The release of Microsoft Windows Vista made headlines. Office 2007 was released on the same day. Like Vista, Office 2007 offers significant improvements. Some of my favorites:
The Office Ribbon
Office 2007 has a beautiful new look. At the heart of the new look is the Office Ribbon. It moves most of the commands out into the open. The Ribbon replaces the toolbars from previous Office versions. When you click on a menu, you don’t get a dropdown list of commands. Instead, the Ribbon changes.
Document Inspector
It is important to watch what you reveal when sharing documents electronically. You may have heard news stories about Word documents revealing sensitive information.
Office 2007’s Document Inspector is designed to help you safeguard your data. Before you share a file, it inspects the contents. Just click the Office button and select Prepare, then Inspect Document. Click Inspect to search for a variety of elements. The Document Inspector reveals hidden text, comments, versions, document properties and personal information.
To-Do Bar
Outlook does much more than e-mail. It keeps you organized by managing your contacts, appointments and tasks. In Outlook 2007, you can see your list of to-do items in any view. The To-Do Bar sits at the right side of the screen.
At the top, you’ll see a monthly calendar. Below that are lists of upcoming appointments, tasks and e-mail flagged for follow-up. You can also add a new task from the To-Do Bar. Completed items stick with the day they’re marked complete. Other tasks roll over to the next day.
Live Preview
In earlier versions of Office, formatting involved a fair amount of guesswork. You needed to apply a change to see how it affected your work. Office 2007 features Live Preview. You can preview a change to your document without applying the change.
For example, in Word, Excel or PowerPoint, select a portion of the text. On the Home Ribbon, click the arrow beside the font name. As you move your mouse over the list of fonts, the selected text changes. Because the preview is instantaneous, formatting is easy.
Live Preview is especially helpful with Word’s Styles formatting feature. With a few mouse clicks, you can create and then preview snazzy documents.
Instant Search
I’m a fan of Vista’s Search feature. I’m happy to see that Office 2007 has a similar search feature. In Outlook, you click Inbox or another folder. Type a term into the Search box. You’ll get a list of results from that folder matching your term. Search results update as you type; terms are highlighted for quick reference. This is especially handy with the Preview pane turned on.
There are eight different versions of Microsoft Office 2007, ranging from Home and Student ($150, full version) to Ultimate ($680, full version/$540, upgrade version).
Contact Kim Komando at gnstech@gns.gannett.com.
