Entered CNET Catalog: 09/13/2005
SKU: CNETMICROSOFTOFFICE12(BETA1)
Manufacturer: Microsoft Corp.
Manufacturer description
With the 2007 release of Office, Microsoft has redefined the desktop experience to help people get better results, faster. Through a redesigned user interface, new graphics engine, better visualization capabilities and improved task management, people can produce more professional-looking content, find and assimilate information more quickly, and better prioritize their time and tasks.CNET editors' review
- Editors' Choice: No
- Reviewed on: 11/16/2005
• See the Office 12 slide show
Overview: Before the final product is expected to hit the shelves late next year, this initial beta version of Microsoft Office 12 reveals radical interface changes that recall the overly ambitious Microsoft Office 97 update. The changes apply to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, as Redmond intends to streamline your work flow, particularly for business users. The familiar File and Edit drop-down menus will disappear to make way for functions grouped within a ribbon atop each window. This banner's task-specific tabs attempt to anticipate and surface the functions you need according to your ongoing work. Office 12's apps get a new interface, as well as a fresh graphics engine, similar to that promised in Windows Vista. Visual thumbnail galleries of ready-made layouts suggest formatting options, and templates of your live document are available automatically.
See the impending changes here:
- Office 12 slide show
- Word 12 slide show
- Excel 12 slide show
- PowerPoint 12 slide show
- Outlook 12 slide show
- Publisher 12 slide show
To package the new features, the new default developer-friendly, XML-based file formats promise to be as much as 70 percent smaller than those in Office 2003. Microsoft will tack an X onto the tail of each document extension; DOC files from Word 12 will become DOCX; XLS files within Excel 12 will become XLSX, and so on. The older DOC, XLS, and other formats will remain Save As options. Yet unlike previous versions of Office, which irretrievably mangle data when files become corrupted, Office 12 will separate documents' contents from formatting to allow emergency recovery. Office 12 also hopes to better serve business customers with mobile connectivity and sharing of data via company servers.
Upside: We appreciate the ability of the apps within Microsoft Office 12 (beta 1) to display live previews of formatting changes, so you'll never have to guess again what a font looks like. This system promises many ease-of-use interface tweaks, such as a slider bar in the bottom of each window for zooming in and out of page views. We hope that tabbed toolbar browsing will make navigating through tasks and documents easier and eliminate the guesswork, as it attempts to display the tools you need, such as visual galleries of attributes and suggested layouts. To spare you from annoying interruptions, Microsoft hammered the nail in the coffin of the dorky paper-clip cartoon, Clippy. Right-clicking a mouse will reveal the same task-specific menu choices as offered in the masthead banner. Developers will get the freedom to add their own tabs, items to tabs, and gallery items to Office 12; and companies can build their own toolbars from scratch, if needed. Old, familiar add-ins will also work in the new Office. Users of previous versions of Office will like that Office 12 files are backward compatible through Office 97.
Downside: In the past, Microsoft has sabotaged itself by unrolling too many new features to Office too fast. We're keeping a lookout for problems; after all, Office 12 was in its storyboard stages just a few months ago. If you've spent the past two years mastering Office 2003, prepare for a steep learning curve. The Alt keyboard shortcuts will change; luckily, shortcuts using the Ctrl button will stay the same. While the more visual, tabbed layout may reduce mouse clicks, it eats up more screen real estate and RAM. We're also wary of Office 12's goal to make the ribbon respond to the tasks you're working on. What if, say, options for text formatting that you want to make are hidden because you've clicked on a graphic? Unanticipated consequences could make the ribbon less intuitive than the traditional layout of Office 2003. The new graphics muscle makes icons and charts appear less flat, but our jaws didn't drop at first sight.
We like that Microsoft won't force users to buy the latest, greatest PCs. Office 12 will require Windows XP SP1 or 2003 and will require a minimum of 256MB of RAM and a 512MHz processor. However, we anticipate that you may want an even more powerful system to multitask with the graphics-intensive Office 12.
Outlook: Microsoft Office 12 looks dramatically different from Office 2003. The task-oriented paradigm common to the separate releases of Vista and Office 12 will be new to everyone. The tabbed command layout of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint may be a welcome change if your wrists ache from clicking through the myriad drop-down menus, and Microsoft hopes that the new layout will be more intuitive. But even well-intended software changes that seem graceful at first glance might reveal quirks or hassles during extended use. In the next beta 2 test rollout of Office 12 (expected next spring), Microsoft plans to reveal more about its server work flows for businesses. We also await more details on Microsoft's plans to better integrate multimedia communications, such as e-mail and instant messaging, within Office 12 documents. Peek at the impending changes in our Office 12 slide show, as well as in our separate previews of Word 12, Excel 12, PowerPoint 12, and Outlook 12.
User opinions
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User Rating: 
2/10
The learning curve to huge. HUGE! Time will tell, if Office is again a sieve of hacker holes.
Pros: If you are brand new to Office, Learning Office is easier.
Cons: If you used Office for years, get ready to curse. Your...
Same thing, $70 - new no upgrade.
User Rating: 
1/10
JUNK by any other name is still JUNK
Pros: None -Same old security issues
Cons: Just more expensive
Look don't waste your time with this one. Go to openoffice.org and download a free(FREE, FREE, FREE) office suite that is comparable to Microsoft office. It is an open-source product which means it is free. And, it is becoming the fastest growing office suites program around.
Also, go to ubuntu.com and download a free operating system that is better than windows, more secure, more stable, and did I mention that it was free(FREE, FREE, FREE) as well. The same guy(Mark Shuttleworth-the 2nd richest man in the world)who gave you firefox browser is supporting and backing this product. Yes it is linux. However, why waste your time with microsoft's foolishness.
Ubuntu.com ubuntu.com ubuntu.com
User Rating: 
9/10
I love this new office
Pros: Interface and new 3d features
Cons: You need a very powerful system to run it
User Rating: 
8/10
Submit Suggestions!!!
Pros: Beta to testers
Cons: Beta to testers
User Rating: 
6/10
A lot of potential, lookin forward to more
Pros: Sleeker, Great face lift, Easier to use w/Ribbons
Cons: Slow, Crashes, Installation issues and in Beta
Microsoft's Office 12 Beta support site (available only to beta users) has a very comprehensive list of issues and steps to resolve them - which is very impressive. I must say it's slow starting up compare to Office 2003 but hey, it's beta. It does take up a lot of memory and time-to-time, it has a hiccup. With ?Ribbons? the usability will be much easier since the commands are clicks away based on your task. I believe that ?Ribbons?, for new users and some old, will have some-what of a difficult learning curve but is very adaptable. Outlook has some great new features which I can?t wait to see in Beta 2 to be more stable and of course faster!
There?s a lot more I can share but to sum it all up, it?s Beta 1. Beta 1 usually has 50-60% of the code cleaned up with bugs and errors. Using the software daily only helps me, help Microsoft to build a more stable and ease-of-use Office platform. With all the great feedback from other beta testers, I completely believe that Beta 2 will definitely be a shinier star than Beta 1.
User Rating: 1/10
What we have here boys is a failure to communicate
Pros: I didn't find any viruses in it
Cons: It doesn't help me in any way
Get your Outlook, Exchange and Windows Mobile groups together and figure out how they can actually contribute to the functionality of each product instead of just yelling - stay on that side of the line!
I can't believe someone at MS doesn't have a Windows Mobile phone or use Exchange Server to check their e-mail remotely. Are you guys all running Linux?
I tried out Business Contact Manager and it filled in the biggest issue with Outlook Contacts - dated entries for activities. But you miss out on Outlooks biggest functionality if you do that - you can't access those contacts with outlook web access and you can't sync them with your Windows Mobile 5 device. To be honest - these should be patched in the current version by now let alone be built into the next version of Office.
Do you guys just spend all of your days figuring out how to make things "prettier" instead of just fixing what is missing in Office?
User Rating: 2/10
Full of Sound and Fury Signifying Nothing
Pros: Nothing comes to mind
Cons: It doesn't let you do the simple things it should
Business contact manager claims to "work with Exchange" but it doesn't DO any WORK with exchange. It just sits there. If it WORKED with Exchange, I would be able to access my BCM contacts with Outlook Web Access. And now that Windows Mobile 5 is out why not get it accessable with the new MS Exchange Sync we keep hearing about? But that can't happen unless BCM contacts work as regular Exchange Contacts. I'm worried that BCM with so much potential will be the next MS BOB.
Outlook
Not sure why I still can't open two profiles at the same time - I can open two excel spreadsheets, two word documents, two access databases...
ACCESS
Seems less intuitive than it was before (didn't have that issue with the other new programs) All my laid out forms and interfaces have to be resized now.
My inventory with pictures no longer works - gives me a reference error.
Word
Fine - no issues other than the excessive menus.
Excel
Seemed good - opens up new formatting features and makes older features more obvious.
Publisher - Does anyone actually use it?
Powerpoint - When it does what CorelDraw or the Flash can do let me know.
Visio - missing the SNMP mapping function. Not sure why they can't provide it with the standard Dell and other major manufacturer equipment already in it. I hate always having to track down images for Visio. I would say Visio seems good but is sadly lacking those helpful features which were once a part of it.
Project - seems fine. I did not spend enough time on it to tell you what has changed. Still doesn't let you manipulate/group numbers well.
Hey - let's change the background colors and release it as a new version! In three years, I'd like to see more functionality and less efforts spent on steeling ideas from Macintosh.
User Rating: 
4/10
Same Bugs/Flaws as previous versions!
Pros: It is still beta - chance for them to correct it.
Cons: No reason to upgrade or want it.
have to wonder if the person was held prisoner until they wrote a nice
review or if they were being blackmailed.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1888060,00.asp PC MAG claims Office 12
is the biggest change to Office in 10 years! I would be embarrassed to
write such a boot-licking review if I were that writer. I thought a
reports job was to be objective. Instead of just going on about how
wonderful it is, why not point out some of the major flaws in it as well.
Since PC Mag went on about the good stuff - I'll let you know a few of my
major concerns about the version 12 release so you have some balance.
Please do read their review as they do highlight the good things you might
be waiting for in the next version of Office.
OK - they changed to toolbar - it is now even MORE mac like than before -
OOOH - AHHH. If I was that hung up on a MAC interface I'd just by a MAC -
please get over it MS - it isn't everything - there is more to improving
your products (office and windows) than just making them look like MACs!! I
don't consider a mac toolbar a big change. I had little problem navigating
it so it isn't a bad toolbar layout so I'm not complaining that it is bad -
just not what people who actually have more than a kindergarten education
need MS to focus on. We need Office to be more FUNCTIONAL - prettier
doesn't justify an upgrade in a corporate environment. You want our money
MS - than make it worth it for us to upgrade! Does it really need to be
THAT much more intuitive that you spend so much time on that menu bar?
Anyone who has used a product for a day pretty much knows 80% of all the
functions they will use and after a week you probably are at 90%. So why
not focuts on giving those of us who have actually used a computer for more
than a week the functions we have been needing for YEARS!
MS doesn't seem to really want to hear what is wrong with their product as
the click here to provide feedback button is not functioning!
Before anyone gets all concerned that I'm bashing a Beta vs. a final
release - relax, I'm not going on about how it is slow or hung many times or
things like that because I'm expecting issues like that in a beta. It is
CORE features that are missing that I'm concerned about. If I thought MS
had even thought about these missing key features I wouldn't be writing
this. But as the article says it is the biggest change in 10 years - so
let's give those developers some things to think about.
Here are the issues as I see them.
They haven't improved the two biggest gimped applications in Office -
Outlook and Access.
1 Access - still can't use JPGs effectively - they are a package - in Office
12 you had Photo Editor so JPGs showed up in reports/forms. So what does MS
think we are LESS likely to have databases with pictures 5 years later? If
you want to bring databases to the average user think about what they would
have in it. Even contacts in Outlook has pictures! Contacts are a
database. Your default database is for an inventory - don't you think most
companies would start to consider pictures essential in a database? When
you shop on line - do you ever buy anything without a PICTURE? Isn't it
sad that previoius versions of Office - pre2003 had no issue with pictures
but the newer ones can't handle them
2 Databases with JPGs still absurdly large. The jpgs by themselves are only
about 2MB but with all the white space in Access, they take up 600MB!!!!
3 I saw no way to convert my database - save as, export etc so I could save
it to a 2006 format. Not sure if I could if that would help with JPGs.
Frankly I couldn't figure out how to create a table with pictures from
scratch in the new version! I didn't see a way of creating any field type -
e.g. currency, date, etc. I could select templates - e.g. begin, current
value etc - but not just add any type as before.
Outlook. I'd love to tell you about Outlook but it always came up out of
resources!! I have 1 GIG of RAM - 100 GIG FREE on my hard drive and a P4
2.8 and a 256MB video card. I'm hoping MS doesn't think that isn't
sufficient for opening mail! I ended up creating a new profile and I was
able to get into e-mail.
1 MS keeps on talking about improving SEARCHING technology. Guess what
people do A LOT of in Outlook - SERCHING. So when I search more than one
folder, I want to see both the TO and the FROM folder - because if I am
searching MY mailbox it is always FROM me, and if I'm searching my sent
folder as well as my inbox, I need to know who it went TO.
2 When is outlook actually going to EXIT completely when you close it or
click on exit. It is the most tenacious program I've ever seen. If you
need to flip between outlook profiles it is essential to have Outlook
actually stop all processes. Which leads to my third point.
3 Let us open more than one outlook profile at the same time. Let's face it
how many people have at least 3 e-mail accounts - their personal, business
and their register/buy products account where they don't care about getting
on a spam list. I have 2 business accounts that I keep in one profile and
three personal accounts I keep in a separate profile. Switching between the
two is unpleasant but I would never want the two profiles combined.
4 I don't see an import function for Goldmine. I realize that isn't a
function too many people will want but it would be nice.
Business Contact Manager.
BCM is such a simple thing for them to improve upon. If they just synched
the basic contact data with a normal exchange account contacts so you could
access the data via OWA and sync it with your pocketpc/WM5 device the
product would offer something head and shoulders above Saleslogix, Act,
Goldmine etc. It probably would take a programmer about 1 day to develop it
and test it. Supposedly BCM is for Small Businesses and yet so is Small
Business Server if I'm not mistaken. So why not give the SBS people the
contact management feature they need?
Outlook still has issues with multiple hotmail accounts in the same profile. Often it will show the other hotmail account messages in the wrong inbox.
User Rating: 9/10
A Great New User Experience; Outlook Receives Some Much Needed Polishing
Pros: Fantastic New UI; Outlook Stability Vastly Improved
Cons: Outlook 12 Doesn't Receive The New Ribbon Treatment
Boy was I wrong.
With the new Ribbons and the complete and total annhilation of menus (finally!), productivity in the office has gone up by leaps and bounds. Getting to everything is so fluid and can be almost thoughtlessly done. It's nice to see MS really innovating again in the interface department.
On the downside, Outlook 12 doesn't receive the new ribbon treatment, which kind of surprised me. Actually, at first glance you might not even notice a different from Outlook 2003. But run it for a bit and you'll realize the changes they've made. Stability has vastly improved (my biggest beef with Outlook since, well, forever), and even in this early beta stage I have yet to crash once. Outlook 2003 retail couldn't even do that for me. The new To-Do bar sits at the right hand side of the interface, which displays tasks and calendars with appointments- very handy. Whats more, both the traditional left hand folder tree and the new to-do bar are "minimizable", scrunching them down to about a 30 pixel width. These small versions of the bars continue to show information in the form of vertical text fields, such as "No upcoming events; Today's Tasks: 3 Active, 0 Completed.", and so on. And can anyone say RSS Subscriptions? Yup, they're natively built in there too. Sadly, still no newsgroup feature- you'll still need Express for that.
This is going to be a great upgrade, and will actually be worth laying down the cash (unlike 2003, which was for the most part a minor upgrade from XP).
User Rating: 
3/10
New UI, but few new features (e.g. for tablets)
Pros: New UI should be a welcome change to the eyes
Cons: New UI = confusing and probably anti-intuitive, and Word... needs extended features esp. with ink! People want features! Otherwise they wont buy!
Okay a new UI is a great idea (providing one can revert to the old one if needed), but features should be the goal.
User Rating: 6/10
This is like OpenOffice.org!
Pros: probably simpler
Cons: probably more expensive
User Rating: 1/10
Are you kidding me????
Pros: It keeps the economy strong.
Cons: What's new that will justify selling this to me and me buying it???
Oh, but this has "ribbons". All I could think of during the review is:
"But... This goes to eleven."
It's a Spinal Tap joke. If you don't get it please look it up on IMDB and you will immediately understand.
User Rating: 4/10
Why to pay to MS when there are almost same offers for free
Pros: no that i see
Cons: price as always, UI
Mac user interfaces.Stealing again?
User Rating: 6/10
Where's Bob?
Pros: It might actually be integrated
Cons: 10 years behind the times and already obsolete
Wow, MS Office now has features found in WordPerfect Office. Well, WP version 8, that is...
In-place graphic editing, secure comments, cross-app integration, audio and video in presentations, more than 60K spreadsheet rows, customizable graphs. Almost all have been in WP for nearly 10 years.
And we all know how well MS has been at designing "intuitive" interfaces. While it's pretty easy to improve the current menus [just changing the margins for a specific page in Word can be a nightmare], I'll bet this new interface will have users switching back to v11 - or 2000, more likely - after a few days.
I'd estimate that less than 5% of users actually need to integrate Word and Excel files - nevermind Presentations. So, once more, they've overcomplicated a program with features no one ever uses. I wonder how many DVDs this will come with?
The only way MS can get anyone to pony up the 250 bucks for v12 is by refusing to support v11. Which we know they will.
And it will be obslete and unusable for most companies before it's released, since MS refuses to support open standards formats.
User Rating: 9/10
Finally evolved into something awesome
Pros: Everything is more accessible now, XML documents, PDF creation,
Cons: Win XP/Vista only, probably hogs many resources
User Rating: 8/10
Makes using features easier
Pros: Long neglected upgrade to GUI to make features useable and discoverable.
Cons: Can't know yet without working with product
I believe this is just "lovers" and "haters" weighing in based on the most scant information.
I have used Microsoft Office, and in particular, Microsoft Word, in every DOS and Windows version. I am considered an expert by others. Like many other experts, I have a strong love-hate relationship with MS Office. Microsoft's record for boneheadedness is legend. But so is it's record for innovation--some of which has been justly ridiculed.
I realize that buried in MS Word are incredible features, some of which I don't know about and others that I know about but use so infrequently that I cannot make use of them "on the fly."
90% of MS Word users treat the program like it was a typewriter with a few frills.
Microsoft has talked for years about making features "discoverable" by the average user but progress has been glacial. I don't necessarily blame Microsoft for this because they have made attempts to be "helpful" which in many cases have turned out to be terrible intrusions into one's work. (Microsoft Bob and paperclips comes to mind.) This is the first time in a long time that the basic toolbar interface has received significant thought. Perhaps it will advance the state of the art.
I don't think people generally appreciate that in this maybe 20th year of word processing software, we are all still at the beginning of learning to write truly good programs. At least Microsoft is trying to advance the state of the art. Microsoft Office's incredible popularity does not come from it being bundled with the operating system. (And the API of whatever parts of the OS MS Office uses should be made public)
If I lived a 100 years from now, the product I learned to use at age 5 will be almost unchanged when I am fifty.
I would like to see competition, not just copying what Microsoft has already done. Perhaps there will be a GoogleWrite to blow us all away.
User Rating: 3/10
And this is better than the free Open Office because ...
Pros: Don't see any real ones.
Cons: Run faster? Use less memory? New (non cosmetic) functions?
User Rating: 4/10
Is that it?
Pros: word is better that pages
Cons: nothing new
User Rating: 8/10
Excellent Editing Suite; No Questions!
Pros: Easy Interface; Simple Toolbars; Many Features
Cons: No Real Signifigant Updates Since about 2000
User Rating: 3/10
Oh what the.....
Pros: Nice Graphics
Cons: Mac Copy, Steep Learning Curve,
User Rating: 8/10
Give it a shot
Pros: Takes a chance at innovation
Cons: It's a very risky chance
Oh, and notice how no one in the Apple world complains when Apple revamps everything and tries something innovative? Maybe we should let MS do the same.
User Rating: 4/10
Microsoft is not really making a better product...
Pros: Microsoft is finally updating
Cons: But they fell asleep at the keyboard
User Rating: 1/10
Change for change's sake
Pros: None really
Cons: Relearn everything you know
User Rating: 
7/10
About time...
Pros:
Cons:
Until then I will be using openoffice.org - it's free you know....
User Rating: 8/10
Good to hear
Pros: Change is good.
Cons: Change can be frustrating.
Regardless, I look forward to their answer to GMail, which has overtaken my use of Outlook
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