I don't like Office 2007!

Lil306

The thing is with Office 2007 at first glance it's VERY daunting to look at because at some point we were all the same using the File > Edit > Format menus and it looks completely different. Office 2007 is a lot easier to use. The hardest part is just retraining your brain into understanding which tabs and ribbons to look at nothing more.

I quite like the functionality of the dynamic ribbon which changes it's content depending on what you have selected, it's a neat feature and the preview option whenever you select something it automatically previews it for you. I find it extremely useful as someone who troubleshoots the software but has no interaction with it. Where as now I'm using it to it makes it a lot easier for me to assist people because I'm using the packages again and I can understand what their objective is and how to accomplish it

I'd highly recommend anyone who finds Office daunting to do an IT course at a local college. Approach it with an open-minded attitude and start from the lowest levels and you'll see the difference. When I did it I opted for Databases as a 3rd module. Databases and Presentations are my weak points, I considered Excel / Word to be my strengths. Since I've started using them I've come to realise that I've barely scratched the iceberg in terms of how many fuctions are in Word and when I need it, it's always at hand in the ribbon.

Coming from a technical support perspective when you are a computer technician you sometimes have to "learn it as you use it" which if you don't know the application it can leave you going ummmmmmmm and ahhhhhhh over what to do and you usually end up learning off the staff who use it on a day to day basis. Whereas now I'm starting to gain knowledge on the application from the foreground (user side) and background (technical side)

Sublime_2

I did an advanced diploma in MS office, excel, and access 8 to 10 years ago, so I was used to doing things the old way. :rotfl:

I agree it is a matter of getting used to the interface. When you have finally got used to where everything is, its simple to use.

Grade_A_Reject

It takes a bit of getting used to but once you have it's much better. I use Excel daily at various customer sites and still encounter Office 2000 and 2003 but much prefer 2007.

It's called progress. You can either move with it or get stuck with a dinosaur. Visicalc anyone?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VisiCalc

tomstickland

I've spent a few weeks using Office 07 now. Lack of familiarity is now over and I'd say that 2007 is a backwards step from 2003.

Taking Excel, they've slapped a new front end on, removed several useful features added a few minor things. They've made no real progress on what the program can do. Excel 03 was a useful tool that worked pretty well most of the time (that's praise).

To do the job properly they should have polled thousands of long term users and looked to improve on the most common shortcomings of the system. Fixed known bugs.

A lot of it looks unfinished. Take Excel "designs" - they're numebered "style1" through to "style48", even though there is a clear progression of colours and line thicknesses in the table.

I want to create my own chart types. That's easy enough, but there's no way of viewing the list of custom templates by name - instead there's some brash icons that convoy no relevant information.

I want to take a chart and add titles. On 03 I could select "chart properties" and type in all of the titles from one screen with no more clicking. On 07 I have to go
"layout, axis titles, primary axis horizontal title, horizontal title".

The old toolbars allowed a lot of customisation. The new ribbon allows very little.


Office 07 might be great for someone who doesn't really do very much with their computer. For most other people Office 03 was a productive bit of kit and 07 should have worked on functionality not a questionable concept of "improving the navigation".

tomstickland

Grade_A_Reject wrote: »

It takes a bit of getting used to but once you have it's much better. I use Excel daily at various customer sites and still encounter Office 2000 and 2003 but much prefer 2007.

It's called progress. You can either move with it or get stuck with a dinosaur.

So if I rearrange the brake, clutch and accelerator pedals in a car and tell you that it's better that way that would be progress?

tomstickland

anewhope wrote: »

Introducing the Ribbon was a fantastic move by Microsoft. When you're using a word processor, why should you have to take a hand off the keyboard to navigate the menus with the mouse, it's illogical.

How do you use the ribbon without a mouse?

Most intensive users learn keyboard shortcuts. Mouse clicking is slow compared with keyboard presses.

tomstickland

Common problem: I want to select all of the series in a graph to edit the line thickness.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090408111433AAacLpC

I have hundreds of series in my graph, and I want to select them all and format them all at once instead of trying to format each series one by one. Thanks for the advice in advance!

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker

You can select only one series at a time..

hey thanks! i used the excel 2003 and was able to what i wanted.

In earlier releases, you could select one series, format it, then select the
next and use the F4 function key to apply the formatting to the newly
selected series. Using the arrow keys to cycle through the series, you could
format the whole chart, and the next chart, and the next, in a minimal
number of keystrokes. Excel 2007's new formatting dialog architecture has
eviscerated the F4 functionality. That's what I want them to bring back;
otherwise I feel completely ineffective in Excel. This is one main reason I have not converted to 2007 for my important work.

http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/32836078/selecting-multiple-series-in-pivot-chart.aspx



I keep getting "complicated graphs like this might take a while to format" and it's not really a graph with a lot of data in it.

tomstickland

Someone else has done most of the work on Excel here:
http://peltiertech.com/WordPress/what-happened-to-my-favorite-excel-2003-chart-feature/

There have been a lot of changes to the charting infrastructure in Excel 2007. The highly touted formatting features are not an improvement, but a distraction (see Steven Few’s review in Excel’s New Charting Engine — Preview of an Opportunity Missed). I believe that these gaudy formatting options are partly responsible for the order-of-magnitude increase in chart redraw times (see Excel 2007 Chart Performance – Revisited).

This is one feature I really miss too:

Direct manipulation of data points on charts (and change their source values on the worksheet) was a very useful feature in earlier versions of Excel. I would wish this feature be restored in new Excel versions.
I (and my co-workers) have used this feature in many different occasions. These are:
(1) shifting a whole graph along Y-axis to a certain position by dragging only one data point (when the data points are interdependent);
(2) quick elimination of large spikes in a chart containing millions of data points;
(3) connecting several Y(x) spectra obtained in different X-regions and having different baselines (quick baseline removal);
(4) quick determination of a slop value at a certain location of the graph (by drawing and manual shifing a two-point straight line);
and many-many other uses.
I really missed this feature in Excel 2007.

Read more: What happened to my favorite Excel 2003 Chart feature? | Peltier Tech Blog | Excel Charts http://peltiertech.com/WordPress/what-happened-to-my-favorite-excel-2003-chart-feature/#ixzz0zOr4ZWqJ

I'm not scared of progress. Everything I'm involved with at work is progress. Excel 2007 hasn't really made any progress.

Tell me what 2007 can do better than 2003.

Trinitrotoluene

tomstickland wrote: »

Tell me what 2007 can do better than 2003.
[/LEFT]

Support for dual processors, more columns and rows, can address more memory (old limit was a gig), more unique colours and styles in workbooks, unlimited conditonal formatting on cells, more characters displaying in a cell, bigger maximum length for formulas; need I carry on because I could all day long.

[Deleted User]

tomstickland wrote: »

How do you use the ribbon without a mouse?

Press Alt..

Most intensive users learn keyboard shortcuts. Mouse clicking is slow compared with keyboard presses.

Exactly.