I have been playing around with Office 2007, and I know many of you have heard that it is a tuff transition from previous versions of Office. Change is difficult to deal with, in so many areas of life. However, I am finding that Office 2007 is a very refreshing change. Maybe because I have been using Office 2003 for so many years, I was ready for a change. I wanted something new and exciting. Office 2007 offers that, in so many ways. I will spend several posts talking about those changes, so if you are at all interested in learning about Office 2007, tune in. . . . . I promise to give you some details.
I’ll begin by focusing this post on the basics. One of the things that just plain bugged me about previous versions of Office, was the fact that I spent so much time navigating menu’s to get to the features I wanted. I know, I know. . . .it was easy to put frequently used items on the button bar, but who has time for that? Besides, I change laptops as frequently as I purchase sneakers, so it was not expedient for me to build up my button bars with custom buttons each time I got a new laptop. No, I am not Ms. Got-Rocks, however, I do work in an IT Department (OK, I am the IT Department), of a good sized company, and we have a good turnover of laptops in the company.
So, I will tell you that the new structure of Office 2007 is really cool. . . . .at least I like it! The entire Menu Bar/Button Bar area has been replaced with the “Ribbon“.
I know the graphic is a bit small, but you can kind of get the gist of what it is all about. Instead of the usual, File, Edit, View, Insert, etc menu’s at the top, you now have the Ribbon that replaces the Menu’s and Toolbars. It makes it so much easier to find items you want. All of your commands are now arranged on task-oriented tabs. The Home tab gives you access to the most frequently used functions, such as Cut, Copy, Paste, Font items, Paragraph tools, etc.
You then have separate tabs for related functions, such as Insert, Page Layout, Reference, Mailings, Review, View. When clicking on each of these tabs, the entire ribbon changes and gives you a great visual of the features available for you to use.
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.
In my next post, I will tell you about two new cool features of Office 2007. In future posts, I will highlight specific features for Word 2007, Excel 2007, Outlook 2007, and PowerPoint 2007.
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