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You know, sometimes I wonder what kind of stupid pills they're on up there at Microsoft. I'm pretty sure that on this last round of software they fired all of their capable programmers and hired a bunch of kindergartners. I mean honestly, have you seen Vista yet? Sure it's pretty, if you have a $4k computer that can run it. What about the rest of us? Even worse, have you seen Office 2007? Ouch.
The latest office suite out of Microsoft is sure to cause some people headaches and hassles. They managed to mess this one up on three main fronts, UI design, keyboard shortcuts and compatibility with older office programs. In order to, I'm assuming, make it look fancy and futuristic they decided to change the basic layout that we have been used to for 20 some odd years. You know that little menu bar at the top that goes something like "File Edit View Etc"? Gone. Replaced by the Office Pearl, a single round button that doesn't include any of the afore mentioned commands, at least not in any straight forward manner. The ones that are really mad are the ones that have spent years learning and using all of the keyboard shortcuts. They managed to change just enough of those to make you feel completely lost.
Those issues will really only irritate those who are experienced in using Microsoft Office. People like myself who don't get much past Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V won't notice the changes in the keyboard shortcuts. The new user interface and lack of a traditional menu bar can be figured out with only slight retraining. The new .docx, .xlsx, and .pptx formats are where the real trouble lies. Microsoft Office 2003 and older can't read the new formats out of the box. Microsoft has released a "Compatibility Pack" at the Office Online site that will add this capability into Office 2003, but you can't assume that everyone has installed that patch. So what do you do? Well, you can set Office 2007 to automatically use the old formats in just a few clicks:
- Open Microsoft Word, click office icon at the top left...
- Now, Click the Word Options button...
- Select Save in the left pane, then select Word 97-2003 Documents from the drop down...
- Click Ok.
This will allow Office 2007 to use the more familiar .doc, .xls and .ppt formats that are compatible with all versions of Office. If you are using Office 2003 and someone sends you one of the new format files, just install the "Compatibility Pack" to be able to read and write files in the new formats. The file is almost 25 MB so it may take a while to download if you are on a slower connection. Installation is very simple and can easily be accomplished by just about anyone.
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