Were you less than thrilled when you upgraded from Office 97 to 2000? Perhaps you were expecting more than the usual batch of new features that you've not heard of or seldom use.

Well, this time the programmers at Microsoft have totally revamped the entire Office Suite's interface, breathing new life and a fresh feel into this successor of a long line of office productivity suites.

To see Office in action, select here Office In Action

You'll be happy to notice that all your standard office apps are all here--Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access--along with several new ones, too.

Aside from the new features and options Office 2007 presents, the first thing you'll notice, and one of the most salient new features, is a categorical cosmetic makeover to the entire interface.

If you've not yet had the chance to upgrade to Microsoft's new flagship OS, Vista, you're probably aren't used to the new smooth graphics that Vista advertises. Well, even with good old XP, Office 2007's graphical makeover still manages to shine.

Menu Replacement: Contextual Tabs

Along with a new look, the designers of Office 07 decided that a new method of navigation was in order, replacing the standard menu bar with a new tab-like interface.

At first, things appear out of place and you'll need to track down commonly used features, but you'll soon appreciate the new layout, as it actually makes things easier to find once you get used to it.

Clicking on the new contextual tabs will open up a new tab section all long the top portion of Office.

For instance, in Word 2007, there are 7 contextual tabs--

1. Home
2. Insert Page
3. Layout
4. References
5. Mailings
6. Review
7. View.

When you select on one of the tabs, a new panel section will appear at the top of Word, right above your document's main window. Just to get into the new Office vernacular, each panel is called a "ribbon".

Everything you need will be located on the contextual tab's ribbon panel; you no longer need to navigate through a maze of pullout menus just to get at the feature or setting you want. Everything's basically located at the bottom of each tab item once you give it the focus. This new visual way of doing things soon pays off in improved efficiency, for the new UI exudes precise control and simplicity.

Office's Live Preview

A new feature, aptly named Live Preview, will allow you to apply temporal formatting and alterations to a portion of text or an object when you glide your mouse's pointer over it.

Because the formatting changes are temporary, you need not worry about doing something you might regret. This new feature makes it possible to get a preview of what might occur should you actually apply said formatting to a text object without the apprehension of botching up your Office document.

Handy Mini Toolbar

One of the more useful innovations that Office 2007 provides its users is a popup mini toolbar, which makes configuring and setting text properties, such as font style and color, quick and easy.

The mini toolbar will make itself visible when you highlight a portion of text; give it a try it. Once it's highlighted, navigate your mouse's pointer over the text object.

A mini toolbar will magically appear; this toolbar contains all the essential text formatting settings that one would normally need to locate in the menu or toolbar with other office productivity suites.

When you move your pointer away from the highlighted section, the mini toolbar will make itself semi-transparent, so it won't hinder your view of the entire document. Moving your mouse's pointer back to the highlighted text will expand the mini toolbar's visibility, letting you get back to work.

An Improved File Format  

Traditional Office Documents were usually created in a proprietary format that only office MS Office applications could read and write.

With the advent of Office 2007, a new format has been introduced: OpenXML. Put simply, this new file format utilizes XML--Extensible Markup Language--to store its documents data, as well as placing it inside of a standard zip archive.

All this technical jargon basically equates to an open data storage standard, as well as yielding Office documents up to 75% smaller than the older Office formats.

If you need to send files to a user, and you're not sure if they have Office2007, you'll also have the option of saving your documents in one of the many older formats, which guarantees backwards compatibility.

The new Office 2007 not only adds handy features that'll allow you to get your work done faster and more efficiently (contextual tabs, mini toolbar etc.), but it's also pleasing to the eye to look at; it's well worth the upgrade from previous versions of Office just to get the improved interface.

To see Office in action, select here Office In Action!

Major Jane Raymond USAFA

MER/IT

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