June 2007 / June 2007 - What is New in Office 2007
Although Microsoft’s new Windows Vista operating system has been getting all the press recently, the software giant’s productivity suite, Microsoft Office, has also hit the shelves with a new release. In addition to an upgraded look, Microsoft Office 2007 is promising a whole new set of upgraded features which should appeal to both experienced and novice users. In this month’s Tech Brief we’ll take a look at some of the new features and give you an idea of what to expect from Office 2007.
New Features Common to Most Office 2007 Applications
Office Ribbon – The most noticeable change in Office 2007 is the replacement of the familiar toolbars and menus with the new Office Ribbon. The Ribbon is a graphical strip at the top of your screen which contains buttons and icons grouped together into relevant tabs. The idea behind the ribbon is to consolidate all the features of the application into one location, making them easier to access with fewer mouse clicks. Although the Ribbon may take some getting used to, it should prove to be a welcomed time-saving addition.
Click the image above for a larger view of the Office Ribbon
The Office Button – Another big change in Office 2007 is the replacement of the File menu with the new Office Button. Most of the old File menu commands will still appear in the Office Button, but you’ll also find more expanded opening, saving, printing, sharing, and customization choices.
Print to PDF - Although this feature isn’t available right out of the box, there is a free Office 2007 add-on from Microsoft which allows you to save files in PDF format. To install the add-on:
- Open an Office 2007 application (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.)
- Click on the Office Button and select 'Save As'
- Select 'Find add-ins for other file formats' (If you already have the add-in installed, the menu will not contain this option but will have 'PDF or XPS' instead)
- Click on 'Install and use the Save as PDF or XPS add-in...'
- Click on 'Microsoft Save as PDF or XPS Add-in...'
- Follow the instructions at the Microsoft Download Center for installing the PDF or XPS add-in
Live Preview – Office 2007’s Live Preview feature allows you to see how a particular formatting option will look on your text or object without actually committing to it. To see the change you simply float your cursor over the style or theme in the Ribbon that you’re interested in, and the change will be temporarily reflected in the section of the document you’ve selected. To remove the formatting, simply take your cursor off the style or theme in the Ribbon.
New Word Features
Contextual Spell Checker – Previous versions of Office’s built-in spell checker picked up misspelled words just fine, but where it failed was when words were spelled correctly but incorrectly used. For example: “I don’t think we’ll loose this deal.” Office 2007’s new contextual spell checker is designed to prevent this by catching incorrect uses of correctly spelled words. Although it won’t always catch 100% of incorrectly used words, it’s a much appreciated new feature.
New Professional Style Sheets – There is a huge emphasis in Office 2007 on themes and styles. Word’s Style Sheets allow you to easily select and switch between many different themes that will give your documents a more professional look.
Translation Tool Tip – This feature will display the translation of any word in a document simply by hovering your cursor over it. Office 2007 comes standard with English, French, and Spanish, but other languages can be added through a separate multilingual add-on.
Easier Blogging – For companies or employees who write blogs, Word 2007 allows for entries to be authored in the program itself and uploaded directly to your blog. Supported blogging sites include Windows Live Spaces, Wordpress, SharePoint, Blogger, Community Server, and others.
New Excel Features
Expanded Conditional Formatting – Conditional formatting now includes many rich data visualizations such as color scales, icon sets, and data bars. Color scales automatically color the background of a group of cells with different colors according to their values. Icon sets allow you to precede the text in a cell with an icon that represents the value of the cell in respect to other cells in a group. Data bars create a gradient in the background of the cell showing the contribution of the cell value to a group.
Color scales and icon sets (column A), and data bars (column B) in Excel 2007
Improved Importing - Importing data from external sources, such as a database, has been upgraded as well. Data now can be imported from formatted tables and reports which do not have a regular grid structure.
Formula Autocomplete – A new feature which is sure to be popular is Excel’s Formula Autocomplete. Excel will now automatically suggest function names, arguments, and named ranges based on the characters you enter into a cell. It will also complete them if you choose so.
New Charting Engine – Excel’s newly upgraded charting engine now supports 3D rendering, thicker chart lines, transparent images, and soft shadowing. Chart layouts can also be customized to highlight various trends in the data.
Click the image above for a larger view of Excel's new charting engine
New PowerPoint Features
Custom Slide Layouts – This new feature lets you quickly apply global changes to all slides in your presentation. With one click you can change the background, text, graphics, charts, and tables to reflect a single theme – giving your presentation a consistent look.
SmartArt – The SmartArt feature allows you to create professional and dynamic workflow, relationship, and hierarchy diagrams. It even allows you to turn a bulleted list into one of many different types of diagrams.
Enhanced Tables and Support – PowerPoint tables have been given a major revision in Office 2007. New tables created in PowerPoint will now appear stylized to your theme and formatted to fit reasonably within the slide. Tables created in other programs, such as Excel, will now function as if they were created in PowerPoint when you import them.
New Outlook Features
Attachment Preview – A great new time-saving feature; attachment preview allows users to view e-mail attachments in the reading pane rather than having to open another program. Althought this feature won't work for all file types, it's well suited to preview the most common types of attachments.
Search Indexing – Outlook now indexes all emails, tasks, and calendar entries for faster searching. Search results now update as you type them in, with terms highlighted for quick reference.
Overlay Calendaring – If you work with multiple calendars regularly, Outlook’s new overlay calendaring function is going to be a welcome addition. Overlay calendaring allows you to combine multiple calendars into a single view. The side-by-side calendaring from Office 2003 is still available, but you’ll find that overlay calendaring allows you identify conflicts easier and get a better picture of your schedule.
Click the image above for a larger view of Outlook Overlay Calendaring
Enhanced Out of Office Assistant (requires Exchange Server 2007) - If you’re using Exchange Server 2003 or earlier, the Out of Office Assistant functions essentially the same in Outlook 2007 as in Outlook 2003. But, if you’re using Exchange Server 2007 there are some useful new enhancements. The first is the ability to schedule your out of office alerts ahead of time. Now you can set the date range in advance for when you’ll be away. Exchange will automatically start sending out of office replies when the date and time arrive. The second new feature is the ability to send out of office replies to people in your organization that are different from the replies that go outside of your organization. Both of these new features should be welcomed additions for any Outlook user.
Closing Thoughts
As with any new revision to a product suite that you use frequently, there is some adjustment time you should expect when switching to Office 2007. But, Microsoft has designed their new productivity suite to be as intuitive as possible, so it shouldn't be too long before you're as comfortabile with Office 2007 as you were with Office 2003. If you have any questions regarding Office 2007 or any of the new Microsoft software releases, please Contact Thrive.