The Verse - Volume 29
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Tech Tips - Microsoft Office 2007 is here!

Microsoft Office 2007, the most recent version of Microsoft's productivity suite, was released to business customers on November 30, 2006 and it will be available for retail customers in early 2007. Office 2007 contains a number of new features, the most notable of which is the entirely new graphical user interface called the Ribbon, replacing the menus and toolbars that have been the cornerstone of Office since its inception.

Office 2007 also includes new applications and server-side tools. Chief amongst these is Groove, a collaboration and communication suite for smaller businesses which was originally developed by Groove Networks before being acquired by Microsoft in 2005. Also included is Office Sharepoint Server 2007, a major revision to the server platform for Office applications, which supports "Excel Services", a client-server architecture for supporting Excel workbooks that are shared in real time between multiple machines, and are also viewable and editable through a web page.

The Office 2007 User Interface
"Ribbon," the new result-oriented user interface, will be featured in the core applications of Microsoft Office: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access and the mail editor of Outlook. According to Microsoft, the new User interface centers on the principle of helping people focus on what they want to do, rather than bothering with the details of how to do it.

The "Office button" replaces the File menu and provides access to functionality common across all Office applications, including Opening, Saving, Printing and Sharing a file. Users can also choose color schemes for the interface.

The Ribbon
The Ribbon, a panel that houses the command buttons and icons, organizes commands as a set of Tabs, each grouping relevant commands. Each application has a different set of tabs which expose the functionality that application offers. For example, while Excel has a tab for the Graphing capabilities, Word does not feature the same. Instead it has tabs to control the formatting of the document. Within each tab, various related options may be grouped together. The Ribbon is designed to make the features of the application more discoverable and accessible with fewer mouse clicks as compared to the menu-based system used until Office 2003.

Live Preview
Microsoft Office 2007 also introduces a feature called "Live Preview", which temporarily applies formatting when any formatting button is moused-over. The temporary formatting is removed when the mouse pointer is moved from the button. This allows users to have a preview of how the option would affect the appearance of the object, without actually applying it.

Mini Toolbar
Mini toolbar, which pops up near the selected text whenever some text is selected, provides easy access to most used formatting commands. When the mouse pointer is away from it, the toolbar becomes semi-transparent to allow almost unobstructed view of what's beneath. But when the mouse pointer moves over it, it becomes opaque and ready for use. It also appears above the right-click menu when a user right-clicks on a selection of words.

Other features
Super-tooltips, that can house formatted text as well as images, are used to provide detailed descriptions of what most buttons do. The Quick Access toolbar, which sits in the title bar, serves as a repository of most used functions, regardless of which application is being used, such as save, undo/redo and print.

User Assistance System
In Microsoft Office 2007, the Office Assistants have been completely removed because of the much improved help system. One feature of the new help system is the extensive use of Super Tooltips which explains each button or what each function performs.

Collaboration Features
Microsoft Office 2007 includes features geared towards collaboration and data sharing. Server components for applications such as Excel work in conjunction with SharePoint Services to provide a collaboration platform. Sharepoint can also be used to host Word documents for collaborative editing and can also be used to hold PowerPoint slides in a Slide Library and manage shared review of presentations. Any SharePoint hosted document can be accessed from the application which created the document or from other applications such as a browser or Outlook. Microsoft Office 2007 also includes Groove, which brings a "peer-to-peer" method to collaboration.

Themes and Quick Styles
Microsoft Office 2007 puts an emphasis on Document Themes and Quick Styles. The Document Theme defines the colors, fonts and graphic effects for a document and is shared between Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook email messages. Almost everything that can be inserted into a document is automatically styled to match the overall document theme creating a consistent document design. Similar themes are also available for data reports in Access and Project or shapes in Visio.

Quick Styles are galleries with a range of styles based on the current theme. There are quick styles galleries for text, tables, charts, SmartArt, WordArt and more. The style range goes from simple/light to more graphically/darker.

60 day trial versions of Office 2007 can be downloaded here: http://us20.trymicrosoftoffice.com