Phil:
To satisfy your curiosity (or perhaps cynicism) I do not work for Microsoft
or any related company. Nor do I work for a "large" company. I have been
semi-retired for years and consult for several companies (fewer than 10
employees each) that place a premium on professional-looking and
aesthetically-appealing PowerPoint presentations, Excel workbooks and, in
particular, Word documents. Many of the features I noted above contribute
significantly to producing these products. We have received numerous comments
from our clients' customers on the impressive quality of these products since
switching to Office 2007. Comments have included compliments on the superior
readability, the eye-popping graphics (SmartArt) and the presentation-quality
charts. In all cases, the documents have been created and saved in 2007
formats and a second version has been saved in 2003 or earlier formats.
Although I think Office 2007 is the most significant advancement in software
since Lotus 1-2-3 was introduced, it may not be the right product depending
on a person's needs or his/her ability to embrace change.
Some, who take the time to read about what Office 2007 offers, will decide
it doesn't suit their needs and decide not to buy it; many others will be
impressed and buy it. Typically, those in the latter group will take the time
to learn the new user interface and how to take advantage of other new
features (both of which can be very frustrating) and, in most cases, be
rewarded for their efforts.
Others will have Office 2007 forced upon them by a decision of company
management. Some will refuse to spend the time to learn the new interface and
take advantage of the new features; instead they will incessantly complain,
often blaming the "evil empire (Microsoft)" or their stupid bosses. Most who
choose to endure the frustration of learning the new software will be richly
rewarded for their efforts.
Good luck with your future purchasing decisions.
"Greg Maxey" wrote
Phil,
I don't work for Microsoft either. In fact right now I don't work at all
and serioulsy considering a Work for Food Program ;-)
--
Greg Maxey/Word MVP
See:
http://gregmaxey.mvps.org/word_tips.htm
For some helpful tips using Word.
Phil wrote:
My reaction was exactly the same as that of grammatim - if that's all
that's on offer i wish i'd stayed with 2003. I'm in the process of
reloading 2003 but of course it will take ages as I'll have to
reinstall all the service packs and updates. What a pity microsoft
couldnt have pointed out that one can keep both versions.
By the way, it might be useful to know of people posting here whether
they work for microsoft. Barnhill makes that clear, but Aeneas?
To be frank I feel badly treated by microsoft over this. I've been
with OFFICE - WORD, EXCEL, ACCESS, OUTLOOK for over 10 years and have
naturally therefore got used to a given user interface. The right
thing to have done would have been to offer a full compatibility mode
and then people could migrate as and when they feel like they want to.
Nobody minds minor UI changes but this is total. I think I'll keep
outlook2007 and revert to 2003 for the rest.
And they still didn't fix what, for me, was the biggest problem - the
size of the single monolithic PST file. If, like me, you use an
incremental archive system, its just terrible, finding that this
massive file has to be archived every single time, when it should be
organised into much smaller files - say one per folder.
Phil
On 18 Jan, 22:37, grammatim wrote:
Nothing listed by Aeneas strikes me as desirable -- especially what
they seem to be promoting especially heavily: the imposition of pre-
provided designs instead of the creativity of individual designers
(or, call it advertising departments). Evidently Mr. Gates wants all
documents ever produced henceforth to look alike.
The one useful feature of Word2007 that's been mentioned here is the
clearer method of comparing versions of documents.
On Jan 18, 5:10 pm, Aeneas wrote:
You might regret uninstalling Word 2007 if you value any of the
following:
[see previous message for the list]
"Phil" wrote:
I've just upgraded to 2007 from 2003 and am wondering why I did
it! I see no extra functionality and, as a WORD expert user, am
now totally lost and can't find any of the features i regularly
used. And some are missing - e.g. AutoText.
Does anyone know any good reason why I might regret uninstalling it
and reverting to 2003?