Comments about MS Office 2007 Beta

Hello My Friends;

I recently downloaded and installed the new Microsoft Office 2007 beta. So far, the experience has been great! I put it on both my Compaq desktop 2.4 Ghz running Windows XP SP-2 and my Motion LE-1600 slate tablet (same specs except that the tablet is only 1.5 Ghz). I added OneNote 2007 to the tablet as well. I was already running OneNote 2003 on the tablet. Great application, but more on that later.

I love to run the latest and greatest so I also use the new Windows Media Player 11 “Urge” and Internet Explorer 7. So far, no serious glitches or incompatibilities discovered.

I writing this Blog using the new blogging system in Word 2007. I works very well. Compose and publish right from within Word! What could be simpler?

I really love the new “ribbon” UI in the 2007 Office products. It is very intuitive. I’ve been a Office user for years. My current version (until now) has been Office Premium 2000. It has done yeoman duties for me for many years. Nothing the MS has offered up till now has tempted me to replace it. Enter Office 2007 with a complete re-work of the UI and a lot of new features. I think it’s time to upgrade. I will buy this one when the trial expires in February, 2007.

The setup on the UI is very intuitive as I said. Being an Office user for a long time, there was almost no confusion. Everything is setup in tabs across the top of the screen. Activate the tab and the “ribbon” interface switches to a large menu ribbon along the top that is specific to that particular task. All the things you can do with a Word document are displayed and easily accessed. None of the options that do not apply are shown. Same for each application in the suite. Very Cool! This makes working with any application very easy. I read in another story, linked from Digg.com, about how MS spent a lot of time working out the UI to be immediately useable with little or no training. I think they succeeded for the most part. At least I have had no transition issues. In fact, I love it. Every day, I find a new “wow” item or feature. Just ask my wife. I’ll be playing around on the computer and utter another “wow” comment. She’ll say “What now?” It’s become somewhat of a joke around my household.

Have a Good Day

Dana