Office 2007 has been RTM'd

[Josh]

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/office2007_gallery_01.asp

Monday morning at 9:00 EST, Microsoft announced that its long-awaited Office 2007 System was complete, setting the stage for a late November 2006 business rollout of the products and a wider consumer launch in January. Microsoft is touting Office 2007, in tandem with upcoming products such as Windows Vista and Exchange Server 2007, as the linchpin of a new round in corporate spending.

"We've crossed the development finish line, and the team deserves to celebrate," says Microsoft president Jeff Raikes , who oversees the company's Business Division. "The 2007 Microsoft Office system RTM completes the most significant improvements to the products in more than a decade. It's rewarding to be able to send this release off to our customers and help them take the next big leap forward in productivity."

Microsoft had previously announced its Office Technology Guarantee program, which allows customers who purchase new PC with Office 2003 preloaded between October 26, 2006 and March 15, 2007 to receive free or inexpensive upgrades to similar Office 2007 product versions. Details about these so-called cross-grades are available through PC makers.

These screenshots depict the Trial version of the final shipping version of Office 2007 Enterprise. The first part of my Microsoft Office 2007 System review will be available shortly.

-From the article

See the site for screenshots

Office 2007 has been RTM'd

[Renegade]

Hmmm... I suppose it's time to download it and check it out.

I was invited to the beta testing, but just didn't have the time to risk any possible incompatibilities. But, sounds like it's about time to dive in!

Has anyone tried it yet? Any thoughts on what you like or don't like?

[OldElmerFudd]

First, let me say I'm not a power user when it comes to Office. I started with Word 6 (sheer heaven after Works x.x) and have chewed my way through versions 97, 2K Pro, XP Pro, and now 2003 Pro. mostly I use Word, Publisher, and Access. Office 2003 was a nice improvement over Office XP. I liked the UI and the way it handled.

I've been beta testing Office 2007 for a while. It's a BIG change. The UI is very different, and a little tricky to get used to. A lot of familiar menus are gone, replaced by the infamous "ribbon". The UI's very pretty, easy on the eyes. It adds tons of code, of course. After a while I got used to working with everything, although I'd get lost every so often trying find out how to do something familiar.

For power users, a lot of things about the program may not be a problem. What the new UI has done is bring some of the buried aspects of Office up to the surface. Casual or new users of MS Office may love it; between the eye candy and the sort of pictorial aspect of the programs, it might be fairly easy to learn fresh.

The experience was fine, but I'm staying with Office 2003 for a while. It does what I want, when I need to do it.

hth

[cranioscopical]

OldElmerFudd: I've been beta testing Office 2007 for a while. It's a BIG change.

I've not tried 2007 but I suspect I'll have to switch at some point. Nor have I been following its evolution, except in the most casual way.
I read somewhere that it'll be "difficult" to customize its toolbars/menus.
Like many people the first thing I do with any MS-Office product is set up the toolbars to show just the stuff I use most (and/or for which I most often forget the hot-keys).
Tell me, in your experience, should I really anticipate "difficulty" modifying toolbars/menus when using 2007?

[OldElmerFudd]

OldElmerFudd: I've been beta testing Office 2007 for a while. It's a BIG change.

I've not tried 2007 but I suspect I'll have to switch at some point. Nor have I been following its evolution, except in the most casual way.
I read somewhere that it'll be "difficult" to customize its toolbars/menus.
Like many people the first thing I do with any MS-Office product is set up the toolbars to show just the stuff I use most (and/or for which I most often forget the hot-keys).
Tell me, in your experience, should I really anticipate "difficulty" modifying toolbars/menus when using 2007?

-cranioscopical (November 09, 2006, 12:00 PM)

OK, let me see if I can explain this clearly.
a) You can't modify toolbars and menus in Office 2007. MS decided to limit the customization that a few users enjoyed in the previous versions. They felt only about 2% of Office users create custom menus and toolbars; Office 2007 ate up a lot of their development resources, so they decided not to add any support problems. Personally, IMHO this was done for their benefit, not for users.
2) You CAN import your older version menu/toolbar mods. On the Word UI, either on the title bar or below the ribbon, there's a small group of icons for the Quick Access Toolbar. This sucker is where about 10 of the 15 customizations possible are accessed. Trouble is, ALL your legacy stuff is loaded onto the "Add-In" tab. It's a PITA as far as I'm concerned, and part of the reason I'm not eager to switch from 2003 Pro. (It doesn't strike me as money well spent!) OTH, if I was a business/corporate user, then maybe.

I'm just a small consulting operation; I can't even type!

BTW, a last word about "the ribbon". Each Office app has its own version, but just one ribbon. The exception (surprise!) is Outlook; it has about 20 separate ribbons, each for a particular function. No problem in my world. I avoid Outlook like I avoid Outlook Exress amd Messenger and....
well, you get the idea.

HTH

[cranioscopical]

OldElmerFudd: where about 10 of the 15 customizations possible are accessed. Trouble is, ALL your legacy stuff is loaded onto the "Add-In" tab

Thanks for the response. Doesn't sound encouraging... I can see 2003 staying around on my system for a while yet.

[zridling]

Also, the ribbon PowerPoint is a mess. It changes depending on where your insertion point is at any given time. So it seems that every other time you look up, you're not looking at the same ribbon! Beware, because the WGA validation program has now been extended to Office 2003-07, if you don't like that.

I've been using the 2007 beta most of the year and the new UI's emphasis is just as OldElmerFudd stated — to help users find and use more of its features. But expect your learning curve of Word 2007 to increase if you're a long-term current user. Word 2007 works hard to embed a broad arrary of desktop publishing features to the word processor. However, it falls short in the academic arena and students and researchers should be advised not to use Word 2007's bibliographic feature (I'll explain in a review next month). Another annoyance is that Microsoft left all the old dialogs in place and none of them are resizable (why!). I still rue what they did to keyboard shortcuts. However, if your work demands consistent graphic documents, such as brochures, catalogs, extensive reports, or broad collaboration on projects, then Microsoft Word 2007 is well worth your time and money.

Otherwise, OpenOffice 2.x is really almost Office 2003, not Office 97 as is often quoted. Give it another try, and if you want OpenOffice with a cool database component, then consider StarOffice 8.x.