Office 2007 (Beta 2)

[mrforgetful]

But it still supports the old file formats and there will be functionality added to Office XP and Office 2003 so they can 'take advantage' of the features and smaller file sizes the new formats benefit from.

As for it being more complicated, I believe the whole point of the new interface is to make it easier to use.
Apparantly the first version of Office had 150 functions whereas 2003 has some 15,000 but using essentially the same menu structure means most are hard to find and never used. The new layout is meant to address these issues.

I like it, but then I'm easily pleased and often don't want to see past the nice new colour schemes lol.

[Geoff]

But it still supports the old file formats and there will be functionality added to Office XP and Office 2003 so they can 'take advantage' of the features and smaller file sizes the new formats benefit from.

Given Microsoft's previous efforts at backwards compatability in Office I remain sceptical. Plus if it hinges on a teacher remembering to do Save As... and select an older format you've already lost the arguement.

As for it being more complicated, I believe the whole point of the new interface is to make it easier to use.

My issue with the interface is that it's different. That in itself causes problems.

Apparantly the first version of Office had 150 functions whereas 2003 has some 15,000 but using essentially the same menu structure means most are hard to find and never used.

No, people don't use the 15,000 functions because they don't need 15,000 functions. 99% of the people who use Office 2k3 would be just as happy using Office 97 or indeed OpenOffice.

[Quackers]

I've given the less computer/office literate users in the school and the more office literate users a little play with Office 2007. Both seemed to prefer it after a few minutes of using it. Its more intuitive then previous versions, all functions are always where you need them.

We WANT to buy it when it comes out, if we cannot afford we shall have to stay with Office 2003 for a bit longer. ICT want the save as PDF feature.

It just looks so tasty.

[mrforgetful]

I agree doing a Save As... is more than most people are willing to learn how to do, but at the end of the day that's not Microsoft's fault, there has to be some way of choosing and a choice is a problem for most staff.
But with all the benefits (hopefully) of the new formats I'm sure even most teachers wil be willing to learn something.

As for being different causing problems, I agree it will, but at the end of the day you can't stick with something just for the sake of it being the easier option, progress has to be made and being in the IT field you should realise this, or else maybe it's not the right field.

I don't use 15,000 functions no, I use about 3, open, save and change font. But the point is, if that changing font was function 15,001 I'd be rather miffed it wasn't there.
It's like the Review functions. That seems like a real benefit to schools, I didn't know it was in 2003 but it is (though not as nice). There being the point of the new interface. Ease to find things you didn't know where there.

You never know, maybe now I'll start to use a dozen features

[indiegirl]

I'm fully in agreement with Geoff here. How many of you have a nightmare with students who only have M$ Works at home and not a full Office version? Even though 2003 is backwards-compatible, it's not very well done at all... I hope this is improved in 07... I've not played with it enough to comment.

I also agree that any change of interface is not necessarily a good thing. There were obvious reasons that M$ kept a similar interface from 95 upwards, and that's because it worked. 12 years down the line they're planning to change...

When they changed the OS 3.11 to 95 - most people were horrified at the cheek of M$ to change the layout, how people worked. However, people got used to it. I daresay the same will happen with Vista and Office this time around, although it'll take a lot longer for these products to be accepted and integrated, because 12 years ago there wasn't quite as many PC users in homes, education and certainly businesses as there are today - so the changeover was much easier to implement.

All that said, I think I like this new version, but only as an experienced Office user...

[CyberNerd]

ICT want the save as PDF feature.

Our ICT dept need that too. We gave them OpenOffice and were not forced into a MS upgrade cycle to use it.

Also -wrt the 15000 'features' - I hear that sharepoint is a needed for some of their extra's - is this true?

[Simcfc73]

Macromedia Suite comes with Flashpaper which is a nice PDF convertor. Integrates in Office pretty well.

We are still using office 2000 except on my machine which has 2003 so I can convert all the kiddies work when they bring it in with the wrong format.

[webman]

How many of you have a nightmare with students who only have M$ Works at home and not a full Office version?

We do!!! It's a pain the arse

And as to PDF - you could install PDFCreator (on Sourceforge) on a server and share it out as a printer. For free.

[indiegirl]

I've just locked my machine up when trying to print from Word.... although the auto-recovery looks nice :-)

[Geoff]

To be fair, that's probably a problem in the printer driver.

[Gatt]

Not had much of a play with it but think I could get used to it
Still unable to activate it - and notice that it goes by number of times you OPEN Office, not the number of days.

[mrforgetful]

Not had much of a play with it but think I could get used to it
Still unable to activate it - and notice that it goes by number of times you OPEN Office, not the number of days.

Yeh, I keep wanting to kick myself everytime I accidentally open Outlook instead of Firefox right next to it.
Especially as I can't even check my email lol

[indiegirl]

Still unable to activate it

Moi aussi.

Interesting that although they've changed all the look and layout of the thing, they still haven't worked out a decent error message...

"The Activation Wizard is unable to find a connection to the Internet. Please make sure that your connection is working properly and then retry activation in a few minutes"
(it must be *your* fault, silly damned user - don't even think about blaming us for not being able to find your internet connection :cussing

Do you think that this particular wizard can't find/use proxy servers? Has anyone successfully activated it??

[Gatt]

trying it at home now...

just got it installed and still cant activate it

[Gatt]

just checked the Office Beta website and there does seem to be a problem with online activation but MS arent providing a telephone activation option guess we'll have to wait ....