Microsoft Office 2007 - Professional product reviews

I've been a regular user of Microsoft Office for quite some time - if I say just how long, I'm sure I will start feeling very old and nostalgic.
In all that time, Office has changed - not always dramatically, but always with additions and increased functionality. So when I installed this package - WOW. Not just an increase in the function of Office, but a major overhaul throughout.

On firing this baby up - you are confronted with a whole new look. Gone is the old menu and tool bar, now it is ribbons throughout.

Word has been one application I have spent a huge amount of time on, that I think I have spent more time on Word than any other application, so to be presented with a whole new interface was a little surprise.
Taking to the new application requires some time getting used to here everything is, but having said that, once you have spend some time learning where everything is, the new interface is quite intuitive.

The one thing that confused me to start with was not being able to find the print menu - which is now cleverly hidden behind a 'start menu' type button - from there you will find everything that was formerly in the "File" menu.

One welcome new addition is the slider in the bottom right-hand corner that increases magnification of the document smoothly.

Excell is the other application I tend to use very frequently, and again, the ribbon menu replaces the old drop-down menu of previous versions.
Again, the 'File' menu is hidden behind a button on the top left side. It would be a helpful to have this button with something a descriptive on it, rather than the new logo - but that is a minor gripe, because it took me ages to find out the menu was hidden behind it.

All the old functions of Excell are still there, and if there are new functions added, I still have to find them.

I rarely use the other applications in Microsoft office and so I wouldn't be able to give a decent or fair comparison or review.

In short, Office 2007 is a radical revamp of previous versions of Office, and it has been a long time coming. Now it is here - it could be another 20 years before it is revamped again. It looks great, works great and is a stunning piece of software.

Well, it has been a while since the mighty Microsoft did a total revisit of their flagship DTP package, MS Office... 4 years in fact. With the recent release of Vista, it seems an appropriate time to put the old jalopy up on the hoist and give her a thorough overhaul and tune-up... and the results have been impressive, with just a few teething troubles to mar the shiny new paintjob. Let's explore, shall we...

Let's start with my personal favourite, Publisher. On Application load, the new "Blank Publication Wizard" is great. I love the "Paper Information" panel down the right-hand side, which gives you all the specifics you need to allow even the most novice user to decide on the right page size for the job. By far the biggest kudo IMHO is that the layout isn't overly different. This means that any experienced user has a very shallow learning curve, and can focus entirely on the new features and functionality, instead of wasting a lot of time trying to locate all the 'normal' features in new locations. The "Publisher Tasks" panel is very conveniently located, and offers tips, tricks, hints and design ideas that improved workflow efficiency, but it would be nice to be able to turn it off... -subtle hint here, developers- This would have to be probably the LEAST cosmetically-overhauled of the suite. A powerful tool I use a lot when it comes to templated documents, the Graphic Manager still operates in much the same way, but works faster and smoother than before... but it still doesn't act 'smart'... for example... imagine a document with 10 copies of the same business card image, all 'linked' to the document, same name, same data, same link etc. If you choose to replace one of the images, it would be nice if it said to itself "Well now, I see 10 of these, I should ask if they want to update all of them at once, or just the one... Hey you... wanna do a batch-job of this?" Sure, you might be wanting to simply change one, but let's look at the odds of that. Template file for business cards, and you only want to change ONE of them? Not likely... Maybe in the next version, they'll have looked at this 'intuitive logic' scenario.

Next on the line-up is another perennial favourite of mine, Access. First impressions, the layout is completely different, which means a steep learning curve even for experienced users, but the functions are now grouped a little more intuitively, meaning that once you have the hang of it, you'll find working with it a lot more productive. Another big improvement is the file format. Files converted to the newer format are usually smaller, sometimes to a very noticable degree, and more efficient, and even though storage space is growing almost geometrically, it's always a good idea to use less per file so you can fit in more files, especially if you store copies of Removable Storage devices. The biggest annoyance I found was that objects with values derived from formulae calculations from other objects don't update immediately, (which the older version did just fine, so...) and sometimes takes up to 3 page-changes to update. A resounding "Not Good". The little 'quick access toolbar' up top can be quite confusing and difficult to deal with unless you have an eidetic memory for small icons... but again, it will just take some getting used to and can actually help speed things up once you have customised it to your own preferences. Upside: You can slap nearly any icon you want in there... Downside: They appear in the order you select them, without the chance to rearrange them later...

Word is next in our gallery of new... Again, a whole new layout and workspace means more tools at your fingertips... if you can find them. Entirely new paradigm means spending a lot of time on retraining. Steep learning curve, but again the tools are laid out in a fairly intuitive way, so once you get the knack, it shouldn't take too long until you are comfortable and focussing on the new features. The biggest 'kudo booster' is the zoom slider down the bottom-right corner, which is a great boon for trying to read 'the fine print' on those technical or legal documents. Once again, the new look has the Quick Access toolbar, as well as the new themed feature... which appears to be another variant of the Start Button, with a stunning new-look and feel flyout menu system inside it. Bigger text, clearer font, contextually appropriate icons... they all add up to some stunning new innovations... all Vista-ready.

Last on my Rogues Gallery is Excel... now this is an application I personally don't use much, since I rarely have need of a spreadsheet, but I do use it on occasion for specialised tasks, such as calculating averages of large volumes of changing values. Again the new look and feel, again the magnification slider in the bottom-right corner. For those HUGE spreadsheets, this is an absolute boon! Assess all your data at once, spot blank zones and empty cells faster than ever, as well as allowing you to zoom in to read that smaller print, and all with far less mousing. Ergonomic gold IMHO. I thought I would take this a little further and test the graphing engine as well... it works very well, slightly faster and smoother than the previous version and the resulting graph is a lot smoother and with more clearly defined lines. Other than the cosmetics, the application seems to be a pretty good improvement over it's predecessors.

Outlook and Powerpoint were not reviewed by me because personally, I find there are other applications out there than suit my purposes better, but I did take a quick peek and there is clear evidence of a new look and feel there too. Other reviewers will perhaps touch on these in more detail later.

Overall, this release is a dramatic reminder of the power of this suite, and the sheer manpower grunt Microsoft can bring to bear on a project. it is also a reminder that no matter how careful your testing processes are, bugs will raise their nasty little heads and need a good slapping later with updates and patches... so nothing really new on that front. -cheeky smirk- However, this is quite an improvement and well worth exploring, especially for heavy-grade users.