Microsoft Office 2007 Changes of Note
Posted on 04-28-08
At Opti-Vise, one of the questions I keep running into with customers has to do with some of the changes made to Microsoft’s latest office suite. Microsoft Office 2007 is the latest version of everyone’s favorite (or least favorite) productivity suite.
In this revision, Microsoft made some pretty major changes. You will very quickly notice a difference just by looking a the interface. There was a complete rework of the menu and user interface. Microsoft calls the design “The Microsoft Office Fluent User Inerface”. The new interface attempts to group the options into logical caegories based on what you are currently working with. I have found that some users very quickly adapt and like the new interface, but I have also seen the opposite.
My personal observations have led me to the conclusion that Office power users seem to struggle with the new User Interface simply because the options they are used to finding in the toolbars of old are now placed into groupings they are not used to. If you are interested in my opinion, I find the interface usable and nice, but I would definitely not consider myself an office power user. I am the type of user that has to find what I need instead of knowing what I am looking for.
Another major notable change has to do with the file format used by Word (.docx), Excel (.xlsx), and PowerPoint 2007(.pptx). Microsoft changed the programs to use what is called the “Office (2007) Open XML File Format“. The format was reworked to improve interoperability, data integrity and recovery functions, as well as other things. The key thing to note with the file format change is that 2007 files cannot be opened in previous versions of Office withouth first downloading the “Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and Powerpoint 2007 File Formats“. This applies to all version of Office from 2000 to 2003 and will allow the new formats to be used.
Author: Kyle Hamilton
