Are You Ready for Office 2007?

Microsoft Office 2007 is the latest release productivity suite released by the company. Officially, it was released to the general public on January 30 but was released to businesses on November 30, 2006. Office Basic 2007 has been released on new computers running the Windows Vista system since January via partnerships with various computer companies. Office 2008 for the Mac OS will be released sometime after the summer of 2007.

The entire suite was overhauled with a new graphical interface as well as connectivity between all programs in the suite. Emphasizing on people's desire to share their life with the world around them, many new features such as Expression Web and SharePoint Designer replace FrontPage as the new web design software of its time. New applications such as Groove, for businesses, and SharePoint Server, seek to connect Office to the server-side tools and applications businesses and corporations run.

There are many different versions of Microsoft Office as well as trials that can be purchased from Microsoft's web site, including the ability to download them from the web site instead of waiting for an installation CD in the mail. You can also try live demos of various Office components online instead of downloading a 60 trial and see what you can do with the new Word or Excel now.

Office 2007 includes many new features as well as complete overhaul of others. The biggest change is the entire user interface for the suite called Microsoft Office Fluent. It is integrated into the core applications of Office, most notably Word, Excel, PointPoint and Access as well as certain parts of Outlook. These were the most overhauled graphically whereas other portions of Office will be overhauled with various patches and upgrades over the next year.

Instead of using the file menu to do certain things within an application, Office uses what has been dubbed "the Office Button" to interconnect all the common things you would do in the file menu plus the interaction with other components in the suite. You can also change the color interface for each program from the menu, the fonts and other features to customize the Office experience. The Office Button will allow you to open a chart you created in Excel, edit and quickly insert it into a PowerPoint presentation along with the document you wrote in Word easier than ever thought possible.

Another new graphical interface called The Ribbon seeks to bring together command buttons, icons and tabs to eliminate clutter in the toolbar. Each program has a different set of Ribbon commands which are more easily accessible than its predecessor. Some contextual tabs only appear when you do something specific within each program. These tabs will remain hidden until you need them by clicking or highlighting certain selections within text, graphics or charts. Mini-toolbars will also be used when highlighting certain selections and once you move your mouse, it will disappear into the background.

One of the most anticipated features includes the live preview. These will temporarily show what your project looks like without causing the format to take over the entire project. This will give you an idea of what something could look like without spending hours slaving over making it look like that only to find out you do not think it will work. One of the most common problems when working with graphics and formatting is eating up a lot of memory when applying changes over a larger document, the live preview will eliminate Office on many levels from locking up and losing all your data when trying to apply those changes. You will be able to see quickly what your changes will do and from there decide if it is the right route to go.

Office 2007 will also make use of smart art throughout its core applications. It will allow you to insert through The Ribbon different layouts, text panes and other styles you can customize and save. Everything from 3D graphic effects, text shadowing or other formats can change the documents theme with a few simple clicks.

A new file format has also been introduce through Office 2007 called the Office OpenXML. It uses XML and zips the files contents to make it more than 75% smaller than previous Office document file formats. Most Word documents will be saved as DOCX files instead of DOC files. You can still use older formats, both create them and open them, but you will have to use format converters to successfully open and save them in the next Office. PDF support was expected from this release, but it will now be supported as a separate download in partnership from Adobe.

The familiar paper clip or Shakespeare help of the previous Office has been replaced by what Microsoft calls "SuperTips" that will guide you through troubleshooting and other processes. The improved graphical interface seeks to eliminate the confusion and other problems users run into when upgrading to a new version such as this.

If you have a previous version of Microsoft Office, you may be eligible for an upgrade depending on what version you have and what version you want to upgrade to. There are many different bundles, packages and other upgrade options for a computer user. Microsoft Office Basic 2007 is not available commercially but is pre-installed on new computers running Vista. Other than that version, finding the right one for you is easy as Microsoft's web site lists the price, features and other overviews of each bundle.

If you are not convinced to upgrade or buy Office 2007, yet, Microsoft's web site offers you two ways to test pilot the new software. You can download a 60 day trial or try a live demo today. Get your hands on the new Office, and see what it can do for you, then, you will know if you are ready to give up your old software and take on the new version and all it has to offer you. Visit Microsoft's web site today and see what version you might want to take on yourself.