no longer limited to boring bullets.

I just feel that 07 was half-fast. Why didn't they apply the ribbon to all the programs? And why didn't they fix some of the blatantly obvious issues, like the 2GB pst limitation in outlook?
Click to expand...

A few employees in the company I work for have Outlook quota over 3gb+. By default, Microsoft Exchange sets the quota to 2gb, and if you use Standard Edition, 2gb is the max unless you do a registry hack to increase it (such was my case). So the 2gb PST limitation might not be a client limit, but a server limit.
 
Vette5885 said:
like the 2GB pst limitation in outlook?
Click to expand...

The limit should be 20GB now (unless you are using IMAP). I think the 2GB limit may remain though if you import an old .pst file.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/830336

I started switching users over to Office 2007 in October. Biggest problems I've faced is people having problems using the interface (teachers hate to learn new things) and file compatibility. Since many people still have 2003 or older on their personal computers, we've set Office to save files using the old file types (.DOC instead of .DOCX) by default. Unfortunately you can't set Publisher to do this.

Personally I really like 2007. I think the ribbon is a big improvement. The software seems more stable and refined also.
 
Hurdler said:
I think that OpenOffice is a good competitor to Office '03, but it doesn't come close to '07. Just my opinion though.
Click to expand...
Exactly.
I think it'll always be like this as well... Microsoft will come out with some new interface, and the competition then slips behind... OO really can't copy it as then it would TRUELY be a knockoff.

I like the best for free products like OO, but when it comes right down to it, it has not the support nor feature set that Office does.


Kurn said:
I started switching users over to Office 2007 in October. Biggest problems I've faced is people having problems using the interface (teachers hate to learn new things) and file compatibility. Since many people still have 2003 or older on their personal computers, we've set Office to save files using the old file types (.DOC instead of .DOCX) by default. Unfortunately you can't set Publisher to do this.
Click to expand...

As for my story...

All new PCs I have Office 2007 basic installed on. Yes, there is a learning curve. But for almost all the people I have given it to, they hate it at first (people hate change), but after they get used to it- they love it. Saves time, easier to find things (once you forget the old way). Probably about 50% is on Office 2007 now.

As for the file extensions... I mail out Word documents 2-3 times a week companywide. Eventually at one point I just bit the bullet and mailed out a .docx file. Those that complained they couldn't open it, I installed the compatibility pack to. Now everyone is compatible, and it turned out only 10% of the users didn't have the compatibility pack installed (I believe it was rolled out via MS Update).
 
I like office 2007 very much for the most part. I still think their charting/graphing options are quite lacking. I would say without a doubt my favorite part is seeing the changes in real time, with regards to changing font and font size. Love, love, love that. Excel is also made much much easier, at least for me, who is well aquainted with excel, but not an expert. My friend who uses it for work a lot and knows all the shortcuts, HATES 2007, as some shortcuts are changed, thats his only complaint.

Regards.
 
I love it except for excel. I use Excel 03 at work all day everday and I just am a gimp when I get home to 07. No sweat, I skinned excel back to 03 and left everything else the same. The reference option in word rules.
 
I use word for the most part. After learning the layout the layout, it leaves '03 in the dust.

I have played with outlook, but it is resource heavy and I don't use all of the functions. Thunderbird>Outlook
 
delvryboy said:
I use word for the most part. After learning the layout the layout, it leaves '03 in the dust.

I have played with outlook, but it is resource heavy and I don't use all of the functions. Thunderbird>Outlook
Click to expand...

Unless you use Exchange ;) Nothing beats Outlook/Exchange.
 
The new Word interface, really that Ribbon interface in general is just sweet. It's a pretty big step forward after years of doing things the same since Windows 3.1. It was instantly more intuitive for me to start working in Word with the new interface.
Click to expand...
I agree. The new Word 2007 interface is extreeeeeeemely user-friendly. I was figuring out how to do things I'd wondered about for years just from hovering over the items and reading the (helpful) tool-tips.

I'm a writer, so I recommend it to every writer I know for collaboration with other writers (the changes-tracking features are excellent). For writing any kind of chapter-book, however, I far prefer (and recommend to people) Book Writer, because Word still has no interface for easily managing and flipping through chapters of any kind, as far as I know. Shucks. :( I wrote the first draft of my first novel in Wordpad/Word 2003, but quickly switched out when I found Book Writer.
 
Oh, I forgot to mention the PITA that I keep running into with it.

The file formats aren't compatible with anything but Office 2007, and the market penetration is so low that any time you want to have anyone else see your file you have to export it. Which likes to fubar my math text and special characters (greek letters, or most things not on a US keyboard). It's hilarious when you're giving a powerpoint and all your alphas and angstroms get turned into underscores. And when the "effects" like having your bullet points appear on queue instead of page-at-a-time are nuked.
 
ashmedai said:
Oh, I forgot to mention the PITA that I keep running into with it.

The file formats aren't compatible with anything but Office 2007,
Click to expand...


Not entirely true. Microsoft has free plugin for 97-03 that will allow them to open/save in the new format.
Even was pushed out through Microsoft Update.

Should only be a problem to those with IT departments that are clueless, don't keep their systems updated, or those that are generally just clueless...

I eventually just pushed out a docx document one time, and figured out how many people couldn't open it. I had maybe one.
 
TechieSooner said:
Should only be a problem to those with IT departments that are clueless, don't keep their systems updated, or those that are generally just clueless...

I eventually just pushed out a docx document one time, and figured out how many people couldn't open it. I had maybe one.
Click to expand...

The problem I have is users try to open the documents on their personal computers. A lot of people don't keep their computers updated, are clueless about downloading/installing a converter, or simply saving as a different format. And then there's Publisher, which there is not a converter for.
 
ashmedai said:
Oh, I forgot to mention the PITA that I keep running into with it.

The file formats aren't compatible with anything but Office 2007, and the market penetration is so low that any time you want to have anyone else see your file you have to export it. Which likes to fubar my math text and special characters (greek letters, or most things not on a US keyboard). It's hilarious when you're giving a powerpoint and all your alphas and angstroms get turned into underscores. And when the "effects" like having your bullet points appear on queue instead of page-at-a-time are nuked.
Click to expand...

For the next couple years until most of the world migrates to Office 2007 (and future releases), I always go in Word, Excel, and Powerpoint option, in the Save tab, I change them to 97-2003 format. That way everyone in the office who still use 2003, and our clients who use whatever they use, be it KOffice or OO or Office XP or whatever, will always be able to see our work.

One thing about Office 2007 that bugged me for awhile was when they took away direct scan-to-document feature. Office FAQ tells you you have to scan to image first, then insert pictures into your documents. But I found out a neat trick to get the old scan-to-document ability back.

1. Open Word 2007
2. Click the Office orb (top left corner) and select Word Options
3. Go to Customize tab
4. Click Keyboard Shortcuts: Customize
5. On the Catagories side, select All Commands
6. On the Commands side, select InsertImagerScan
7. Assign it a keyboard shortcut (I use CTRL SHIFT S)

Thats it!

Put your document in the scanner and press CTRL SHIFT S and the old insert-from-scanner interface will pop up just like in Office 2003.
 
Doing a quick skim of all the comments on this thread, it looks like everybody loves it.

As for me, I absolutely hate Office 2007. I'm sticking with 2003.
 
When i Switch folders from Inbox to Deleted Items there is no number in the Task Bar. Also when i delete an email it doesnt disappear from Inbox. But when i go to some other folder and come back it is not there. It takes time to refresh. Also when the mail count takes time to update. Assuming there are 205 mails and i delete 5 of them. It still shows 205 for some time and then updates to 200. This is crazy. Solution required please.....:(
 
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