Microsoft Office 2007 SP2 Released, Supports ODF Out of the Box

shutdown -p now writes "On April 28, Microsoft released service pack 2 for Microsoft Office 2007. Among other changes, it includes the earlier-promised support for ODF text documents and spreadsheets, featured prominently on the 'Save As' menu alongside Office Open XML and the legacy Office 97-2007 formats. It is also possible to configure Office applications to use ODF as the default format for new documents. In addition, the service pack also includes 'Save as PDF' out of the box, and better Firefox support by SharePoint."

Comments

Great

[Reality Master 201]

Now we're gonna get the swine flu spread all over from the flying pigs.

Re:Great

[Filip22012005]

double-click the ribbon categories. they hide.

Re:Great

[DesertBlade]

I thought it was a nice advancement, but since then switched to OpenOffice at home (being 100% legit with software) and like the simplicity of the menus. It also reduced screen real estate and is easy to add/remove buttons.

M$ made a HUGE mistake not having a 'classic menu' option in Office 2007.

Re:Great

[V!NCENT]

Embrace.

Extend.

Extinquish.

Re:Great

[Lord Ender]

You are insane. Office 2007 was a horribly slow, buggy nightmare. SP2 is wonderful, though. Finally, I don't have to deal with Outlook freezing on me for 2+ minutes several times per day.

Office 2007 was crap from the start. Only now is it even usable.

Re:Great

[RiotingPacifist]

It allows them into markets they were being shut out of in europe. Plus ATM they don't have much to worry about, openoffice is clearly lagging behind and the other OSS suits while strong in some areas are significantly lacking in other. Additionally due to the lack of innovation in office suites it's unlikely that a something will take them away from number #1 spot quickly and they are unlikely to be caught off guard like they were by firefox, if they start seeing a major competitor then they can go back to their old techniques.

So while they opening themselves up to competition, they are so far ahead (in terms of market share and in some senses their product is also superior), that it's worth it in order to not get shut out of certain markets that require open documets.

Its not like this is their first effort to open up there formats either, i think they contributed to apache POI used to stand for "Poor Obfuscation Implementation", but that's not mentioned on their website much anymore ;)) as well. There is also the iso that while not entirely open does force them to be somewhat more open.

Re:Great

[Darkness404]

Well, its for their future version of Office, Office 2010 will be MS's version of EMACS! I hear however that Apple's newest version of iWork will be based on VI though, while Oracle since they have taken over Sun will release Star/Open Office where you edit everything using ED.

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

Press alt; it shows a letter for each menu and function. Thus, most functions can activated with a 3 button combination.

This not only makes every function easy to get to via keyboard, it makes memorizing shortcuts unnecssary. Although I assume eventually these shortcuts would become second nature.

Re:Great

[bunratty]

Some people are receiving documents created in OpenOffice. Microsoft would like to have these people open those documents in Microsoft Office rather than download OpenOffice to open them. Otherwise, the next thing you know, people might actually use OpenOffice to create new documents. Ugh! This FOSS stuff spreads just like a virus!

Re:Great

[Planesdragon]

Perhaps you can explain to me how to do everything in Office 2007 without a mouse

You're using windows without a mouse? Ok, whatever.

Press the ALT key. Office 2007 will show you a list of shortcut keys, over every icon visible.

Re:Great

[icannotthinkofaname]

Forget menus and toolbars.

No. Toolbars and menus worked well. In fact, for every other application out there, they still work well. And they stay out of the way of whatever I'm working on.

Ribbons take up entirely too much space on the screen. I need them to be hidden/minimized/whatever for two reasons: (1) My work, the main thing I'm focusing on, gets more space on the screen and (2) it gives me the illusion that I still have some sort of menu.

When I have a series of words on a bar at the top of my window, I expect them to yield menus, not toolbars, when I click on them. This is how every GUI I have ever known has worked, and I have never once had a problem with it, nor have I ever felt like there was a better way to lay everything out.

Give me one good reason why it was a good idea to use these bastardized toolbars instead of the usual menus and normal toolbars.

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

What lack of keyboard shortcuts? MS Office 2007 supports every single shortcut that MS Office 2003 did. Even if the menu is no longer there it still respects the old shortcut. Microsoft did this on purpose. You didn't even bother to check, did you?

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone's entitled to their opinion, but my experience is the opposite. Our university department also had our lab machines upgraded to Office 2007 due to pressure from our IT personnel. It was promptly rejected by all the students and all the staff as frustrating and incompatible. Nobody liked it.

It was frustrating because commonly-used options were hidden away (no "Office classic" mode? What were they thinking?), and incompatible because there were enough changes in Excel (for example) to break tools that were set up in previous versions. Then there's the default .XML format which students and staff had to learn wouldn't work on their older versions at home without saving as 97-2003 format first (and sometimes *that* didn't work properly either).

The final straw was spending an hour trying to find and then figure out how to properly paginate a document divided into sections with different page number styles (e.g., a thesis document). I knew how to do it in prior versions, and it was fairly easy. Not only had the menu options been rearranged and relabeled, but the help sucked, and the behavior seemed to be different even when we did find it the right menu.

After 2 weeks of this sort of thing we insisted that IT restore the 2003 version, and when the call went out for software to be installed on the new lab hardware coming later this summer, the number one request was Office 2003. Whether IT will support that, I don't know. But if they don't, then I'm insisting OpenOffice be installed too.

PDF as a "native" option? Big deal. We already had PDFCreator installed anyway, it works for more than just Office, and it's free.

Office 2007 is an expensive and unnecessary "upgrade" that may make sense to IT departments already paying for Microsoft licenses, but that's because they only have to deploy it. They expect everyone else to work through the retraining, and for what benefit, exactly? What was wrong with Office 2003 or OpenOffice if those already worked fine?

Re:Great

[Planesdragon]

I will tell you one thing that is not great about Office 2007 - lack of keyboard shortcuts.

You're trolling.

Name one -- ONE -- keyboard shortcut that went away in 2007 that you used.

Re:Great

[DerekJ212]

.odfx

Re:Great

[faraday_cage]

M$ made a HUGE mistake not having a 'classic menu' option in Office 2007.

Why was it a mistake? Why was it a mistake to leave behind something that was no longer working as intended? 73% of all new features that the public requested were command that already existed in the programs. The menu structure clearly wasn't letting people find these features.

All you need to do is put your common commands on the quick access toolbar, hide the ribbon and you have something that looks a lot like the old menu/toolbar scenario. Don't get me wrong, I loathed the change at first. But after 2 years of teaching 2007, and seeing the feedback of users who were as equally entrenched in the old system, there is barely anyone I know who yearns or pines for the old menu.

I did try open office at home. The word processor was ok, but not robust, and the spreadsheet module would crash whenever I tried opening anything beyond a basic invoice with only sum functions. They need to work on that if they want it to be taken as a serious competitor to Excel. It is barely robust enough for a home budget file.

Re:Great

[alphabetsoup]

Its a myth that Office 2007 takes up more UI space than Office 97 or 2003. Office 2007 UI takes up slightly less vertical space than Office 97 out of the box. If the user displays a few toolbars, as most users do, Office 97 consumes far more space than 2007. Here is a post which goes into the detail measurements: http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/04/17/577485.aspx

Anyways, you can always minimize the ribbon.

Re:Great

[alphabetsoup]

Uhh, but Office 2007 has exactly the same shortcuts as Office 2003. Here is a list for Word: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290938

And here is a list of the changes between the 2 versions: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926809/ I count a total of 6 items on the list. In fact MS added Keytips for better keyboard navigation of UI: http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2005/10/13/480568.aspx

Re:Great

[mrchaotica]

First, although I don't really doubt you, do you know that Office '07 SP2 saves ODF formulas incompatibly or are you speculating?

Second, is there a mechanism to deprecate 1.1 and force Microsoft to support 1.2 if they want to continue to claim "ODF support"?

Re:Great

[beuges]

You make a valid point, but even in VISTA you can set up your start menu back to look like it did back in Windows 95.

Yes, and apparently for Windows 7, they have finally given in to reason and dropped the classic start menu. Just because you're used to something doesn't mean it's better, it means that right now, its better for you, because you aren't familiar with anything different and potentially better. I'm sure that for at least 90% of users, once they've been using the new interface for a week or two, they'd be just as comfortable as with the old one. It's the initial fear of change that prevents them from spending the time getting used to the new interface in the first place. The menu system 'worked for millions of people' because there was nothing better until the ribbon was introduced.

Obligatory car analogy: I've been driving my 2002 Toyota with no power steering or ABS or pretty much any features, and despite knowing there are better options available to me now, was perfectly happy with it until my parents got a new car 6 months ago with a bunch of fancy features. After having driven their new car, my 2002 model shows its age and clunkiness. Prior to that I'd have brushed off things like power steering and electric mirrors as unnecessary (I have driven in cars with them before, but not often), and steering wheel radio controls as being overly complicated, but after spending a holiday with them driving their car for a while, it actually sucked going back to my own one.

Re:Great

[David Gerard]

A report on Groklaw.

Re:Great

[Anpheus]

From Wikipedia:

"OpenDocument 1.2 is currently being written by the ODF TC. It is likely to include additional accessibility features, metadata enhancements, spreadsheet formula specification based on the OpenFormula work (ODF 1.0 and 1.1 did not specify spreadsheet formulae in detail, leaving many aspects implementation-defined) as well as on some suggestions submitted by the public. Originally OpenDocument 1.2 was expected to become an OASIS standard by October 2007 but later it was expected to become a final draft in May 2008 and an OASIS standard in 2009 and a new ISO/IEC version some months later.[13] However currently there is no final draft of ODF v1.2 yet."

Short version: you don't deserve to be modded anything better than -1 Flamebait.

Re:Great

[tsa]

I guess they couldn't get OOXML working properly and decided to give in and use ODF instead.

Re:Great

[shutdown -p now]

Ironically, they did it precisely the other way - they've implemented the ODF spec to the letter, and ignored any conformance bugs in OpenOffice (and in pretty much all other existing ODF implementations, which tend to follow OpenOffice behavior). The result is that you will have problems moving ODF documents between MSOffice and OpenOffice, but Microsoft gets to point a blaming finger at OpenOffice guys if asked.

I wonder, also, how it will affect any government tenders on Office suites. If one of the requirements is support for ODF, then Microsoft can just say that they're the only ones on the market with a fully compliant implementation, and point out flaws in OO.org...

Slashdot is turning into Windows Update

[Anonymous Coward]

IE8, Office 2007 SP2. Only difference is that it works in Firefox.

Re:Slashdot is turning into Windows Update

[icannotthinkofaname]

It also doubles as a Linux update manager as well. Remember when Ubuntu 9.04 was released? :)

As always, Microsoft coming late

[gmuslera]

April 1st was more than a month ago.

Great

[El Lobo]

Office 2007 has been a very stable and good version from the start. At my department, in the university I work for, experienced users (like our two secretaries) had some difficulties at first re-learning the new user interface, before they, after some weeks realized what a great invention the ribbon is. Yes, you need to think different here. Forget menus and toolbars. The ribbon is a great thing when you understand that they are somehow like toolbars, but they are dynamic as well. When you realize how the thing work, then you cannot live without it.

Now having PDF as a "native" option (and , as a minor option, odf as well) without installing extra software , this is a real winner. Good work.

Should install MsOffice 2007

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Like AcidTest for browsers, is there a standard test that will test the export/import compliance with standards for the Office documents? Mod me paranoid, but I am worried Microsoft will implement ODF export/import deliberately in a buggy way to damage the reputation of the ODF format.

Re:Should install MsOffice 2007

[Statecraftsman]

We definitely need this AcidTest for ODF rendering. I just ran across this post that highlights a few potential problems in Microsoft's implementation: http://www.archivum.info/comp.os.linux.advocacy/2008-08/msg00757.html

Re:Should install MsOffice 2007

[jabithew]

I would say open it in OOo, but since that can open MSdoc files that MS Office can't, it's probably not the best yardstick.

Re:Should install MsOffice 2007

[UltraAyla]

I'm no MS Fanboy, but that post actually highlights Microsofts strength of implementation. It sounds like Oo.org is the one that has some problems in their implementation that only show up when importing a strictly made document. Hopefully this will be pressure to fix the workarounds they have in place so that true interoperability is possible.

Re:Should install MsOffice 2007

[CSMatt]

http://tools.services.openoffice.org/odfvalidator/

Re:Should install MsOffice 2007

[ConceptJunkie]

Well, it's a big step up from Office 2003 where OOo could open up Word documents that Office couldn't.

I lost whatever lingering dregs of respect I had for Microsoft when writing a Word document on the Mac, and Word crashed, corrupting the saved document as well. This was in 2005. I can't even remember the last time an app crashed _and_ managed to toast the document on disk too. Probably in 80's. After I rewrote the document from scratch (in OOo, where is was so much easier to make simple table it wasn't funny, and it wasn't modal for crying out loud, why is Word modal, especially since it's in really subtle ways?!), someone suggested that OOo possibly could have opened the document since it had a reputation of not being as bad as Microsoft at their own format.

Of course, with Microsoft you're always dealing with crap you thought you'd never see again 10 years ago.

Re:Should install MsOffice 2007

[noidentity]

http://tools.services.openoffice.org/odfvalidator/ Still can't verify that the ODF you saved properly represents what you see on screen.

What caused Adobe to back off?

[dirk]

Save as PDF was supposed to be a feature in Office from the beginning, but Adobe objected (legally) and forced them to pull it, so MS offered it as a separate download. I wonder why Adobe decided to drop their objection to MS putting this is Office.

Re:What caused Adobe to back off?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Formerly a proprietary format, PDF was officially released as an open standard on July 1, 2008, and published by the International Organization for Standardization as ISO 32000-1:2008."

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

Re:What caused Adobe to back off?

[CSMatt]

Why anyone would throw down hundreds of dollars for Acrobat when they can get the same functionality from other software is beyond me.

Re:What caused Adobe to back off?

[TheRaven64]

Informative? Maybe, but irrelevant. PDF was only ever semi-proprietary. Adobe controlled it, but the spec was freely available and could be implemented by anyone, royalty-free. Adobe's complaint was not that they implemented PDF support, it was that they did something Adobe's software did (convert Word documents to PDF) and bundled it with a product that had an effective monopoly in the market (MS Office). It was an antitrust complaint, not a copyright/patent infringement case.

Victory is ours!

[mcrbids]

Small as it may seem, a major victory has been won, here.

Ever notice that the price of MS Office exceeds the price of the rest of the computer? Whole swaths of public records stand at risk, tied to a format that's both obsolete and undocumented. But, by commoditizing the document format with open standards, this has the effect of requiring Microsoft to compete on real terms - stability, usability, features, price - rather than by effective lockout through underhanded OEM de3als and shady use of their Monopoly status.

This is a very, very good thing for everybody. (Even Microsoft - if they aren't forced to compete on real terms, they will atrophy and wither, eventually losing their monopoly and going the way of DEC)

As always, the ball's not out of the park yet, we must remain ever vigilant and work to preserve a competitive marketplace....

Re:Victory is ours!

[infinitelink]

I don't know. With Microsoft at least we're dealing with one entity: in the event it is needed the government can go to Microsoft and say "hey, we need you to support your older formats better so we can ensure they're accessible and/or move them to newer ones"; there's someone definite to deal with, entrenched so they're strong to a great extent (and not likely going anywhere), with all the incentive in the world to ensure they please such requests (which when governments request something of Microsoft, request not sue, then Microsoft usually complies).

With ODF there's standards, yes, but compliance of implementation is optional; there's no one in particular fully responsible for ensuring that compliance--there's no enforcement; people balked, for instance, at Microsoft's stipulation that anyone implementing their Open XML comply completely as a means to ensure nobody could, but that's not a totally fair representation: it's a good way to ensure actual interoperability, and if it makes it difficult on others then it's convenient for them. In the event Microsoft did sue some competitor for failure they at least have the reasonsable defense that as they understood it they were compliant, and that Microsoft overzealously prosecuted (just like with the GPL if you violate but don't realize it, but state reasonably that as you understood it you were compliant, but due to things vague your were mistaken and will correct it, it is a defense: even the FSF zealots recognize and understand this: in real ways I prefer MS, however, over the FSF, because with MS you can incentivize and be pragmatic, realistic; with FSF it's moaning, 'everyone, quick, switch LGPL to GPL, you really should, help our zealotry!!!"; they're not realistic or sensible on such things--even arguing with Linus that Linux as is is illegal because LGPL libs sit atop a GPL kernel, and they'd prosecute everyone if they could).

Anyway, the above is just food for thought, not dogmatism. Anyone with better thought or who can extend it, or critique reasonably, or whatever, is welcome to. Cheers! : )

Re:Open Office

[zlogic]

It runs on Linux?
Retraining will be needed only once while every new version of Office will cost something like $400. If a few clients upgrade to a new version of Office and send you stuff in an incompatible format you'll be forced to upgrade.

Feature request: Make ribbon optional

[B5_geek]

I am the type of user who types it first, then makes it pretty. Too often in the past going back to WordPerfect5.1 for DOS days, the darned program would try to guess what I wanted to do next and force different styles on me. i.e. bullet points.

Having to stop what I am doing and FIX the errors that computer has made is complete regression in UI design, and 10+ years later they still have not learnt.

So now all of my data input happens in nano. I use OO as needed, as opposed to more regularly.

In some senses?

[Shandalar]

Regular users of Office 2007 and OpenOffice know that Office 2007 isn't merely superior "in some senses". It's in almost every sense, as long as you have a relatively modern computer.

Re:In some senses?

[subreality]

Personally, aside from the money, I find having to buy and keep track of licenses is a hassle. I find it liberating to be able to just reinstall or upgrade my software any time without that hassle.

I also find OpenOffice is superior in file format backward compatibility. MicroSoft has played the file format of the week game enough rounds that even office has trouble opening its old documents. OO's import isn't perfect, but it's track record on old documents is definitely better for me lately. With ODF, it's been flawless.

Re:OpenDocument support - Wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

How the shit did you get modded +2 Insightful? You're completely wrong. MS Office 2007 SP2 adds ODF support to Word, Excel and PowerPoint to read and write ODT, ODS and ODP respectively.

Re:Embrace...

[Cyclops]

Kill X, login in the console, rmmod the kernel module, insmod the new one, start X.

Voit-lá, no reboot for upgrade of graphics card driver.

Re:ODF 1.x?

[negated]

From: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=953195

"File formats

* OpenDocument Format (ODF) support

SP2 lets you open, edit, and save documents in version 1.1 of the ODF for Word (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/FX100649251033.aspx) , for Excel (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/FX100646951033.aspx) , and for PowerPoint (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint/FX100648951033.aspx) . Users of these Office programs can now open, edit, and save files in the OpenDocument Text (*.odt), OpenDocument Spreadsheet (*.ods), and OpenDocument Presentations (*.odp) formats."

-S

Re:Great - but of course...

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn, good thing OpenOffice doesn't do this with .doc files. Oh wait...

Wrong

[Quantam]

Word SP2 supports OpenDocument Text, Excel supports OpenDocument Spreadsheet, and Powerpoint supports OpenDocument Presentation

It's a trap?

[Keeper Of Keys]

Strict compliance seems to be a new Microsoft strategy: look at their dogged adherence to CSS 2.1 standards in IE8, including adding a formidable number of new CSS tests to the W3C test suite. It's hard not to suspect that they're up to something, but I don't think anyone has quite nailed what it is yet. With ODF, at least, it seems they are obliged to follow the spec to the letter.

Microsoft's strict compliance probably a good thing if it forces other developers to bring their apps more into line with the specs (although it will be interesting to see how OO copes with legacy documents while sticking to the spec).

Re:What the deuce?

[Plug]

They put out a new version of "the box" with each service pack, and you can create your own also, with slipstreaming.