The Good News, Bad News and then More Good News About Office 2007

It’s been a little over two months since the Microsoft Office 2007 System officially hit the retail shelves. Many of you are wondering, beyond the flashy Microsoft marketing pieces, what the real differences are and how it will affect your ability to use the software. Well, I have good news, not-so-good news and then more good news!

The good news is that the basic features and skills in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook have not changed since their early versions. The interface has softened through the years, but you still have cells, paragraphs, slides and messages with the same properties with which to work. For the most part, they are created and worked with the same way they always have been. There are a lot of improvements, but still the good old reliable stuff is still there too. The first recommendation? Breathe. Even though it appears completely new, remember, at its core, it is the same. That’s the good news.

The not-so-good news is that the way in which you access familiar tools has completely changed. Yes, the “ribbon” is here and the toolbar has been laid to rest. Conceptually (although the designers will argue), the ribbon is just a fancy version of a toolbar, but it is dynamic and context sensitive meaning it changes based on what is selected. This can be debated, but the purpose of this article is to get you comfortable with Office 2007, not debate technical details. The ribbon is a positive move because you don’t have to know where to go to find things, they should just “appear” when you select a certain type of element. That’s the theory, at least. I am a Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) Master Instructor and have been since Office 97, yet I admit it took me about 15 minutes to figure out how to convert text to a table in Word 2007 the first time. Is there a learning curve? Absolutely, and that is the not-so-good part of Office 2007.

Before you decide that staying within your current comfort zone is better, read on! There’s more good news! There is a wealth of new features that make the learning curve worthwhile. Some are considered "useful" because they are easy to see and use while others sit behind the scenes and don’t get nearly the recognition they deserve. Some of these hidden features include clear type so reading on screen is sharper and less stressful on your eyes. This includes a new generation of fonts like Calibri. Security, stability and metadata have been improved too. In the forefront, they’ve added fabulous graphics abilities that take you from simply placing graphics to what used to be accomplished only using programs like Photoshop including angling, masking and beveling pictures. Numerous design features have been added to assist in easy and consistent selection and application of fonts and colors across the Office system. Terrific collaboration tools, a brand new file format (well, new for Office) and creation of PDF files right from the Print command without having to purchase Adobe Acrobat are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the new stuff you’ll find.

So what’s the bottom line? Your first trip into Office 2007 will probably make you want to turn and run. Trust me! If you stay, I guarantee you’ll catch on to the new way of doing things and begin to enjoy the many new or vastly improved features and be glad you did. If you’re older than 25, do you remember how hard it was to move from a typewriter to a word processor? Well, this will be less painful, but it’s similar. Office 2007 is a brand new interface but it’s worth the effort.

When you’re in my business, you get to learn the software before any training materials or references are available. Since many of us don’t have time to figure it all out on our own, like I did, LearnKey offers training on all the Office 2007 titles to help you along, including one specifically for Office 2007 called, Learning Office 2007. This course covers the common features. Specifics for Outlook, Word, Excel, Access and PowerPoint are on their way as is the monumental FREE collaboration and document sharing application Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 course. We’ll cover some specifics and tips on these applications over the next few months. So really, the not-so-good news is good news in disguise, it just takes a little getting used to. That means the title of this article should have been "The Good News About Office 2007". Enjoy!