Microsoft Office 12 Beta 1 Is Out

lastberserker writes "The first official beta of the next MS Office is out. PC Magazine already has review with screenshots. Check these blogs for more details on new UI, new file format, and the killer app; plus much more in your friendly neighborhood Wikipedia." From the PC Mag review: "Instead of the cluttered, hard-to-navigate interface that sprouted up haphazardly over the past 20 years, Office 12 introduces a new interface based on tabs that organize sets of functions under headings such as 'Write,' 'Page Layout,' and 'Review,' plus a combination toolbar-and-menu called the ribbon, which displays a different set of icons and menu items depending on the tab selected, and displays different sets of icons depending on whether you're working with text, graphics, tables, or other kinds of data."

Comments

Re:just save some money and

[TedCheshireAcad]

OpenOffice still has its issues. I use it exclusively ( MS Office is not installed on my computer ), and I have noticed that a few of the niceties of MS office are missing.

Although, both OpenOffice and Microsoft have gotten the same thing right in their office suites - it should be a colossal pain in the ass to edit equations and insert them into a document.

Groove

[Frankie70]

I have used Groove which is part of Office
12 & I really love it.

Groove is a document sharing system. Microsoft acquired Groove in April 2005.

Re:Clip....

[kensai]

Clippy does live on. As seen here

http://www.mystal.net/other/clippy-ilive.png

I rest my case.

New File Format

[Eric Damron]

"New File Format - This as you know is the area that is most near and dear to my heart. We are finally fully opening up our file formats in Office. Word, PowerPoint, and Excel will all three use new XML formats as their default formats. These formats will be fully documented and anyone can leverage them to build solutions, or even to build a competitive application. If you're interested in this topic, just keep reading my blog (and look through all my previous entries)."

Fully documented my ass. There are binary headers that are not documented. Without understanding these headers 3rd party vendors cannot leverage squat.

This is the reason that Massachusetts decided not to list Microsoft's XML format as acceptable. It's not really open at all.

Re:New File Format

[TimBrady]

That's just a rumor -- it's not true at all. See The Myth of the Binary Key in Brian Jones's MSN blog.

Re:Groove vs Sharepoint

[outcast36]

I'm a sharepoint admin, and having never used Groove, I'll tell you that it most likely is better. MS did pretty nicely with Sharepoint, then ripped out any useful features leaving them for 3rd party vendors to reinvent. Look for them to neuter Groove sooner rather than later.

Re:Nothing to do with being better

[Anonymous Coward]

"Its utterly rediculous"

rIdiculous

Root word is ridicule.

Somebody please mod this up so that there might be a small chance that at least a few people wil quit fucking this word up.

Then I will be able to sleep at night again.

Re:The Worst Office "Feature" Remains

[psydeshow]

Ummm, that killer feature already exists.

Whenever autocorrect occurs, hover over the newly-mangled text. A dropdown menu will appear, with the bottom option being "Don't offer to ... again."

More like WWWIWYG

[SuperKendall]

What Word Wants Is What You Get