Office 2007

So I recently bought Microsoft Office 2007. I got the Ultimate Edition for cheap through a student discount. I had previously been running Office 2000 so I decided the upgrade was a good idea. The program has a lot of good features. It also introduces some new menu navigation features that are interesting and will take me some time to get used to. I want to complain about some of the other changes.

Microsoft has for some reason decided to remove items from the menus that come up when you right click on something. For example, in Excel when I wanted to change the title and labeling of a graph I would right click on the center and then I had the option to change these things. Now Each of these rather basic editing options are hidden in menus at the top of the screen. This means that what used to take me 15 seconds to do now takes me 5-10 minutes as I have to find where the options have moved to. Even when I get used to where everything has moved it will still take longer as the different options are scattered.

Today I went to scan something and realized that the option to insert a picture from a scanner has been moved or removed. I ended up having to use some of my scanner's software directly instead of using the word import option that previously existed.

Also today, I was playing with the header and footer. I like a lot of the templates. Previously you had to know how the header and footer worked (which was not complicated at all). Now you can simply click on a template and have page numbering etc. set up on your page. This is good. Also a lot of the templates look really nice. Unfortunately, using more advanced features in the header and footer requires some searching now. For instance, it is a lot more difficult to have the numbering go i ii iii iv then 1 2 3 4 5 .... in other words having different numbering depending on the section of the document you are in. I eventually found out how to do this, but it is organized in the oddest way.

I've noticed that things are not grouped the way you would expect them to be. For example, I would have expected graph options to be lumped in a spot in a menu. Instead they are scattered throughout menus.

The equation editor is pretty good, although for some reason they changed the way that you do superscripts and subscripts . I won't bore you with the details but it is an odd change. Interestingly enough, Power Point uses the old Microsoft Equation 3.0, which I like.

The symbols have odd changes. When you want to insert a Greek symbol you can click on the symbol button. The weird thing is that not all of the Greek letters initially come up. You get a sigma variant along with the regular sigma, but there is no zeta (the letter I was trying to use). I quickly realized that clicking an expand button brought up the rest of the letters, but the default choices were bizarre.

The first time I used the new office it took me a while to find how to print and how to do print preview. Luckily I had a friend show me where it was.

Microsoft has made several mistakes in my opinion. First they radically changed the interface and didn't leave enough of the old functionality to help people transition. Next, they seem to have made their programs with easy templates for beginners while at the same time making the programs more difficult for long time users. Anytime I wanted to do something advanced I found it really hard to do. Also, the new office seems harder to explore. What I mean by this is that a lot of what I know in Microsoft Office came from me exploring menus etc. until I found out how to do the particular thing. This is a lot harder to do with the new layout.

Now I don't want to be all negative. I do like a lot about Office 2007. The templates are nice, the graphics pretty, everything is up to date, etc. I've also talked with friends who said that when they first started using it they were lost, but that after a while you learn it and end up really liking it. I've heard that Vista is the same way. I look forward to really knowing Office 2007. I just wish it was designed more logically and was more good to longtime users and users who want more control and more power to do advanced things.