Entered CNET Catalog: 09/13/2006
SKU: CNETMSOFFICE2007BETA2TECHNICALREFRESH
Manufacturer: Microsoft Corp.
CNET editors' review
- Editors' Choice: No
- Reviewed on: 09/13/2006
You'll be able to test-drive this free technical refresh of the software beginning September 14 by visiting www.microsoft.com/office/preview. Check out our video coverage, first takes, and slide shows of Office 2007's last round of changes from May.
Interface
Rumors that Microsoft planned to pare down its Ribbon of features along the top of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access have panned out--sort of. While the Ribbon by default doesn't appear smaller than it did in May, you can roll it up it to make more room for a document. To do so, just double click any tab. Click once more, and the Ribbon unfurls again. Or you can right-click a tab to pick Minimize and to set preferences for the Quick Access Toolbar and keyboard shortcuts. The personalization is far easier to find than in version 2003.
An Add-ins tab on the Ribbon offers more potential for customization. Because our test PC already had Microsoft Student installed, our Add-ins displayed Student's tools for math, science, and language learning. We wonder what else Microsoft might plan on integrating here. Other interface changes include a serious silver color theme in addition to the blue and black options.
File formats
Before you quickly save a file within Office 2007 and send it to someone who may have an older version of Office installed, you'll have to select Save As, then Word 97-2003 Document. Office 2007's new XML documents are supposed to be one-quarter the size of older Office files. They also keep elements of a document segregated so that if, say, an image gets corrupted, you should still be able to recover the text. However, the new document extensions will be marked with an X and won't open in older versions of the programs.
Word 2007
We dislike Office 2003's default text styles, which continually edit our text while we're writing. Word 2007 adds new styles and templates, but we also hope that the new approach will make it less irritating to compose a text document without a ton of formatting. Luckily, the next version of Word allows you to save your preferences and apply them as a default whenever you open new files.
Word 2003's testy HTML formatting has turned off many a blogger and Web designer. But Word 2007 is built to support Web text formatting and images for blog services including Wordpress, TypePad, Blogger beta, Windows Live Spaces, and Microsoft SharePoint. The Publish option within the Start menu lets you make posts without leaving Word. However, when we chose to post a blog entry, Word opened a new window with a truncated blog-editing Ribbon, which inititally confused us.
Outlook 2007
Microsoft is aiming to lock out spam e-mail better than before, as well as to flag phishing scams that might dupe you into sharing personal details on fraudulent Web sites. If you get a con game e-mail posing as a notification from your bank, Outlook 2007 is designed to flag it and keep you from clicking links within that e-mail. Outlook's search engine is new, too.
For jet-setting Outlook users, the 2007 edition is designed to help you manage multiple time zones. You'll be able to share a meeting with fellow users in Tokyo, Toronto, or Tallinn without confusing everybody about the time.
Excel 2007
Excel is getting new controls for objects, such as charts and pictures. To serve users who run Excel on dual-core computers, Excel 2007 will also have a multithreaded calculation engine.
PowerPoint 2007
PowerPoint's updates are designed in an attempt to help you make sleeker presentations, and there are new styles and effects for pictures, such as shadows and glows. The presentation app has a new Home tab that includes features for drawing and formatting shapes and images. And the Insert tab now emphasizes Photo Album tools that allow you to turn folders of pictures into slide shows.
Security
Microsoft has created a Trust Center button that you can reach through the Options setting within the Quick Access drop-down menu. Here, you can control macros and ActiveX settings, as well as manage the privacy options to better control when Office connects to the Web or to make hidden markups visible. And from the main drop-down menu in the upper-left corner of each application, the Prepare option lets you encrypt a document and set permission restrictions.
Training
Microsoft is aware that the Office renovation may perplex new users as well as upgraders, so the company is building a ton of learning help into the 2007 system. You'll be able to pick how-to tips from among videos, interactive demos, training courses, reference guides, and even quizzes. On the one hand, this seems helpful. But at the same time, Microsoft seems to be buffering against a potential onslaught of user confusion. Ideally, software should be intuitive enough that you don't need to spend as much time learning how it works as you do to make it work for you.
We expect users to have a variety of love/hate reactions to Office 2007's extreme alterations. Some people may jump right in and flow with the changes; others may sink and wish they hadn't upgraded. However, in our experiences testing the various beta versions of Office 2007, we prefer the Ribbon's tabbed layout of features to the myriad drop-down menus and dialog boxes within Office 2003 that sometimes still stump us. We just wish that the Ribbon would stop changing in anticipation of our next move. We appreciate the applications' many features, but the constant shape-shifting of the interface sometimes interfered when we wanted to execute tasks quickly.
User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
User Rating: 
7/10
Great. . .After the Learning Curve
Pros: Great interface, sans animated assistant
Cons: Bugs! And if you're familiar with old Office, you'll be lost!
User Rating: 
2/10
AVOID it if you used spreadsheets
Pros: Outlook is fixed
Cons: Since I downloaded it, cannot open spreadsheets
User Rating: 
5/10
Provide an option to choose between Classic and Ribbon Views
Pros: XML formating reducing document size
Cons: Ribbon View
User Rating: 
4/10
Inconsistent features between programs
Pros: Smaller file, Quick Access Bar easy to modify (but not always stays put)
Cons: Not only need to learn new features of Office 2007, but features that are different between programs.
Clicking close file in Word closes Word. Clicking close file in Excel closes file but keeps Excel open.
Would be nice to have a menu option in beta test versions to give feedback on features and performance.
It took quite a while to figure out that the Office Button was actually useful. I first thought it was just decorative.
User Rating: 7/10
great idea! something smart for a change
Pros: User Freindly LIKE NEVER BEFORE!!
Cons: It's a hard change but worth to do
User Rating: 7/10
instructions?
Pros: Love the ribbons
Cons: No Instruction manual
User Rating: 
9/10
I love it, but I also work for the Office team :)
Pros: The new UI makes life a lot easier once you are used to it.
Cons: You need a few days to get used to the new UI
Rather, users of Office 2000, Office XP, and Office 2003 can use the Compatibility Pack to open and save the Open XML documents formats new to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007. Check the Compatibility Pack out here: http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/beta/converter.mspx
User Rating: 4/10
What a big yawn...
Pros: Being able to hide the ever growing tool bar will be great!
Cons: more info needed, but so far not impressed
User Rating: 4/10
Lotus WordPro Still More Productive, Easier to Use
Pros: Faster, smoother than previous versions of Word
Cons: Formatting still a nightmare; hard to use styles
User Rating: 
1/10
Wacked My Power Point
Pros: Nothing Really!
Cons: What a Hog!
User Rating: 9/10
Best office suite just got better
Pros: beautiful UI, intuitive menus
Cons: expensive if you dont need all the bells and whistles
I don't know why it took them so long to do this but the new ribbon menu makes things so much easier to do, I can do powerpoint presentations in a quarter of the time it used to take me. I can't wait to see the final release. I'll be picking it up for sure.
User Rating: 9/10
Finally a new release that really LOOKS like its new.
Pros: All new and improved UI
Cons: Takes time to adjust to the new UI
User Rating: 2/10
Waste of good money if you already have a copy of Office 2000
Pros: New features and smaller file sizes.
Cons: New features that 95% of ALL users won't use. Office is already bloated, let's add MORE in the form of features.
User Rating: 
3/10
I've got an even better upgrade@ (and it's free!)
Pros: It seem to have some more features... Improved GUI
Cons: Very expensive
It's called "OpenOffice"
http://www.openoffice.org
User Rating: 7/10
What a Wopper!!!
Pros: It is very well rendered
Cons: Sometimes it has hidden menu
User Rating: 9/10
Excellent program
Pros: looks very nice
Cons: I do not have none
User Rating: 
8/10
A pleasant surprise. I plan to buy it when it is released
Pros: Ribbon is so intuitive (once you get the hang of it)
Cons: Hmmm, Non yet. Oh! Not much native templates
Alltogether, this version of Office makes a novice turn out publisher quality documents. I only wish the software was cheaper.(that's why I rated it 8)
User Rating: 7/10
Looking Forward to the Final Release
Pros: Interface, XML support
Cons: Not many real changes over 2003
User Rating: 
6/10
a simple way to do ur applications
Pros: what is the next version of MS Office
Cons: The most updated software
I think that this is the most updated version of MS office.
That'll help MS Office users to deal in a simply way with this software.
Thanks
User Rating: 4/10
It took 4 years to come out with this???
Pros: Smaller file sizes and a few other small improvements that will never be noticed by 90% of end-users
Cons: Like I said, 4 years for this? I don't think i've seen a drastic improvement in Office since 2000.
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