Gerard Posted May 24, 2006 Share Posted May 24, 2006 Well I got my hands on beta 2 of Microsoft Office 2007, and I absolutely love it. I'm still writing the full review, but in the meantime have a sneaky look at my screenshots in the meantime. The new ribbon interface replaces menus and icons. It's a straightforward set of ideas really: put different icons on different tabs for when you're doing different things. The thing is, unlike many recent innovations, it actually works. When you're writing, you go to the "Home" tab, and everything you need will be there. When you want to add something, you go to the "Insert" tab, and everything you need will be there. When you want to edit a picture, simply select the picture and the "Format" tab pops up, which has absolutely everything you need in it, including shapes, styles, shadows, 3D effects and arranging tools. The second great change of Office 2007 is the expansion of styles. Now you can set predefined styles to pretty much anything (images, pages, text) , and these work in conjunction with the improved theme system. The third great change is Live Previews. When selecting a theme or style to anything, you no longer have to think, guess, undo and repeat. Now all you have to do is hover over the thumnail and your document is instantly updated to reflect what would happen if you chose that. This works for text styles, fonts, font sizes, themes, colours, drawings, positioning, shadows, 3D effects.. everything. I'll leave you to drool over the rest, and you should be able to view the finished review in under 24 hours. Enjoy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Righty Posted May 24, 2006 Share Posted May 24, 2006 I was reading about Office 2007 recently. I guess the magazine was right when they said that it had a completely different interface. I also heard that it saves in some sort of generic kinda .xml format so it can be read with other versions of Office - legaxy versions. A good question is, what are the open source office suites going to do now? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Posted May 24, 2006 Share Posted May 24, 2006 Just make an interface similar to any Apple product and bam they're up to date with M$ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gerard Posted May 24, 2006 Author Share Posted May 24, 2006 Yeah Word 2007 documents are saved as .docx instead of .doc, but the old compatibilities are still there (One option is "Save As Word 97-2003 Document") This is because faster and more versatile XML is used for storing the information and formatting instead of the older unique methods. In fact, most recent Microsoft programs themselves are written partially in XML. I was digging around inside Windows Live Messenger (MSN8) a couple of weeks ago and found the entire XML source code for one page or another, CSS and all. Pretty funky really. And this is better than any apple product. I dare say that Microsoft have actually got it right this time, something they haven't achieved since Word 2.0 for Windows 3.11 It's a billion times better than Vista too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Posted May 24, 2006 Share Posted May 24, 2006 I like how M$ are finally making things standards compliant. IE7 still sucks testicle hair in terms of how SC it is. But at least they're trying, shame they're ten years behind everyone else. Still they're some nice screens Gerard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The JD Posted May 24, 2006 Share Posted May 24, 2006 Lovely Screens. I'm lloking forward to the release. The new interface is definitely something else. BTW, doesn't this support .pdf as well? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gerard Posted May 24, 2006 Author Share Posted May 24, 2006 I can't see any way to open PDF files in Word 2007, but I do appear to remember something about them. I'll try and find out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gerard Posted May 24, 2006 Author Share Posted May 24, 2006 Anyway, now you can download Office 2007 for yourself here: http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/be...en/default.mspx Be warned, it's a hefty download. Also it is only a beta, so wont work 100% yet. Also its Office 2007, not 2003, so it saves documents as .docx etc rather than .doc, which makes it somewhat incompatible with older versions unless you saveas them, which wont be 100% to Office 2007's potential. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Posted May 25, 2006 Share Posted May 25, 2006 Gerard you need to post this as news over at VistaSector. Adriaan said we should have digg'd it too, which would have been a good idea at the time actually, we missed out Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Righty Posted May 25, 2006 Share Posted May 25, 2006 Definitely going to download tomorrow when I'm at school. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris82 Posted May 25, 2006 Share Posted May 25, 2006 I can't download anything over 20mb when I'm at school. Account daily limits. But it does look awesome, I'll give it a try on my laptop. I already use Office 2003, so I hope this lives up to the hype. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
888ball Posted May 25, 2006 Share Posted May 25, 2006 I can't download anything over 20mb when I'm at school. Account daily limits. I cant download at school fullstop. Office 2007 is looking really nice I really need to upgrade soon too... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
owks Posted May 28, 2006 Share Posted May 28, 2006 Woow. it seems cool but it is the mircrosoft that cannot be very very well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gerard Posted May 28, 2006 Author Share Posted May 28, 2006 It is cool, and it does prove that Microsoft CAN still make great software. Remember it was they who invented Windows and Office. Vista has been a bit of a flop so far, but Office significantly exceeds my expectations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
owks Posted May 28, 2006 Share Posted May 28, 2006 Microsoft worked more on this office that on the old version. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Righty Posted June 1, 2006 Share Posted June 1, 2006 I can't download anything over 20mb when I'm at school. Account daily limits.But it does look awesome, I'll give it a try on my laptop. I already use Office 2003, so I hope this lives up to the hype. I meant I was going to leave the home computer on. If I were to touch a school computer ... I wouldn't graduate. As far as installing it, it was almost done installing and had an error. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oscar Posted June 4, 2006 Share Posted June 4, 2006 I am getting it right now, I just got DSL and decided to give it a try, just waiting for the mail to start downloading. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Driver Posted June 4, 2006 Share Posted June 4, 2006 Isn't Microsoft Word Processor the early version of Microsoft Word? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gerard Posted June 4, 2006 Author Share Posted June 4, 2006 A "word processor" is the general term for a software application that you use primarily to write with. Microsoft Word is the most popular word processor, but there are quite a few others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oscar Posted June 4, 2006 Share Posted June 4, 2006 Well, big download and the mail just came (had to use another account), I am getting it right now, a couple of hours to go, nothing big as 3 days ago I was downloading at 5kbs, now I am getting 55+kbs, this 500 mb and 2 hours of waiting are just nothing for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Righty Posted June 5, 2006 Share Posted June 5, 2006 I tried installing it once on the compaq and had no luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oscar Posted June 5, 2006 Share Posted June 5, 2006 Installation of Office professional and Visio are done, I am still downlading one note and project, last things I am downlading as I see no use for the others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oskar Posted June 5, 2006 Share Posted June 5, 2006 I downloaded it in 10 minutes and installed in 20 :/. Success! It rocks you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oscar Posted June 6, 2006 Share Posted June 6, 2006 Well,I got it, tested it and loved it, cant wait for final release, weird at the start but then I realized its way better than the previous ones. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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