Hands-On Preview of Microsoft Office 2010

Barence writes "Microsoft has announced full details of Office 2010 and its plans for an accompanying suite of online applications, and PC Pro has been given special access to a technical preview. Contributing Editor Simon Jones gives his initial verdict on the new suite, concluding that there's 'still a long way to go in terms of fit and finish ... but overall Microsoft has made good strides in increasing usability, cohesiveness and collaboration.' This is followed by detailed first looks at Word 2010, Excel 2010, Outlook 2010 and PowerPoint 2010, with Outlook certainly looking to be the greatest beneficiary. And finally, a gallery of screenshots shows off all the new interface touches in Office 2010, including Outlook's conversation view, Word's picture-editing function and the new cut-and-paste preview option."

Comments

ODF

[bogaboga]

Any traction on solving or at least improving Microsoft's ODF implementation? The last time I checked, there were serious issues with the implementation.

By the way, how does Office 2007's "Save-As-PDF" feature compare to the real thing?

Re:ODF

[pilgrim23]

It works almost as well as saving a file, any file, under OS X... but uses much more overhead. I have found Office 2007 cumbersome, bloated, breaks standards... I would expect the same best practices in play with this product...

Re:ODF

[nametaken]

The Save-As-PDF works quite well for us, particularly since it's a compromise somewhere between the crappy third-party app option and the thousands of dollars that Adobe's products cost us in years past.

Outlook 2007's rendering, OTOH, makes me want to kill people and break things.

Re:ODF

[man_of_mr_e]

I'm kind of curious. What makes Microsoft's version of ODF any worse than anyone elses? Or for that matter, what makes OOo's any better? Just because OOo's non-standard spreadsheet formula is used more commonly doesn't make it better.

Until ODF 1.2 is out, it's just a bunch of he-said-she-said.

Re:ODF

[Lumpy]

not as good or as fast as cutePDF works.

Plus I can print to pdf from any program.. Extra BONUS!

Re:ODF

[zorro-z]

MS has reason to *not* support ODF, given its past pushing of OOXML, etc. At the very least, if MS *does* support ODF, one should expect it to do so in a very unenthusiastic mannter.

Re:ODF

[Anonymous Coward]

I use CutePDF most of the time... but Word's "save as PDF" option is useful when the document you want to convert contains hyperlinks. And it works as fast or faster than CutePDF, at least from my experience.

Re:ODF

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft's version of ODF is no ODF. It does not respect sections 8.1 and 8.3 of the ODF 1.1 specs, although MS claims it is 100% pure ODF power.

(source: www.fuckinggoogleit.com)

would you expect anything other from MS?

Re:ODF

[RaymondKurzweil]

According to Wikipedia, OOXML is superior to ODF anyway!

Re:ODF

[BenoitRen]

What makes Microsoft's version of ODF any worse than anyone elses?

Did you even bother to read the linked PDF that the grandparent posted along with his point?

Re:ODF

[man_of_mr_e]

Yes. I've read it before. Other than one part that is false, the rest is hand waving.

It basically says "Yeah, we know the standard doesn't specify so much stuff that the only way to be compatible is to get people to agree on how to do things.."

That's not "interoperability", that's "praying" everyone manages to make it work.

The part about section 8.3.1 is completely bogus. Read the specification yourself. 8.3.1 says nothing about requiring brackets.

http://docs.oasis-open.org/office/v1.1/OS/OpenDocument-v1.1-html/OpenDocument-v1.1.html#8.3.1.Referencing%20Table%20Cells|outline

It says:

"To reference table cells so called cell addresses are used. The structure of a cell address is as follows:

1.The name of the table.

2.A dot (.).

3.An alphabetic value representing the column. The letter A represents column 1, B represents column 2, and so on. AA represents column 27, AB represents column 28, and so on.

4.A numeric value representing the row. The number 1 represents the first row, the number 2 represents the second row, and so on."

Nothing there about brackets.

Re:ODF

[man_of_mr_e]

Ok, so it turns out they can't even get their criticism right. The *actual* section that mentions brackets is 8.1.3, not 8.3.1 (which the document references).

8.1.3 talks about "examples", and is not written in a way to suggest mandatory behavior. For example, it starts out like this:

"Typically, the formula itself begins with an equal (=) sign and can include the following components:"

This is vague, and seems to say that formulas can be anything, but this might be a good way to do it.

And under a bullet point of the "typical" things is this:

"Addresses of cells that contain numbers. The addresses can be relative or absolute, see section 8.3.1. Addresses in formulas start with a âoe[âoe and end with a âoe]â. See sections 8.3.1 and 8.3.1 for information about how to address a cell or cell range."

So an aside, of an exmaple, of "typical" formulas which may or may not be present says addresses have to be bracketed in formulas.

Oh, yeah.. that's *SO* violating the standard.

Please. At most, it's a nit pick. At best, it's a VERY poorly written specification.

Re:ODF

[man_of_mr_e]

It fully respects 8.3 (if you actually read 8.3, you'd know that). 8.1 is poorly written, and suggests "examples" of how a formula might look. Hardly mandatory.

Re:ODF

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhh. Your linked article talks about how it's incompatible with OpenOffice. Microsoft's ODF implementation follows the ODF standard.

Re:who uses it anyway?

[polar red]

me neither.
office 97 had enough features already. the bloat continues ever forward.

Office on Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if the online version will support firefox (specifically on non-windows OS's)?

Re:Office on Linux?

[h4rr4r]

wine already supports office. Winedoors is free and makes installing office dead easy.

Crossover office costs money but makes it even more brain-dead easy.

Re:Office on Linux?

[CarpetShark]

Between Windows, Doors, and Offices, it's pretty clear that programmers need to get outside more.

Re:Office on Linux?

[therealmorris]

Microsoft have said (in the video here and on here) it supports Firefox and Safari (so presumably Chrome) just as well as IE. No mention of Opera but I see no reason as to why it wouldn't work. I think the video mentions that it works on Macs too.

Re:Office on Linux?

[FuckTheModerators]

Or at least take a break to play Portal.

ribbons

[je ne sais quoi]

From TFA:

Forrester Research surveys have shown that the percentage of people who liked the Ribbon interface in Office 2007 was in the mid to high 80s while the percentage who found it "significantly more difficult" to use was 2.4%.

I find that hard to believe. How many of those people they asked actually used office as a mission critical application in their day to day use? In my admittedly small sample, nobody that I work with at all enjoys using the ribbons, which is about 5 that I have spoken to about it. The majority of people have Office 2003 put on instead, only those who are reluctant to change software on their computers leave it on.

Re:ribbons

[Freetardo Jones]

I find that hard to believe.

Well it's a good thing that your incredulity doesn't override statistical evidence.

How many of those people they asked actually used office as a mission critical application in their day to day use? In my admittedly small sample, nobody that I work with at all enjoys using the ribbons, which is about 5 that I have spoken to about it.

In my larger sample of about 30-50 people almost all of them enjoy the new GUI and once they start using Office 2007 for a few weeks they never want to go back to 2003. I guess this is why anecdotes aren't good evidence of something.

Re:ribbons

[PainKilleR-CE]

If I have to use Office, I prefer to use 2007, as it makes the options much more accessible than the default menus and toolbars in previous versions.

That being said, it's pretty rare that I have to use Office, which may have a lot to do with my preference, since I don't spend time customizing my menus and have to spend a lot of time looking for the options I want on older versions. My wife's actually much more familiar with the Office apps (especially Excel), and it took her a couple of months to get accustomed to the 2007 interface, but eventually it grew on her.

Re:ribbons

[DeadChobi]

Get 33 people and I'll believe you. Even then, at a 99% confidence interval your anecdotal evidence may not be statistically significant. I'm more inclined to believe that that 2.4% dislike it because they expected to find it harder to use, and, not being disappointed, continued to not use it.

Re:ribbons

[Shados]

here (douzens of thousands of heavy Office users), we're not quite done testing all our stuff with 2007 (our documents are fine, but some plugins have to be upgraded, and integration with in house apps have to be tested, etc), but we have to hold users back with chains from upgrading to 2007 (well, its a metaphore obviously, they can't upgrade on their own). -EVERYONE- wants it. Bad. The UI is a lot better for people who don't know Office by heart, and there's a lot of new features, mainly in the business intelligence integration and collaboration that make people drool over it.

Re:ribbons

[Maniacal]

I resisted. 100% of the reason I didn't change to the new office was because of the ribbon. Spent a weekend helping my dad with 3 docs (powerpoint, word and excel) on his 2007 install and I was converted. Originally when I tried it I would get frustrated because I couldn't find anything and would give up grumbling about not having time for this crap. Since I didn't have an option when working on his stuff I was forced to learn it. Glad I did.

Re:ribbons

[je ne sais quoi]

Well it's a good thing that your incredulity doesn't override statistical evidence.

You want statistical evidence? Look here, from a survey of Excel users from May, 2009:

Month in and month out, the respondents have said that Excel's Ribbon has reduced their productivity by an average of about 20%. And users with a negative opinion of the Ribbon estimate that it's reduced their productivity by about 35%.

They found that 36% of advanced and 29% of intermediate users "hate or dislike" the ribbons, which vastly outweighs the people who "love or like" the ribbons at 20 and 24%, respectively.

How 'about them apples?

Re:ribbons

[dedazo]

In my very humble opinion, and as an additional (possibly worthless) data point, people that dislike the ribbon interface are more likely to be "power users" that tinker and customize everything (like me).

The rest of the demographic that tends to use Office software - you know, the millions of corporate users that still have the default background, theme, sounds and everything else that originally came with their laptop or desktop - the ribbon tends to be a little baffling at first and eventually extremely useful to them, because it mirrors the way they work. That's the reason it was designed and why it was introduced with 2007.

Microsoft places much more importance on the latter group and tends to make design decisions based on their working habits and patterns. If you are part of the first group, it's best to get used to that fact.

And of course, there are millions of people still using Office 2003 and even 2000.

Re:ribbons

[Anonymous Coward]

Please do not feed facts to astroturfers - makes 'em gassy.

Re:ribbons

[man_of_mr_e]

Wait, a survey that uses percentages estimated by the surveyed? Wow, that's not only inaccurate, it's inaccurately inaccurate. Everyone with a bone to pick will more than likely grossly over-estimate their inconvenience.

Still, the numbers say that 64% of advanced and 71% of intermediate users either have no opinion or like the ribbon. That seems like an overall win to me. I note you don't include novices, which given the trend sould be as high as 85 or 90% who like or have no opinion of it.

Since you can't please all of the people, an average of 75% seems like a homerun to me.

Re:ribbons

[Anonymous Coward]

You want statistical evidence? Look here, from a survey of Excel users from May, 2009

That is not statistical evidence comparable to a Forrester survey. The survey itself states:

The statistical accuracy of this survey could be challenged because online surveys don't produce a random sample of responses.

Self-selecting participants are not statistically random. Self-selecting participants on "ExcelUser" even moreso. Proper surveys reach out to random participants, ask for participation and any minimum qualifications first, and then reveal the particular topic to obtain truly random samples. Proper surveys report n values rather than mere percentages, particularly over the course of a year and a half. Proper surveys do not purport to show sustained dislike for a product by individual users with no evidence of follow-up sampling.

Re:ribbons

[man_of_mr_e]

I should have read your link first, so my figures are wrong.

However, having read the link, I'm baffled by such claims as "On average, all users who responded estimated that the Ribbon has reduced their productivity."

"on average" and "all users" do not belong in the same sentence. WTF?

That sounds like someone trying to use statistics and weasel words to say something the statistics don't actually say.

Still the survey's numbers look good, but don't really make a lot of sense because of the way they're presented. What's more, users with negative opinions are far more likely to take such a survey than those who simply have no strong opinion one way or the other. So that market is largely unknown.

Re:ribbons

[GeckoAddict]

Microsoft themselves actually have a presentation describing their process of designing and refining the Ribbon, by Jenson Harris ('Group Porgam Manager of the Office UX Team'). They talk a little bit about the user feedback stats and how they made some decisions regarding the ribbon... it's an interesting video if you have some time and are interested in that sort of thing.

Re:ribbons

[cayenne8]

I agree. I don't know anyone that anyone that likes the new ribbon interface.

It take me forever to find anything I used to find simply in the past.

I'm guessing if you're kind of 'grown up' with the ribbon, it is easy, but, for someone like me, that is used to simple menus, it sure seems a PITA.

Re:ribbons

[CarpetShark]

almost all of them enjoy the new GUI and once they start using Office 2007 for a few weeks they never want to go back to 2003.

That's probably because, after a few weeks of a replacement, it's hard to remember the original, much less the REAL original (the one with simple menus rather than personalised menus).

Personally, I can never find things in the ribbon. Menus are much simpler and more intuitive, EVEN when organised incorrectly.

Re:ribbons

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a somewhat larger pool of around 1,000 users. In general, they hate it at first, but once they get used to it its okay. The big exception seems to be access and excel seems mixed on if they like it or not.

Re:ribbons

[Anonymous Coward]

Same thing happened to me. I resisted initially then learned it and did not need to go back to 2003 because I became comfortable with the new interface and with the new features of 2007.

Re:ribbons

[ChefInnocent]

Even more than that, he has a sampling error. His sample set is from his work place. Rarely does a single work place represent the culture at large, particularly in IT or small companies.

Re:ribbons

[EvanED]

I agree. I don't know anyone that anyone that likes the new ribbon interface.

Let me paraphrase your post and the one you replied to.

Your parent: "I really like the ribbon now."
You: "I agree. I really dislike the ribbon."

Did I get that right?

Re:ribbons

[Hijacked Public]

I find it funny that the 'Group Program Manager' for UI design puts together a typically garbage littered powerpoint slide show to explain UI changes. That thing has less information density than a cereal box label, is full of chartjunk graphs and chartjunk flowcharts, seems obsessed with changing background colors on a slide by slide basis, and continues the bullet point soundbyte meme as nauseum.

The sole redeeming feature is that once he got rolling he used a lot of actual screenshots. I'm amazed the ribbon came out as decent as it did.

Re:ribbons

[neolith]

As a power user I hated the ribbon for about four weeks, until I actually quit bitching and moaning about it and started using it. Now I prefer it, and don't like the former interface. Even for relatively advanced spreadsheet tasks involving remote data access with cubing and other analytic voodoo, I find that the ribbon is faster and easier to use for every task I use Word, Access, and Excel for, and on the rare occasions I have to use a new feature it is easier to guess at what category of task they filed it under than the old nested menu bar. Even our oldest, gnarliest, set-in-their-ways troll-beasts in accounting have grudgingly accepted and even begun to admire the ribbon.

Re:ribbons

[dave1791]

Reverse the chronology and you have my opinion of the robbon. HATED it at first, but now really like it. It acts as a one click filter for the toolbars. Yes, a good memory map to where you have the toolbars positioned means one click for everything, but are they all in the same position in all of your office apps? How often do you use other PCs?

Re:ribbons

[Parker Lewis]

Agree, but the usability rules tells that a software must provide interface for power users too. Why there is no option to change to 2003 interface?

Re:ribbons

[Anonymous Coward]

"Statistical evidence?!" Yeah, if that's what you think is behind this posting I have a stack of sponsored white papers I'll let you have for cheap. The majority of the 150 users at my organization still hate the ribbon after using it for a year.

Re:ribbons

[slasho81]

people that dislike the ribbon interface are more likely to be "power users" that tinker and customize everything

In this interesting talk, the program manager of the Office UI group mentioned that fewer than 2% of users customize office. And of those, 80% change two or fewer buttons. Power users are really quite scarce.

Re:ribbons

[Blakey Rat]

I find that hard to believe. How many of those people they asked actually used office as a mission critical application in their day to day use?

Haha! How many people who bitch about the ribbon on Slashdot actually use Office as a mission-critical application in their day-to-day use?

Re:ribbons

[dedazo]

Yes they are, and Microsoft has known this for a long time.

That's one of the differences between MS software and open source, for example. Microsofts's success lies on carefully picking defaults that cater to the majority of its users. Mostly that has worked for them through the years. Open source applications on the other hand suffer from a sort of tinker syndrome, with millions of possible choices. Of course for the kind of people that use things like KDE (yes I'm looking at you KDE), that's a big plus. Not so for the kind of people who use Office, for example. They just want the damn thing to work out of the box. They see their computers as appliances and the software in them as tools. We see them as cool devices that we spend time tinkering with. It's a cultural thing that FOSS largely does not understand yet.

Re:ribbons

[shermo]

The ribbon is about the only thing that office 2007 does right.

I've recently upgraded to 2003 so my macros which use solver don't crash Excel every time I use them.

(Legacy issues, I wouldn't build anything in Excel from scratch)

Re:ribbons

[siloko]

Still the survey's numbers look good, but don't really make a lot of sense because of the way they're presented. What's more, users with negative opinions are far more likely to take such a survey than those who simply have no strong opinion one way or the other. So that market is largely unknown.

So basically you're saying: "Statistics are good but unless they agree with my point of view I'm going to dismiss them." Rock on!

Re:ribbons

[Blue_Wombat]

We are still testing too, as our workplace has circa 10,000 seats and a lot of custom software that has to integrate. Personally, I hate, detest and loathe the ribbon. However, I too am screaming at IT to upgrade us. This isn't from any great love of the new version. Unlike most of the business which is self-contained and oriented around internal processes to do what we do, my team is in head office and deals with a number of external agencies. They have moved to Office 2007, and are sending us spreadsheets that we can't open. And before anyone cries "compatibility tool", which IT has tried to foist on us a number of times, if spreadsheets have more than 256 columns, or 65536 rows, or contain any of the new new formulae (which these do), the tool barfs. The process is viral. That's the main reason IT don't want to upgrade us - they are terrified that we will then email out stuff others in the shop can't open, then *poof* we are up for 10,000 new licences!

Re:ribbons

[clickety6]

And 85% couldn't find the damn print option hidden under the shiny round globe thing in the corner...

Re:ribbons

[mdwh2]

I agree. Another advantage with menus is that they were in addition to the toolbar - so you still had the toolbar to quickly access (one click) commonly used functions.

Now, if you're not on the right tab (which happens more likely than not), you have to switch tabs, meaning it takes longer. Worse, you can get in a situation where a common workflow requires repeated use of two or more functions that are on different tabs, and you now have to switch tab every time!

Also, whilst "icons" may be quicker to recognise for a small number of commonly used functions, it's a very steep learning curve when everything is now as an icon, even rarely used items. I think this is why it takes ages to find things - and the argument that some have put here of "You're just not used to it" is bogus - the point is that it's much easier to guess what rarely used items do when they are in plain text, and not using an icon.

I'm not sure why surveys are relevant either. If we went by what most people used and liked, then Windows, Outlook and Internet Explorer would be the best programs ever.

Re:ribbons

[Shados]

You guys aren't on software insurance or something? On our side, that we upgrade or not is cost neutral, license wise.

Re:ribbons

[folstaff]

To be fair, Microsoft's customization data is from users who participate in their "Customer Experience Improvement Program." If 2% of slashdot users are in it, I would be surprised. I am currently in the program only because I have Office 2007 and I want to represent aggravated users.

Re:ribbons

[Anonymous Coward]

See the Forester Research paper for yourself.
The Microsoft Office Fluent User Interface: Information Worker Perception Of Productivity, Training, And Support Requirements

http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/9/8/D98428F7-18CA-49F4-8A99-0F1B76C97435/2007%20Microsoft%20Office%20Fluent%20UI%20Study%20Information%20Worders%20-%20Forrester%20Research.pdf

The inital loss of productivity on switching to Office 2007 was estimated at about 12%. The average time to return to the same productivity as before was 2.5 weeks. After that, the perceived productivity continued to rise until it reached a plateau of "slightly more productive" from about eight weeks. (See page 9)

Simon Jones
Contributing Editor
PC Pro

Re:ribbons

[drsmithy]

In my very humble opinion, and as an additional (possibly worthless) data point, people that dislike the ribbon interface are more likely to be "power users" that tinker and customize everything (like me).

IME, the only people more obstinate about UI changes than rote-learners, are the self-described "power users".

Exhibit A: The reflexive changing by such people of the Windows XP style start menu back to the "Classic" Start Menu, despite the former being functionally a superset of the latter.

Re:ribbons

[dedazo]

You mean the *style* of the start menu of the functionality? I like the XP start menu, but I use the 'classic' theme so it looks more like Windows 2000. This is really a personal preference as I don't really like the XP themes. But the functionality is there, including the "pin list", which is the really valuable thing.

The Vista start menu is far better though. I see KDE4 copied it almost verbatim, except that it took me five minutes to figure out how to run a damn program :)

Innovation and all that.

Re:ribbons

[Anonymous Coward]

('Group Porgam Manager of the Office UX Team')

Did anyone else read this typo as "Group Pogrom Manager"?

Re:ribbons

[drsmithy]

You mean the *style* of the start menu of the functionality?

The functionality. I really can't comprehend why people do it at all, but it's rife in the "Windows power user" demographic in my experience (including a few of our Windows admins, who annoyingly enable it on any Windows server they connect to).

Re:ribbons

[dedazo]

Weird. Maybe it's just old habits not wanting to die. Many "power users" are also extremely resistant to change, and they might be just dumb enough to give up functionality to stay in their safety zones.

Not again!

[Anonymous Coward]

Good Lord, the business hardly deployed Office 2007 with big troubles, we just got used to the new interface absolute madness and yet again more changes :(

Will this crazy running for "the new" ever end?

Re:Not again!

[Anonymous Coward]

No.

Re:Not again!

[DeadChobi]

So what you're saying is that when a company makes changes to something it is bad, but when it refuses to change things it is bad. I thought that Microsoft wasn't making enough changes to its software to keep up with other innovations. Correct me if I'm wrong, but nobody has ever attempted to create an interface like the Ribbon before in an office suite. So when Microsoft comes up with something new, suddenly it's not okay to be running for the new.

This community constantly rails against how Microsoft has aped other OS vendors to try to make their products better, and then rails against Microsoft trying to innovate in their own software. It's like every post is a new punch bowl filled with red kool-aid stupid. Could we please get past the 1990's Microsoft vs. Linux attitude and admit that it's possible for one arm of a company to do bad things while another arm of the company does good things? Not everything boils down to a "good vs. evil" essential conflict.

Re:Not again!

[furby076]

They are not ending support for 2007...buy a new one.

What's with people getting angst about a new product every 3-5 years? Adobe comes out with a new photoshop every 1-2 yeasr. Same with Intuit products. Not a big deal...keep using what you like. I still know many people who use office 2003. It works great.

The biggest group of users to use 2010 will be those who got brand new computers and don't have an older version.

Techies all of a sudden wanting to slow down progres...all in the hate of MS.

Re:Not again!

[cayenne8]

It wouldn't be so bad, if they would just put in a 'classic' mode for Office.

I mean, they do it for Windows (I've not gone past XP yet, dunno if they do it for Vista). I prefer the classic mode, I like to use and view the directory structure, that's how I'm used to working. I don't like when they try to abstract too much for my 'benefit'.

Re:Not again!

[pizzach]

You should thank OpenOffice.org for forcing Microsoft to try something new and trying to keep ahead of the competition. After all, that is what OSS is for, right? Gotta keep that lower bar raising.

Re:Not again!

[b4dc0d3r]

This community constantly rails against how Microsoft has aped other OS vendors to try to make their products better, and then rails against Microsoft trying to innovate in their own software.

First thing - "this community" is made up of individuals with differing opinions, so it's probably not the same people. It's a sympathetic audience, so no matter what you disagree with you're likely to find support here if you just post. Not surprising.

For my part, it's because no matter what they do, they get it wrong. It doesn't flow exactly right, or something. Like putting the "Close" button directly next to the "maximize" button. Or using "Start" when you want to "shut down". It's always something that shows quite blatantly that they really kinda thought about it, but didn't think all the way through.

Microsoft refuses to change things that don't make sense, usually for "compatibility" or because people are used to it or other such nonsense explanation. Then they make huge changes, which impact the speed with which people are able to do work. That's productivity going down, and there's no way to turn it off.

The new interface is basically Mouse-only, unless you happen to remember the shortcuts from 2003. In 2003, when I hit ALT+D I have options and I can see all of the things I can do with data in case I forget. With 2007, it's "Continue typing the Office 2003 menu key sequence." While I'm glad they at least left that intact, you have to have a cheat sheet somewhere to look everything up, which is back to exactly the problem we had with early word processors and the function key templates you had to overlay on the keyboard in order to do anything. "Use the mouse" is what MS is trying to do, despite decades of "make it accessible to everyone" lectures.

Re:Not again!

[jo42]

Will this crazy running for "the new" ever end?

Not as long as the quest for grubbing for more and even more money continues.

Re:Not again!

[maamold]

What people are saying is that the GUI interface can be a good thing, but giving the OPTION to use the old interface would be better

Re:Not again!

[Anonymous Coward]

Could we please get past the 1990's Microsoft vs. Linux attitude and admit that it's possible for one arm of a company to do bad things while another arm of the company does good things? Not everything boils down to a "good vs. evil" essential conflict.

That requires a nuanced point of view, something which most people at this site are not good at.

(Cue "wah, Slashdot is not one person.")

Re:Not again!

[amliebsch]

The new interface is basically Mouse-only, unless you happen to remember the shortcuts from 2003. In 2003, when I hit ALT+D I have options and I can see all of the things I can do with data in case I forget. With 2007, it's "Continue typing the Office 2003 menu key sequence."

Can you elaborate? In my Office 2007, pressing "ALT" displays the keyboard commands, which change as you use them.

Re:Not again!

[xtracto]

I mean, they do it for Windows (I've not gone past XP yet, dunno if they do it for Vista).

Can someone say if this is possible or not? I am also interested. Although I am a happy XP user (and will be for the forseable future), my father bought a new laptop with Vista and his main pet peeve is "everything is different" than before (XP).

Re:Not again!

[Anonymous Coward]

You can disable all the eye candy but it will not be exactly like XP, but much more useable than default Vista. Just have a look at the defaults for Windows Server 2008. Windows Server 2008 is Vista SP1 with additional server functionality.

Good Enough

[Archangel Michael]

Microsoft has long been promoting "good enough" approach to things. It isn't the most secure ... it is good enough. It isn't the most robust ... it is good enough. It isn't the most productive ... it is good enough.

This is the Achilles heal of Microsoft. With Windows XP and Office since 2000 or even 2003, has been "good enough". I can't think of ANYTHING Microsoft can offer in Win 7 or Office 2010 that I would actually use. And changing how things work, just for the sake of changing how they work, is counter productive.

In early 2003 I made the statement that 2008 was going to be the first sign of Microsoft's demise as tech leader. The Storm has hit, and is now ravaging Microsoft. Google is building Chrome OS (which I would assume is tied to Android ... somewhere), Open Office is very usable, Wine is getting to the point of being solid, Linux is appearing on desktops, Webservices, mobile devices (iPhone, Blackberry, Android) etc.

You can see the panic at Microsoft in their web services division, from the search engines changes to Live and now to Bing. You can see the panic in the OS and Office with the huge changes in the UI to cover up that really nothing has changed since 2000.

Microsoft is suffering from the "good enough" syndrome. Everything they have made for the last 6 or 8 years is "good enough" and when Vista comes along and changes things just to change things, people buck against it. You'll see more of the same with Office.

I honestly think one of the reasons Gates left, was because he saw the writing on the wall, and got out while the getting was good.

Re:Good Enough

[greenguy]

Problem is, you're arguing against yourself. I quite agree that Microsoft products are good enough -- and by "good," I mean "familiar" -- but this undermines your point about OpenOffice and Linux gaining traction. These are still unfamiliar to most people, and they are unwilling to start over on the learning curve just because of some ethereal philosophical viewpoint. They're going to stick with what they know, which is Word on XP, over either Windows 7 or Linux. The only time Linux has a fighting chance is when people simply can't cling to XP any longer, and they must change. Then there will be a brief window where they will weigh their options on their merits.

Re:Good Enough

[Archangel Michael]

Not really. Open Office resembles MS Office 2000 more than MS Office 2007(2010??). Therefore, people are willing to go to OO rather than have change.

And Linux can be configured to look and function just like XP, and Ubuntu, except for the "start bar" being at the top, functions almost like XP for most things.

Further, if people are being made (forced) to "learn" something new, they are more willing to look at alternatives, like OO and Linux or even Apple.

The point being, if people are having to "change" they are willing to REALLY change. My In-laws are a great example. They are an older couple, in the sixties and seventies, and they don't like VISTA. My Father in law asked me the other day to show him Linux, and he said, that it looks a lot like Windows.

He was able to open Firefox, OO, Email, everything he does, quickly without any fuss. Ubuntu is getting very close to getting mom n pop .

Re:Good Enough

[cepayne]

Changing things for the sake of changing things keeps their handful of investors
from selling off their shares, hense making Microsoft happy that they held onto
those shares.

The fact that there are users who must face the challenges of using Microsoft
Office in its various forms is inconsequential. It is all about the overvalued shares.

"It is good enough", is in fact good enough to keep them in business.

Re:Good Enough

[gbarules2999]

I agree that it's a start, but I can't see Microsoft ever "dying" outright. All I see is a few pieces of competition, perhaps a few that will grab a few more percentage points of market share from Microsoft every year.

The interesting note to watch is what happens when the next generation of computer users comes forward. Teenagers these days know a lot more about computers than their parents do, on average. They understand the difference between Mac and Windows (and a heck of a lot know about Ubuntu - more than you might think), and can use their computers in fairly efficient ways. Will they be more willing to adapt and allow the market to morph? Considering that the market nowadays panders to the lowest common denominator (people who think "Windows" is a synonym with "computer") the fundamental shift in the next decade or two is when that lowest common denominator starts to rise. As computers become more integral to the average user's life, the more they'll bother to understand it.

Car analogy: while most people don't quite understand the entire workings of a car, they know enough to keep it running. This is not true for a hell of a lot of computer users, but when and how will this change?

Re:Good Enough

[gbarules2999]

The only issue is when Ubuntu will be in the OEM's pocketbooks. It is Mom and Pop ready right now. It's easy and damn simple, and it's a really fantastic product, once someone sets it up for you. Unfortunately, that "once someone sets it up for you" addition cannot and never will change.

What Shuttleworth and gang need to do is polish their desktop up a bit more, get everything stable and then advertise the heck out of it. Even if people can't install an OS (which is a pretty big deal, honestly) they'll know what it is and then be able to tell Dell that they want something else.

Re:Good Enough

[b4dc0d3r]

How is it arguing against his/her self? what he meant was "just good enough" as in get it working and then forget about it. for people who really love formatting Word documents, or whose who never format, it's "good enough". But if you just want to make a few quick changes to something, it's a nightmare to make it look they way it should. I still get bullets with a different color when I make a bulleted list. I can't fix the line spacing because some inbuilt styles have padding after them - so I get either run together text or gigantic expanses of blankness - and I don't have time to make a small change to the style which affects other parts of the document. I paste everything into a text editor to remove all of the formatting, then re-paste it in and start over.

In the case of OOo and *nix, they often aren't "just good enough" - they excel but they are still different enough to be foreign. "Fill Down" uses different keys, for no apparent reason, just as one example. Most Linux distros don't have the main OS interface keyboard friendly. Sure you can configure it, but users don't like that. I'd give more examples but I just don't use it because I keep finding irritating things that I have to google in order to figure out how to change some obscure setting that should be in a different dialog.

If it doesn't work out of the box, it doesn't work. Microsoft works out of the box, but just barely. Open source tends to need more work to get it going, and then it's a lot easier from there because people FIX THINGS when it's broken. Firefox won because it works out of the box, and now I'm seeing a lot of the little things being rearranged so that if I were a NEW user, I'd hate it. I still hate it, but I'm spoiled and not switching back.

Re:Good Enough

[m.ducharme]

But Microsoft isn't just competing against OS X and Linux and OpenOffice, it's now discovering that it has to compete with past versions of its own software. If people and corporations simply decide to stick with WinXP and Office 2000, Microsoft loses as much money as if all those people had switched. People are starting the realize (thanks to the Windows Vista marketing debacle) that last year's "good enough" is good enough, and they don't have to spend the money and time to upgrade if they don't want to.

The Downfall of Windows 7 won't be Linux, it will be Windows XP. The downfall of Office 2010 won't be OpenOffice, it will be Office 2007 (or 2003, or 2000).

Re:Good Enough

[FishWithAHammer]

I would also add the requirement of actually running GNOME through sane HCI guidelines (I don't care what your reasoning is, no dialog box should ever go "Are you sure? [No] [Yes]") and coming with paid support for media codecs in the box, but yes, the setup is the real killer.

Re:Good Enough

[LaskoVortex]

He was able to open Firefox, OO, Email, everything he does, quickly without any fuss. Ubuntu is getting very close to getting mom n pop.

My mom and pop use it. They really don't care what OS they run as long as it works. I'd say that Ubuntu *is* mom n pop--probably more so than XP as my dad prefers to work in Ubuntu. Now I could be wrong, but MS, to my best ability to discern, has lately been breaking compatibility with Linux firefox on hotmail, probably to force users back to their platform ("my mail is broken on linux but works with windows, so linux must be broken")--so now I'm getting him switched to gmail as soon as I can.

This new hotmail development really pisses me off. This is akin to a mechanic punching a hole in your CV boots and then telling you that you need a new rack and pinion because it's leaking. This is a shady and low class tactic if MS is using it. I have resisted railing against them, but they lost me with this tactic. They need to go down and people need to look for alternatives to MS products. There really are hidden costs when using Microsoft products.

Re:Good Enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Compared to MS Office (any version) OpenOffice is "good enough". It kind of does the job, but not quite if you want it to print in a reasonably similar format from any other app. OpenOffice 3 made me BUY MS Office. Yes, PAY money for it. For the first time I thought, right, this may be free, I may have been using it for two years, but it kind of does not cut the mustard, I need the real thing. It took me two days to reconcile "real thing" and Microsoft, but when it comes to office suites, they are way up there and nobody is even close, and I am happy to pull out my credit card.

Let me make it clear, I'm not a power user, I was just tweaking my CV and fooling about with spreadsheets for my studies. Get OpenOffice 3 and an evaluation MS Office license and try to do some corporate finance or stats problems on both...

Re:Good Enough

[Blakey Rat]

You're right, but there's one other important thing about Microsoft you have to realize:

When they have no competition, they don't bother. When Microsoft's web browser competition dissolved away, we ended up with IE6 for years and years and years-- when the web browser competition picked-up again, thanks to Mozilla and Apple and later Google, suddenly, WHAM! IE7, IE8, back to a regular development schedule, tons of great features.

Office moves slow because it has very little serious competition. And, hell, even at Office's slow pace, it's out-pacing OpenOffice. So they must be doing something right. Now, if Apple ported Pages/Numbers to Windows, and Adobe released OfficeShop, then you'd see Microsoft moving-ass on getting Office up-to-snuff. As is, why should they bother?

Re:Good Enough

[gbarules2999]

I would also add the requirement of actually running GNOME through sane HCI guidelines (I don't care what your reasoning is, no dialog box should ever go "Are you sure? [No] [Yes]") and coming with paid support for media codecs in the box, but yes, the setup is the real killer.

Well, the codecs are already covered by OEMs. Dell's Ubuntu comes with DVD and media stuff out of the box, all paid for and licensed.

But that sort of HCI stuff is what I mean by polish. I'd say Ubuntu should fix the audio stuff, get the drivers all in order, and then have a few releases where all they do is fix hundreds of "paper cuts." The bug reports are filled with these sorts of small touches that could make a good product great.

Re:Good Enough

[Daengbo]

The Gnome HIG says:

Label all buttons with imperative verbs, using header capitalization. For example, Save, Sort or Update Now.

You're right that no dialog box should ever go "Are you sure? [No] [Yes]" and that's been true in GNOME since 2.0 came out seven years ago. Maybe you're not using GNOME apps?

Fluendo offers paid codec support. Of course, you have to pay. Fluendo is integrated in Ubuntu and you are prompted to purchase the Fluendo codecs when you run into a file with an unsupported codec.

Re:Good Enough

[FishWithAHammer]

You're right that no dialog box should ever go "Are you sure? [No] [Yes]" and that's been true in GNOME since 2.0 came out seven years ago. Maybe you're not using GNOME apps?

Sorry, I was being flip. Let me explain.

The GNOME HIG is backwards. The "Do This" button (the "[Yes]" above) is always put at the rightmost position, and is also keyboard-highlighted (neither behaviors ones I consider to be good). The "Cancel" button (the "[No]" above) is always to the left. This creates weird inversions from other environments, inversions that don't need to exist and don't have a good reason for existing. A good example is Firefox--when you close Firefox and reopen it, you get a dialog box that asks if you want to "Start New Session" or "Restore Previous Session" (I don't remember the exact verbiage offhand). On Windows and OS X, the buttons are in one order. On GNOME, the buttons are reversed.

It's a case of different-to-be-different and it absolutely sucks. When you have as a base assumption that the "Don't Do Anything" button is always in the bottom right corner, it provides some assurance and mental training to the user--if you don't want something to be done, just hit the button in the bottom right corner, regardless of what it's label is. In GNOME, the "Don't Do Anything" button can be anywhere along the button row, and you can't take advantage of muscle memory to find it. I personally think that it's the result of techies trying to build for normals: a techie is more used to the keyboard being a control mechanism, so they'll just hit Enter or Escape or the keyboard accelerators rather than click the buttons, so it matters less to them where the buttons actually are. Techie types are also more likely to not trigger dialogs where they want to cancel, so they're more likely to want to say "OK, yes, get on with it" and putting the "Do This" button in the bottom right helps take advantage of their muscle memory--at the cost of the people that they actually want using GNOME.

It also gets uglier in that GNOME applications do the wrong thing when ported to OSes with sane HIGs.

Fluendo [fluendo.com] offers paid codec support. Of course, you have to pay. Fluendo is integrated in Ubuntu and you are prompted to purchase the Fluendo codecs when you run into a file with an unsupported codec.

I'm well aware. That's unacceptable. "Oh, here's how to do it, but you have to pay"--no. It's not going to work until someone (hi, Canonical) cuts a deal with Fraunhofer to supply legal codecs at zero cost to the desktop.

Is that cheap? No. Is it easy? No. Is it the only way people will actually take Ubuntu seriously? Yeah, probably. Getting a "hurp, you must pay!!11" message is ludicrous. Nobody's going to take your supposed "good OS" seriously if you're pulling that shit, no matter how reasonable it appears to the techie crowd.

Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[93 Escort Wagon]

Word's been around, what, 20 years? Guys, if you want to provide maximum usability to use users, leave it alone. We've all figured out how the app works, what the keyboard shortcuts are, where in each menu our most-used commands are, and how to use mail merge. STOP CHANGING IT. Every time you change how Word works, all you're doing is decreasing my usability and needlessly taking away time I could otherwise spend doing actual productive work.

Full disclosure: I've been trying to avoid Office for the past year or so, relying on Apple's Pages instead - in part simply because Word is a bloated beast, and in part because Microsoft just keeps pointlessly adding useless crap and changing things to give the illusion of "innovation".

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[Maxo-Texas]

Yes,
But you are getting old and are going to die and you probably have no intention of buying a new version of Word since you are happy with the current one.

New users will see a wierdly arcane program or an easy to use (for a novice) program.

Think of these versions of word as targeted to naive users.

---

What I can't see is how they intend to compete with free (Openoffice) when we have 25% real unemployment and no growth in sales for the rest- with the corrupted financial industry pillaging and looting heavily from the 75% that are still producing.

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[maxume]

So just stop upgrading. Files from recent versions go back and forth about as well as files from the same version, so compatibility isn't a huge problem.

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[bheer]

> What I can't see is how they intend to compete with free (Openoffice)

Simple. By giving away Office Web Edition for free on the web, via live.com. (This was mentioned quite widely in the tech press but the /. summary doesn't mention in specifically.) Frankly, given that I prefer Google Docs over OpenOffice, if Office Web is any good it'll be the 800lb gorilla in the market.

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[avandesande]

Documentation and training are a huge part of M$ business.

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[spyrochaete]

Just because "View / Header and Footer" is the way you're used to doing it, doesn't mean it's the best way. Word has been evolving and expanding all this time. You can only shoehorn new features into the old UI for so long before it becomes convoluted.

To learn the new ribbon all you have to do is think about what you are trying to accomplish and then navigate where you think it ought to belong. The new layout means you will find related functions that will improve your productivity and quality of communication. It's nothing but a good thing.

FYI, old hotkeys from previous versions of Office still work (e.g., Alt-F, S, will still save your document even though there's no "File" pulldown with a "Save" command.

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[fred80]

I agree. It's aggravating in the extreme to have to learn a new interface for an app that I've been using everyday for 5 years and know inside and out. I actually stopped upgrading MS Office and have been using Open Office ever since MS gave the big O its last interfacelift. On a weekly basis, I use my Mac desktop at the office and my Linux and Windows laptops on the go for meetings and presentations. It's nice to have an app that works and looks the same across all 3 platforms. Also, it's great for VM's too.

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[nizo]

Or, keep just enough people on the upgrade treadmill that other people who absolutely have to be able to read the documents of these people are forced to buy the latest version of Microsoft Office. If your client, who pays your bills, insists on using the latest Microsoft Office, then most places will see it as simply easier to upgrade. Especially if your client is a government agency.

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[PainKilleR-CE]

The fact is that Microsoft was right to ditch the traditional menus in most of the Office programs, because they were heavily bloated and every user needed to customize their toolbar to have a clean interface that they could actually use (or memorize the keyboard shortcuts, which for the most part haven't changed from 95 to 2007). Whether or not their 2007 (or 2010) implementation is any better depends somewhat on the user (and in part their willingness to adapt), but at least they're trying to do something about it, instead of just leaving everyone with 3 lines of toolbars and having 75% or more of the buttons on their screen go unused 99.9% of the time.

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[TheTrollToll]

Its aggravating that IT people who go to Slashdot are so afraid of learning new (possibly more intuitive and simple) ways of using software.

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[oodaloop]

My apologies. I didn't realize I strayed onto your lawn. I will promptly remove myself forthwith. Good day, sir!

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[je ne sais quoi]

But you are getting old and are going to die and you probably have no intention of buying a new version of Word since you are happy with the current one.

Besides linux people, the people that I personally see using openoffice most often are young, hip college students. The reason? They have no money to spend on things like software. You forget that young people also grew up with the internet and are accustomed lots of free software and see no reason to pay to use something that some other software does just as well but is free.

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[ashtophoenix]

I prefer Google Docs to OpenOffice too. I find OpenOffice quirky and unreliable. It often crashes for me. In fact I think even Word (2003) is more usable than OpenOffice. Word 2007 on the other hand (and the whole of Office 2007) is a bloody mess where its even hard to figure the Menu Options - maybe I just need to sit down for a few mins and figure it out once and for all...but why??? I already did that a few years before and it was working quite well for me. I don't see the benefit of this UI Change. As for Google Docs - it has limited functionality - but its easy to use and it promises on what it delivers. So for simple documents I end up using it. One thing I would say is that MS Excel is a wonderful tool.

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[Monkeedude1212]

We've all figured out how the app works, what the keyboard shortcuts are, where in each menu our most-used commands are, and how to use mail merge. STOP CHANGING IT.

This is not only true for Office products, but operating systems as well. Seriously, Windows 7? Why did they rename/move around everything I need to know. Why can't it START in classic mode and I can make it flashy if I want it to be...

These kinds of things should be intuitive, familiar, and easy. Its like they're trying to make me play Halo on Southpaw Legacy.

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[bheer]

There is a slight learning curve to Office 2007 coming from 2003. I'm extremely comfortable with Word 2003's menu system and I can see why you would get annoyed. (is the command for Page breaks on the Layout tab or Insert tab? What about the command for inserting watermarks?). My muscle memory still uses the alt key chords for many things though -- things like Alt I B for inserting a page break in Word, and Alt I R for inserting a row in Excel.

Still, getting through large docs and spreadsheets was just so much faster in Office 2007 (not to mention prettier) that I was able to justify the slight learning curve. The Home tab really does make many common operations faster, as do the live previews (reminded me a lot of Lotus's old Office suite) and the fade-in menu that appears on selecting text.

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[gbarules2999]

I'm the opposite way for OpenOffice.org, and you might be seeing a rise in that. I didn't like it at first, but I assimilated to its minor differences. Now any version of Word bugs the hell out of me. Neither is inferior, just different.

The question is if you buy a new computer, will you bother adjusting to OO.o for a few months, or pay $80+ for Word 2007, which you will probably also have to adjust to? Google Docs is good and all, but it's still quirky as well (I've ran into more bugs in GD than OO.o, but that's just me) and doesn't have a decent offline mode.

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[gbarules2999]

But you are getting old and are going to die and you probably have no intention of buying a new version of Word since you are happy with the current one.

Besides linux people, the people that I personally see using openoffice most often are young, hip college students. The reason? They have no money to spend on things like software. You forget that young people also grew up with the internet and are accustomed lots of free software and see no reason to pay to use something that some other software does just as well but is free.

I fit this statement, and speaking from experience there's no chance in hell after using OO.o for a year or two that I'd ever use anything else. Well, maybe Abiword.

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[gbarules2999]

Got a new computer recently? Can't find that Word 2000 disc? Unless you resort to piracy, you're dumb outta luck.

And do you honestly expect Word 2003 to work with Windows 8 or 9? I can't say Microsoft would be too interested in making that work out if the support contract is worn out.

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[maxume]

Yes, I do expect Word 2003 to work on Windows 8 and 9.

Microsoft's support for binary backwards compatibility is generally better than Linux support for source backwards compatibility (the source has the advantage that you can fix it after it has been broken, but in practical terms, a Windows binary from 1995 is more likely to work on Vista than an unedited open source program from 1995 is to directly compile on Ubuntu 8.04).

And really, I don't have any trouble upgrading software (I tend to believe that the hundreds of thousands of dollars Microsoft spends on usability testing is probably productive) or keeping track of install media for expensive software (To test this, I just eyeballed my Windows 95 CD that came with the computer I purchased in 1997).

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[Anonymous Coward]

Except of course that MS gives free copies of just about everything to collage students. I haven't been out that long, and I remember office being far more popular than OO. But then, I also remember LaTex being more popular than either, and google docs being used for anything with multiple authors (any group project), so both MS and OO were very much runners up.

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[FishWithAHammer]

I would argue that OpenOffice Writer is inferior. It's slower. It's ugly. It lacks a lot of the niceties of Word 2007 (unless they added stuff like the formatting-menu-on-hover gizmo that Word 2007 has in a recent release, I haven't installed it since 3.0 and didn't really play with it much).

It's a workable program, but it's not really as good as either 2003 or 2007. Frankly I think KOffice has a better chance of being a really good Office competitor than OpenOffice ever will.

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[FishWithAHammer]

I fit that statement too, and I bought Office 2007 after using it on school computers. Why? Because the difference in productivity between 2003 (which I already owned, so I had no reason to use OpenOffice) and 2007 is huge. It's just a hell of a lot nicer to actually work with, and I dig it. The cost, as high as it was (like $60 or something), was worth it because the improvements are that good.

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[FishWithAHammer]

And do you honestly expect Word 2003 to work with Windows 8 or 9? I can't say Microsoft would be too interested in making that work out if the support contract is worn out.

Word for Windows 6.0 works with Vista (at least 32-bit versions). Office 95 works with Vista x64. I doubt there's much to worry about.

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[FishWithAHammer]

This is not only true for Office products, but operating systems as well. Seriously, Windows 7? Why did they rename/move around everything I need to know. Why can't it START in classic mode and I can make it flashy if I want it to be...

Because HCI experts are tailoring to the average user, not you. You're in theory smart enough to adjust the settings to what you like. They cannot be relied upon to do so. The defaults much be sane for them and tailored to them.

Belt up and deal with it.

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[Monkeedude1212]

The average user has used a computer before though, the only people who benefit unfamiliar settings like this are children who've never used a computer before - and they sure don't have money to buy a new computer. Every teenager now has at least experienced XP - or at minimum Vista. So why change it up on everyone again?

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[T Murphy]

I think the ribbon works well too, and has potential. Most complaints I have seen stem from the fact that you can't customize it- if I had to use Office more I might have more of an issue with that (I'm still in college so things might change in a few years). I think if customization is added all but the most "extreme" power users could benefit. I don't care much for the old menu-laden UI; I am sure a better UI is possible, but the ribbon is easier to use.

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[FishWithAHammer]

Because the average user will stick with the new defaults and generally find them superior. Heck, I used to be one of the people who had a bunch of customizations in Word in order to quickly access whatever I wanted. Even if Office 2007 supported them, I don't think I'd be using them. The new defaults are nice.

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[michael_cain]

I'm an old grumpy guy, but am still looking for at least two features. Have they managed to put floating displays in this version? How about intelligent vertical white space, that gets suppressed as being unnecessary at the top of a column or page? Stuff should start at exactly the same place at the top of each page or column (excepting possibly the first page). And with the exception of a handful of cases involving the end of sections, there should never be more than a couple of blank lines at the bottom of a page. Fill the pages intelligently for me, please.

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[Anonymous Coward]

By loading in under 45 seconds and not crashing when trying to do everyday tasks. I've used both products a lot (like everyone else here, I'm sure). There really is no comparison between OO and Office (especially 2007). I eventually removed OO from my Kubuntu install in favor of running Office 2007 through virtualbox because it was actually faster, which speaks volumes about the quality of OO.

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, for the first time in my life, I now understand Excel. Beforehand I just didn't get it. Now that I've used excel 2007, I can now go back to the older excels and work productively (ish) in them!

It's the new fandangled look that is spooking everyone. Using the ribbon for 10 minutes however shows its strengths. I remember looking through the help a few times looking for the 'action' that I used to make in word. In all cases, it was either in plain sight, OR was logically placed where it should be. A small learning curve.

If you don't wish to learn, don't use technology. It moves all the time.

2c

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[Maxo-Texas]

I would have to disagree.

Like the PP, I found openoffice good with a small learning curve while Word 2007 has such a huge learning curve that there are still tasks I haven't figured out how to do yet (and probably a dozen in the last week regarding tables).

Add to that, failure to print word 2003 documents (Hangs on page 2)-- that didn't clear up until they completely reinstalled the O/S and all printer drives. Then it still did it on some other documents-- turned out some tables at 100.7% was the cause. First they were 100% in word 2003, and second, when I set them to 101% in word 2003 on purpose, it printed them fine. So word 2007 incorrectly converted them and then crashed on them (I'm sharing this so folks can fix the problem).

Do you want to rent Word the rest of your life, or own Openoffice?

For a lot of folks, renting is fine.

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[FishWithAHammer]

'Renting'? That's cute. Freetarded, but cute. I have the discs right here, as a result of my purchase. Microsoft cannot magically wave a want and take them away. If they attempt to disable them in an attempt to push a new version that does not have features I deem valuable enough to purchase, I will crack the software I already own and make it work.

The rest of your post is the same inane bullshit you'd write off in the open source world with WorksForMe(tm). Printing Word 2003 documents work fine for me. Tables work fine for me, and are exposed in a more intelligent manner to the end user--to match your shitty little snark for shitty little snark, it's not their fault you aren't smart enough to pick it up when the rest of us get along just fine.

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[chammy]

Microsoft's support for binary backwards compatibility is generally better than Linux support for source backwards compatibility (the source has the advantage that you can fix it after it has been broken, but in practical terms, a Windows binary from 1995 is more likely to work on Vista than an unedited open source program from 1995 is to directly compile on Ubuntu 8.04)

Sorry, I have a few issues with this.

For one, things like Age of Empires 2 (a Microsoft game, no less) are entirely screwed up in Vista. I have quite a collection of classic games that have to be run under Wine since I "upgraded" to Vista.

Besides that, how can you argue that Windows has better binary compatibility if you use compiling it from the source as an example? A better argument would be trying to run an ancient binary on a modern linux system, like an old copy of Nethack. The only problems you'll run into with something like that is getting copies of the libraries it was linked against (old versions of glib or X11 things, etc).

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[xtracto]

I think current OpenOffice functionality is on par with Microsoft Office 97.

Someone should really do a hand in hand comparison (maybe Microsoft should pay someone to compare OO.o 3 with MS Office 97?)

Not trying to troll here, A good review of changes between Word 2000 and 2003 can be seen here. It may be a good starting point to see if OO 3.0 has all the "new features" of Office2003, or maybe Office 2000[pdfwarning]

However, I find it difficult that any of the parties (the Open Source community or Microsoft) could do an objective comparison between the two.

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[Maxo-Texas]

Microsoft products are subject to forced obsolescence. There are many good examples of this so "renting" is correct. Owning microsoft products today ensures that you will have to purchase more microsoft products tomorrow. Future hardware iterations will not support older OS's - first not well, then not at all due to lack of driver support.

The rest of the post is a real experience along with a fix for the problem. I can't see why that pisses you off so much. Someone pee in your coffee this morning?

   

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[FishWithAHammer]

Forced obsolescence, huh? I guess that's why Office 2003 has a compatibility pack for DOCX support.

And no, nobody pissed in my coffee--but when you start throwing around freetard comments like "renting software," I'm pretty sure any reasonable person is going to think you a freetard, and act accordingly.

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[Maxo-Texas]

So what is "freetard"-- some kind of wimpy insult that microsoft made up?
Do you think throwing it around supports your argument in the slightest?

It just makes you look like an unreasonable idiot whose a bit brainwashed by microsoft-- or possibly even a shill.

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[FishWithAHammer]

Good points. I'm pretty sure that it'd measure up to Office 97, or perhaps Office 2000. But with 2007, Microsoft put a lot of thought into how people actually work, and it shows.

HCI analysis is very much lacking in the open-source world, to our detriment.

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[FishWithAHammer]

Get educated.

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[FishWithAHammer]

Whoops. Get educated, now with fewer typos. I'm sure that you'll get pissy and stop reading because he's mean, no matter how right he is, but hey. He's the originator of the term "freetard," and his examples are awesome: people like you who try to pooh-pooh proprietary software--proprietary software that does it better--because of ridiculous and silly assertions, because it's not "free" (and while you did not use the term your leading to that point is transparent).

Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone

[bheer]

> Microsoft products are subject to forced obsolescence. There are many good examples of this so "renting" is correct.

No, it's dumb. I can run Office 2000 on Windows 7. From a network share - don't even have to install it. And it has DOCX support. Not that DOCX/XLSX support matters - realistically, DOC and XLS will continue to be supported for the next 10 years, and probably more. And saving as RTF, Text etc continue to work.

And I don't even have to install Windows 7. I still have my XP discs and that runs just fine. Hell, my DOS/Windows 3.1 backup disks still work and I can still run IE5 and NN4 (of course, very few sites work).

Of course, what you really want to say is, now that I've paid for my OS/Office suite once, I should never have to pay for upgrades again. But with that line of thinking you shouldn't buy software in the first place, there's plenty of free (and libre) software out there.

But...still not fixed

[tomax7]

â¦but can PowerPoint incorporate BOTH a landscape and portrait setting in the same slideshow yet? Or can users rearrange the Quick Access Toolbar by dragging the icons around instead of the retarded way of going into the Options/Customize area? Or Excel open with the page break showing, as in dotted lines showing the margins?

Re:But...still not fixed

[dvh.tosomja]

I know what you did, unlike others I read TFA :D

Re:But...still not fixed

[PainKilleR-CE]

or how about Excel's cut & paste functionality working in even remotely the same fashion as everywhere else in Windows (or Office)?

Re:But...still not fixed

[FishWithAHammer]

Excel's cut-and-paste is handled as it is because that's the norm for spreadsheets and has been for a long time. Whether it's good or not is debatable (I don't really like it), but they do have a good reason for it.

Re:But...still not fixed

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be remotely relevant, if they hadn't completely revamped the UI and everything.

Re:But...still not fixed

[FishWithAHammer]

And people bitch endlessly about the UI revamp. They'd bitch endlessly about Excel's C&P changes. The difference is that Excel's C&P behaviors mimic what people expect out of a spreadsheet and a change to these behaviors is not necessarily a good thing.

If you really want different behavior, there are add-ons out there.

Re:But...still not fixed

[Anonymous Coward]

So is revamping the complete UI with something never done before. Changing the C&P behavior, which no other program uses, in the same step would have been small.

Re:But...still not fixed

[FishWithAHammer]

Except that other spreadsheets use the same behavior, and it has a good reason for existing: because it updates references as you paste.

Consider the following situation, which is a really simple and really common one: the cell A2 is set to "=A1 * 5". You cut and paste it to B3, and it becomes "=B2 * 5". If you copied this to the clipboard in the standard way that others applications do, you lose these references. And Excel does copy to the shared clipboard when you hit Ctrl-C, don't get me wrong. That's how you paste into Word. But if you removed the section from the Excel sheet before doing a paste into the same (or different) sheet, it is possible to get into a state where reference fix-up is not doable, and so Excel's developers have decided to ensure that it remains in a sane state at all times. The alternative is to have it removed on a cut, and then fail to actually paste if it cannot manage reference fix-up. That's worse.

There are other ways to do it--OpenOffice does it differently--but they're not taking into account something rather important: Excel's not necessarily targeting you. Excel's bread and butter are the accountants, auditors, etc. who rarely, if ever, touch the mouse. Since Lotus 1-2-3 they've done it this way. In some ways it's a historical oddity, and everything else has grown up around it. This is true. But given the work habits of the people Excel is really targeting, who are primarily keyboard-focused, this method of copy-and-paste is easier to deal with. Shift-highlight, Ctrl-X, you can still see what you're working with until you paste (generally into the same sheet, even).

Are there other ways to do it? Sure. Is this one entirely defensible, and intended to better serve Excel's primary targeted userbase? I think so. The difference between this and the Ribbon is that the Ribbon improves usability for the target users; I don't think changing Excel's copy/paste system would do that for their target users.

'Conversation View' == Threaded mail?

[Bonker]

The first time I ever used a threaded message client was WinVN newsreader way back in the wilds of 1993. The first email reader I used that was threaded was Eudora... pre-2000. I'm very sure that tin supported threads before I ever saw an ethernet cable.

So here it is 2009, and Microsoft is just NOW including a threaded view in Outlook.

Yeah. Way to innovate there, Redmon. Congratulations on entering the 1990s!

Re:'Conversation View' == Threaded mail?

[Shados]

Im not too sure whats the difference, but Outlook has had thread support for years too. So this is probably a fancier rehash of the same deal, or maybe natively integrated with Exchange or something.

Re:'Conversation View' == Threaded mail?

[bheer]

Threaded mail has been in Outlook since at least Outlook 2000. Conversation view is more like Gmail's "threads".

Re:'Conversation View' == Threaded mail?

[Anonymous Coward]

How come the GP which is incorrect is marked as Informative and the P which is correct is modded as "2"?

Re:'Conversation View' == Threaded mail?

[shutdown -p now]

The ability to group messages by conversation has been in Outlook for as long as I've been using it (which is since 2003) - probably longer, though, as Outlook Express had it since the first version that came with Win98. I'm not sure how this is new by any measure...

Re:'Conversation View' == Threaded mail?

[Sukhbir]

So you mean to say that in a way, innovation as a whole is just limited to one feature?

Re:'Conversation View' == Threaded mail?

[dedazo]

Yeah. Way to innovate there, Redmon. Congratulations on entering the 1990s!

Outlook has supported threaded discussion views for email and post folders since the 2000 version. Here's a walk through for 2003. First hit on Google searching for 'outlook threaded view'

While threaded mode is useful for some things, there are other nice ways to visualize your stuff on Outlook that I like.

View -> Arrange By -> Conversation on OLK2003 is essentially the same as GMail mode, for example.

A quick switch to Message Timeline view is also extremely useful in those situations where someone says "it's an email from 03/12/70" or something like that and you want to look quickly at the entire sequence sorted by message rather than simply by date.

The "Show in groups" thing is priceless as a visual aide to stuff that's happened in the last few weeks.

I think Outlook is an example of Microsoft's better software efforts. It has its quirks and limitations of course, but overall it's far better than most other mail clients I've used in the past 15 years. And I'm not even considering Exchange integration here.

Congratulations on getting modded up though. My theory that mod points are being increasingly farmed out to rhesus monkeys and squirrels on steroids continues to pan out.

Re:'Conversation View' == Threaded mail?

[Maniacal]

I've tried using a threaded view with different email clients over the years and I always switch back. I don't understand why. I've spent a lot of time on Outlook so that may be why I could care less about threading. Maybe it has to do with the fact that the entire thread is appended to the end of each new mail I get in the thread. That is, unless someone in the chain deliberately doesn't include it in a reply.

What I have grown to love is the way gmail does threading. It's like a hybrid between what Outlook does (or doesn't do) and threading. I have the thread there in case I need it but the message appears at the top of my inbox all the way to the left.

Re:'Conversation View' == Threaded mail?

[PainKilleR-CE]

Outlook has supported threaded mail for a long time. The feature they were trying to highlight was the ability to condense the content of the thread to a single (or small number of) message when much of the content in the replies is the same (ie the previous sender's message quoted back in a reply). Therefore you could look at the top-level of the thread and possibly read the whole thread without having to go through several messages, most of which contain the previous messages quoted over and over again.

How much value this has to most users and whether or not it actually works very well I don't know, but the idea that Outlook didn't have a threaded view before this is at best laughable, especially since a quick search would tell you how to do it in the last 4 or so versions of the program.

Re:'Conversation View' == Threaded mail?

[furby076]

Congratulations on getting modded up though. My theory that mod points are being increasingly farmed out to rhesus monkeys and squirrels on steroids continues to pan out.

Dude your saying good things about MS. Let me get on my other five /. accounts so i can mod you down.

Re:'Conversation View' == Threaded mail?

[dedazo]

twitter? Is that you? :)

Re:'Conversation View' == Threaded mail?

[Dude McDude]

The GP was bashing Microsoft. Welcome to Slashdot!

Re:'Conversation View' == Threaded mail?

[Anonymous Coward]

Note all of your examples are pre 2000 and gmail doesn't use it either. If it was such an awesome idea why didn't it continue to be used? The main reason is that how email is used changed and continues to change. People now recieve such a volume of email that this is now fast becoming mandatory just to keep track of the information flow and it will probably become something I expect google to adopt as well.

Re:'Conversation View' == Threaded mail?

[cbhacking]

Outlook has had threaded conversations since *at least* 2003, maybe further back (that was when I first looked for the feature). The main differences in 2010 are twofold: messages that are part of the same conversation but spread across multiple folders are shown together (including your sent messages when viewing a thread in your inbox, for example), and redundent messages (ones where the response incorporates the original message, making the original redundent) are hidden by default (they can be shown if you please) which helps prevent one long thread from filling up the whole screen and being difficult to navigate between cranches of.

Re:'Conversation View' == Threaded mail?

[Blakey Rat]

Outlook's had Threaded View for decades. I don't exactly know what "conversation view" is, but it's something new.

But good job posting your ignorant bullshit for everybody to read. I guess it's easier to lie about what features Outlook has than to check your facts. Why do people mod up posts that *make shit up*?

Re:'Conversation View' == Threaded mail?

[xtracto]

View -> Arrange By -> Conversation on OLK2003 is essentially the same as GMail mode, for example.

I use Outlook every day in my work (and I have it open right now). I did what you indicated and the "conversation" view does not look *anything* like Google's view.

For one, the messages I sent are not displayed (as they are "saved" in the SentItems folder), second, the messages from the same "conversation" are in shown in a flat list (i.e. wihtout bleeding). Moreover, you can not order by any other column once you choose "conversation" view.
In summary, it sucks.

A lot of effort and money

[SCHecklerX]

... for software that really isn't needed these days. Other than a one-off printed letter, what place does a word processing document have in today's world of Wikis and such? Same with spreadsheets. Great for high school and college labs, and quick what-if stuff, but outside of that, should they really be used (don't get me started on the number of spreadsheet 'databases' or printable tables are out there).

Re:A lot of effort and money

[Shados]

Have you set foot in a typical large business lately? These people live and die by these things, on -TOP- of using wikis and such. A big part of it is that you can't really link a customer waiting to sign a 15 million dollar contract a link to a wiki, and the accounting department can't do their "one shot deal" calculations on their blog.

Re:A lot of effort and money

[Freetardo Jones]

Other than a one-off printed letter, what place does a word processing document have in today's world of Wikis and such?

You mean other than for writing novels, papers and articles? Yeah, other than major stuff like that, I can see no use for a word processor at all. Last time I checked my professor or your editor isn't going to accept a wiki page as a way to turn in your writing to.

Re:A lot of effort and money

[aristotle-dude]

... for software that really isn't needed these days. Other than a one-off printed letter, what place does a word processing document have in today's world of Wikis and such? Same with spreadsheets. Great for high school and college labs, and quick what-if stuff, but outside of that, should they really be used (don't get me started on the number of spreadsheet 'databases' or printable tables are out there).

Wikis? Are you on crack. Wikis are not only often disorganized but they are also the epitome of poor usability. They do have their place but they are not a replacement properly rewritten and organized documentation. Wikis are a fad like twitter and will be forgotten in a few years.

Re:A lot of effort and money

[Amazing Quantum Man]

Mod parent -1 incredibly naive

Re:A lot of effort and money

[Colonel Korn]

Mod parent -1 incredibly naive

Try adding "in my basement" to the end of each of the GP's sentences and you can understand his perspective a bit more.

... for software that really isn't needed these days in my basement. Other than a one-off printed letter, what place does a word processing document have in today's world of Wikis and such in my basement? Same with spreadsheets in my basement. Great for high school and college labs, and quick what-if stuff, but outside of that, should they really be used in my basement (don't get me started on the number of spreadsheet 'databases' or printable tables are out there in my basement).

Re:A lot of effort and money

[Merdalors]

While I'm not a big fan of the latest versions of Office, I have yet to see a Web-based, on-line program that can handle two or three hundred-page technical documents, with automatic paragraph numbering, indices, cross-referencing, style formats, redlining, robust tables, etc. Heck even WordPerfect buggers up RTF.

Re:A lot of effort and money

[mkrup99]

I can see the "Funny" rating, but for the life of me I cannot understand how this can be modded anywhere above zero. Clearly you have never held a real job... or attended any classes at a legitimate school, for that matter. This comment made me feel like this: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/files/2008/09/thestupiditburns.jpg

Re:A lot of effort and money

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? Do you actually work for a living?

I use Excel constantly - because it is a great business tool. My data stays local, gets integrated on my servers with what I want, and Excel provides all the analytical tools I need.

Re:A lot of effort and money

[Daengbo]

If I use Latexki or DocBook Wiki, then my prof will certainly accept the export I turn in, since it'll be a PDF.

Re:A lot of effort and money

[xtracto]

. for software that really isn't needed these days. Other than a one-off printed letter, what place does a word processing document have in today's world of Wikis and such?

I know you got a funny mod, but what you just said is completely out of reality.

The majority of people in several non-exact sciences (social sciences e.g.) use (1) Word, to write their articles and (2) Powerpoint to provide their presentations.

Moreover, trying to make such scientists to learn the "Wiki-language" is stupid. I am in a project where the guy in charge of IT created a "web portal" (PloneCMS) for interaction (between all the members of the project). Although he provided a wiki, forum, plone-html article(with the dead easy FCKEditor), etc. The "interaction" between researchers has been reduced to exchange of emails (sometimes with .DOC files) and uploading the "final" documents in PDF or DOC format.

That is the reality happening in more than 80% (PFMAss) of the "productive" population...

The Ribbon...

[MrEricSir]

...is the new Clippy. If you want people to use Office, you need to get rid of it.

Re:The Ribbon...

[Dude McDude]

Everyone on this thread is now dumber for having read it.

Mod this guy "Insightful"!

Re:The Ribbon...

[DimmO]

I wish I had some points. I'd mod you funny just for nostalgia's sake.
Shampoo is better - it goes on first and cleans the hair. No, conditioner is better. it makes the hair smooooth and silky. ng ng ng... stop looking at me swan
(forgive me if my quote isn't verbatim - it's been a while since I watched it)

Re:Eric Raymond

[Anonymous Coward]

I heard something had happened to Eric Raymond, but didn't know the details. That's fucked up that the police would charge an assault victim with a crime. Given shit like that (and NASA spending $100 billion on a space station just to destroy it, the patent office, etc) I wonder why anyone would want the government involved in healthcare or "stimulating" the economy.

But I digress. ESR, my prayers are with you. Has anyone set up a paypal fund or online e-card for him?

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

Outlook also sees the introduction of two new email features for office workers drowning under a deluge of email. The Conversation Clean-Up tool will condense long email chains into summaries of the conversation, allowing you to catch up with all the key information without having to open dozens of different messages individually.

This made me think of this commercial:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsNDGSQHPVc

WordPerfect 5.1

[handy_vandal]

I could have been happy using WordPerfect 5.1 for the rest of my life -- it did everything I need a word processor to do.

Re:WordPerfect 5.1

[jedidiah]

I remember a WordPerfect demo for the Atari ST. Everyone in attendance agreed then that WP was gross overkill for just about everyone.

For most people that have to put up with msword for no other reason to "be compatable", that's still true.

Re:WordPerfect 5.1

[adonoman]

So install it and quit complaining. It's easy enough to do under XP: http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos/windowsxp.html I have an old 286 laptop that the kids play with that has wp51 installed and as nice as it was 20 years ago (menus! woo-hoo!), the lack of copy-and paste between apps, an OS-based printer driver system, etc... makes it just that much more of an effort to use. Stick me in front of vi for coding anyday, but when I want to quickly create a document to print out that looks nice, I'll go with a modern word processor.

Re:WordPerfect 5.1

[spyrochaete]

I guess I don't need to ask why your sentence is in past tense. DOS and dot matrix printers used to suffice as well, but do you intend to distribute your hard work with modems and floppies?

Re:WordPerfect 5.1

[Nom du Keyboard]

I could have been happy using WordPerfect 5.1 for the rest of my life

I will second that. Especially because Reveal Codes was so much faster for fixing formatting problems than Word to this day. There are times in Word some piece of formatting garbage gets so stuck in place that I have to delete entire paragraphs and repast the text as Paste Special Unformatted Text.

Re:WordPerfect 5.1

[bheer]

Word has had a style inspector since Office 2003 (or possibly Office XP). It'll tell you exactly what formatting has been applied to the text, and it's pretty easy to reset it. Screenshot: http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/9540/o2007.png

Re:WordPerfect 5.1

[Blakey Rat]

So do that. Why are you whinging on here about it? There are tons of free VM products, on the off-chance it won't run in Windows.

Re:WordPerfect 5.1

[Anonymous Coward]

If I remember correct, WP 6.0 was the version with WYSIWYG that drove me away from WordPerfect. I'm a typography nerd and earlier versions could print beautiful document on really crappy printers. The WYSIWYG version could not. Since then there has been a lack of easy to use word processors that can make good typography. LyX is the only one I can think of, but LyX is incredibly buggy and hard to install/customise, and looks fugly without antialiasing and other things people have come to expect.

I wouldn't say that WP 5.1 have everything I "need". For exemple it would be nice if it had word completion for speedier writing and antialiasing would make it friendlier to my eyes. But when it comes to good typography and ease of use it beats most products today.

Re:WordPerfect 5.1

[WuphonsReach]

I could have been happy using WordPerfect 5.1 for the rest of my life -- it did everything I need a word processor to do.

Hmmm, meanwhile the technical writers at a company I worked for back around 1990 liked to call it WordStupid.

(Granted, they were doing extremely complex documentation...)

I figure we'll upgrade off of Office 2003 sometime around 2011/2012...

Re:WordPerfect 5.1

[sasha328]

Amen to that.

Damn you Corel for destroying a perfectly good and lean product.

Re:WordPerfect 5.1

[Panoptes]

I couldn't agree more. In its day WP 5.1 was all I needed for both private and professional writing. My current word processor is TextPad because it's the words that are important, not a pot-pourri of fancy layout and formatting. I want to focus on what I'm writing without meandering through menus, writhing with ribbons and being distracted by the myriad arty-farty baubles that pass for a user interface.

Re:WordPerfect 5.1

[handy_vandal]

If I remember correct, WP 6.0 was the version with WYSIWYG that drove me away from WordPerfect.

Yeah, me too.

WP 5.1 didn't literally have everything I need, as discussed elsewhere in this thread. But I still have a soft spot for certain archaic programs ... but it sure was the schiznitz, back in the day.

Re:WordPerfect 5.1

[handy_vandal]

... It's the words that are important, not a pot-pourri of fancy layout and formatting.

Amen to that, brother!

The last good version of Microsoft Word

[XxtraLarGe]

The last good version of Microsoft Word was Word 5.1 for the Mac, and that was over 17 years ago! They should stop throwing all the garbage in there and just make it extensible with plug-ins like Photoshop or a web browser.

Re:The last good version of Microsoft Word

[Aphonia]

They do allow plugins. It is extendable. People write plugins (such as the old style menu plugin, PDF plugin, etc.).

They add more features trying to get a better product, people start using them, they might not all succeed, but if they pull it, people will cry.

It seems to be one of the banes of another popular microsoft product (windows) where people use undocumented features, expect stuff to work, and cry when it doesnt. I think Raymond Chen goes over some of this in his book.

Also, remember that Microsoft wants people to move to a newer version. Maybe Ribbon was the wrong way to go, but now that you have users on it, switching back to the old style will either be forgotten, or people will have to get the option of using the new and old styles lest you have people crying (casual users).

Re:The last good version of Microsoft Word

[Lumpy]

Problem is that Office 2010 now has the Xbox Achievements system...

"Achievement, you found the file menu function +10gp"

Oh using Office 2010 will require a Office Live gold account or higher.

Re:The last good version of Microsoft Word

[Ohio Calvinist]

Because then you've got literally hundreds of "versions" to maintain within the organization by hundreds of vendors that may be incompatible with one another with some needed to recieve documents from suppliers and/or customers. We already get support issues because user "A"'s copy of the employee popsicle day flyer doesn't render the same as user "B"'s copy. Imagine if core-functionality was dependant on having the right mish-mash of DLLs or extenions installed. From a security perspective plugins also add more attack vectors and if you look at Firefox as the example, even minor version updates can break them, which is not OK for day-to-day productivity software. What makes it tolerable on FF is that even if you disable all of them, it still does what it was designed to do-- browse web pages.

Like browsers, they are made to meet the majority of the needs for the majority of users doing what it was designed to do.

Re:The last good version of Microsoft Word

[Gadget_Guy]

That's amazing. It has obviously been 17 years since you have seen any version of Word. Extensibility is one of the great features of Office.

I have written my own addons to Word to pull data from our central database and to seemlessly integrate with our network fax server. Our accounts department Word to link to their accounting software to facilitate invoicing. My wife uses a plugin to handle her citations at university. All this is done using external plugins for Word.

When they released Windows 95, Microsoft pushed ActiveX hoping to change the way we thought about applications. Their idea was that programs would become building blocks that would seemlessly fit inside each other rather than discrete - like the way you could embed an organisation chart in a Word or Excel document. The concept really failed to catch on, I think mainly due to the problem of not being able to send your documents to other people who did not have the same ActiveX controls.

It also caused problems when people upgrade software versions. A lot of the problems that people have tring to mix different versions of Office products can be traced back to embedded ActiveX controls.

Re:The last good version of Microsoft Word

[XxtraLarGe]

I currently have 2003 on XP @ work & 2004 on my Mac. Like most people, I don't use 95% of the features in Word.

Re:The last good version of Microsoft Word

[Macgrrl]

[pedant mode]Actually, it was version 5.1a[/pedant mode]

Oh, how I miss thee...

one-upping Google

[spyrochaete]

I found it really interesting to hear that Microsoft is pushing so hard for web-based solutions, as well as incorporating network features into the local client. They seem to be adopting all the best features of Google Apps/Writely and putting extra polish on them.

For instance, anyone who's used Google Apps knows how bad the cross-compatibility is with Office documents so this alone will be the main decider for most businesses. Also, Google Apps' interface is rudamintary and the applications are utterly worthless for formatting documents for print, so these are areas MS can really excel in the cloud. It's also neat to see Microsoft incorporate collaborative edits of a single document - this was Google's main differentiator until now as it was infinitely better than Sharepoint's check-out system.

Most importantly for non-US businesses, Microsoft offers locally installed, locally hosted server solutions which means you don't have to entrust your private data to the cloud, the PATRIOT Act, or man-in-the-middle attacks. Also, your workplace doesn't stop if your WAN connection goes down.

I predict these features will be of little value to small businesses and home users who may opt for cheap or free competing products, but MS has a very good handle on how the workplace is evolving and becoming more distributed and this awareness will be very attractive for mid-to-large businesses.

Office productivity suites...

[Anonymous Coward]

People still pay for these?

I mean, really? Just as Microsoft killed the ability for anyone to make money selling web browsers, didn't Open Office et al do the same? The last ... three companies I've worked for all use Open Office.

Re:Office productivity suites...

[DanJ_UK]

Exchange / Outlook is a pretty substantial requirement for every company I've ever worked for.

Re:who uses it anyway?

[jedidiah]

1998 called. It wants it's FUD back.

So microsoft should...?

[TheTrollToll]

What should they do? Stop making new versions of their software? Stop selling updated software? Why would we want them to stop making progress. You guys can all keep your office 97's,word perfect 1.0's and your open office's and that's fine. Why criticize a company for something every other software company does? They are more ripable for their strong-arm and anti-competitive practices than for improving their software. Yes yes we know you're crusty veterans of software and you think that your opinions matter the most but according to this first report, Office 2010 is indeed an improvement in many ways (despite it requiring more than 256k memory).

Re:who uses it anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

The contraction of "it is" called. It wants its apostrophe back.

Not so surprising

[Drakkenmensch]

Is anyone else thinking that we may not have seen this early preview if it hadn't been for last week's announcement from Google of the upcoming Chrome OS, twisting Microsoft's arm into announcing something, anything at all?

Re:Not so surprising

[Shados]

Unlikely. Microsoft partners have bigger customers already have had access to the Office 2010 preview for months now. I'm amazed it took that long for it to be seen in public (though there were already some previews and screenshots, including official ones by microsoft bloggers, for a while now)

Re:Not so surprising

[Aphonia]

Except for the fact that this preview was announced in May [http://blogs.msdn.com/excel/archive/2009/05/12/microsoft-office-2010-technical-preview.aspx] and Microsoft has had sharepoint and other things. And ChromeOS being a little netbook OS to just browse the internets when people do so much more with Windows.

Re:Not so surprising

[abigsmurf]

Is anyone else thinking that we may not have seen Chrome OS if it hadn't been for the upcoming release of Windows 7, twisting Googles's arm into announcing something, anything at all?

First Question

[Nom du Keyboard]

First Question: Does it run on XP?

Would be the first time that MS has tried to force an OS upgrade.

Re:First Question

[spyrochaete]

Yes, Office 2010 will run on XP. Wouldn't make sense for them to bump up the requirements. I wouldn't be surprised if some features were disabled on XP though.

Re:First Question

[Anonymous Coward]

no it wouldnt, remember halo 2 being tied to dx10?

Re:First Question

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm running it right now on XP SP3. It works with no major issues.

Please note I'm not making any comments on usability, I haven't made up my mind yet. But it installs and runs without dragging the entire system down.

Re:First Question

[gbarules2999]

And who cared about Halo 2 on PC? Exactly.

Re:First Question

[kamakiri]

yes Office 2010 will run on Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.

Three Reasons to Hate the Ribbon

[Nom du Keyboard]

1: It takes away valuable vertical screen real estate and cannot be repositioned to less valuable side areas.
2: It changes based on what it's Application Telepathy thinks you are doing.
3: You are not even offered the option of backwards compatibility to the old, customizable, fixed menuing system -- Microsoft dictates that they know what's best for you!

Can forced Dvorak keyboards with no QWERTY option be far behind?

Re:Three Reasons to Hate the Ribbon

[Allicorn]

Lots of folks love it. Bizarre isn't it? I've tried using it - honestly I have - but it just feels like a lot of hard work for no benefit I can find over the good old menu.

Word (and its ilk) have bucketloads of features most folks would agree. A logically laid out, branching menu structure allows you to quickly home in on and find the feature you want. Each entry from the bar right down to the items is a clearly worded unit of descriptive text. Seems really simple, reliable, usable and effective to me.

With the ribbon, you have to tab through each ... er.. tab.. subribbon... (what do you call those anyway?)... and then browse a two dimensional region that contains irregularly sized controls of a wide variety of types, arranged in an irregular grid, looking for a heading, label, caption or tooltip in some unpredictable style that might hint that this is the droid you're looking for.

And yet lots of folks like it. Or so I'm told. I don't actually know any but then I don't know many folks who routinely use Office anymore anyway. But the anecdotal statement keeps arising again and again: lots of folks like it.

I must be too old :-D

Re:Three Reasons to Hate the Ribbon

[man_of_mr_e]

1) You can make the ribbon go away by a single mouse click or hotkey.

2) No, it changes based on what you are ACTUALLY doing. If you click on an image, it gives you image editing tools. If you click in a table, it gives you table tools. It's context, not telepathy.

3) Microsoft has learned (the hard way) that if you give people the option to go back to the old, they will never learn the new. Thus you are stuck supporting the old for life. The only way is a clean break.

Re:Three Reasons to Hate the Ribbon

[Quiet_Desperation]

4. It elevates all commands, even the most little used, to equal status, thus kicking the concept of multiple, user customizable toolbars right in the nads.

Re:Three Reasons to Hate the Ribbon

[spyrochaete]

1: It takes away valuable vertical screen real estate and cannot be repositioned to less valuable side areas.

2: It changes based on what it's Application Telepathy thinks you are doing.

3: You are not even offered the option of backwards compatibility to the old, customizable, fixed menuing system -- Microsoft dictates that they know what's best for you!

1 - You can double click one of the major headings on the ribbon to hide it until it's clicked again. Then it behaves like a pulldown menu.

2 - It's called semantic computing. It makes computing task-based instead of command-based. People don't want to think about repeatedly putting one foot in front of the other - they want to walk to the store.

3 - AKA older is betterer? I disagree - especially when you call the old pulldown menus "fixed". Pick 5 tasks, do them on Office 2003 and 2007, and count the mouse clicks.

Re:Three Reasons to Hate the Ribbon

[marsu_k]

1: It takes away valuable vertical screen real estate and cannot be repositioned to less valuable side areas.

Word! (pun not intended) I'm typing this on a netbook with a 1024x600 screen, and having "the Ribbon" visible would use probably most of it. Yes, this (thankfully) isn't my only/main computer, but I like to write documents on the go every now and then.

Re:Three Reasons to Hate the Ribbon

[Anonymous Coward]

It cannot be repositioned, but it CAN be completely hidden and made to only appear temporarily when you click a tab - making it functionally similar to your precious menus. The ribbon can also be customized. As for offering the "backwards compatibility" of the old menus, imagine the UI design and support nightmare that would entail.

Re:Three Reasons to Hate the Ribbon

[FishWithAHammer]

Except for that whole "quick launch" bar.

As for multiple user customizable toolbars: ROFL. Something tells me (and HCI research has backed this up) that most people don't give a fuck about them. Office is not designed for you. It is designed for Joe Average. A better default for Joe Average may not be better for you. Oh well.

Re:Three Reasons to Hate the Ribbon

[T Murphy]

So is the problem the ribbon UI or the lack of customization? I know as long as there is no customization they are effectively one-in-the-same but if you had free will over how it works, would you stick with the menu-based or ribbon-based layout? Basically is the ribbon a bad innovation, or is it merely poor execution?

Re:Three Reasons to Hate the Ribbon

[WesternActor]

I agree with everything you're saying, but there's at least a way to "collapse" it when you don't need it. Ctrl-F1. It'll come back if/when you have to do something, but until then you can at least recover some of that vertical real estate.

Re:Three Reasons to Hate the Ribbon

[cbhacking]

You realize you can hide the ribbon, right? Double-click on the active tab. Single-click a tab to make it reappear until you click an option (like a menu) or double-click to make it reappear permanently (until you double-click again).
WTF do you mean, it "changes"? If you click on a picture, sure, a picture tab will appear on the ribbon... but the rest of the ribbon is still there, rigth where it was.
Part of me bemoans the loss of customizability on principle, the rest of me accepts that I never changed more than one or two things and that the new interface is better... and besides, the menu wasn't customizable. The toolbars were, but the ribbon is meant to replace both toolbar and menu. In any case, there is still a fully user-configurable toolbar, called the Quick Access bar, above the ribbon.

Re:Three Reasons to Hate the Ribbon

[initialE]

I'm typing this on 1440x900 screen, so yes, vertical screen space is valuable. Especially since this screen is sold as a 19" wide, and has less vertical pixels than a 17" square (1280x1024), my previous screen.

Re:Three Reasons to Hate the Ribbon

[Quiet_Desperation]

Why so hostile? Calm down. Keep warm. Don't cry. Christmas is near.

Re:Three Reasons to Hate the Ribbon

[FishWithAHammer]

Oh, go to hell.

Most people don't give a fuck about customizable toolbars--in fact, I'd argue that they're more of a problem than a solution. If everyone's using custom toolbars, there's no standardization for when you have to use another machine. Good defaults--and the Office 2007 ones are very, very good--are better than customization for a consumer-oriented application. The Quick Launch bar can hold anything you absolutely need.

Re:Three Reasons to Hate the Ribbon

[Quiet_Desperation]

Oh, go to hell.

Wow! You really do need help. I wish you well in solving your emotional issues.

oo, ms formats

[drougie]

I know this wouldn't be too helpful to openoffice and the FOSS world in general in terms of getting a leg up on native format overlords but it would help me not just deploy it in a large office by saving myself some clicks as I'm running around installing it but it would also enable me to hand out a CD to someone with an openoffice installation on it if I could somehow modify it to set the default save formats to Microsoft's. I also realize there's a risk such users should know, that they may lose certain formatting in doing this (and maybe I'd want to encourage them to crank out PDFs on final drafts), but most people just don't have the technical acumen to change these settings themselves and would have little interest in an editor that would only save a new document in an MS format if they went out of their way to specify it each time. Being able to double click an icon, type something, hit save and email to someone else who will then be able to open it with or without openoffice without having to do any extra steps would be a strong selling point.
 
So is there any way, a simple way without having to sift through all the source code, to modify some kind of openoffice installer to use ms formats by default? Maybe something like this exists already?
 
Ideally MS would be kind enough to support oo formats...
 
While I'm posting here's a link for MS fonts and another for Vista fonts for OO, works on all platforms OO works on according to what I found on google just now. Oh yeah, and back to my question, how about modifying an installer package to toss in fonts like this? Again, dealing with people who can barely click through a simple installation, not people who know where to find the basic settings of this kind of software.

Re:oo, ms formats

[Allicorn]

You could try making a macro of the necessary configuration changes to set things up the way your users want and then just email them the xlb file and tell them to run it after they install OOo.

If a macro command exists for the action, it ought to work.

Re:who uses it anyway?

[Lumpy]

FUD? your spell checker in your word 2010 is broken.

98% of what is done in an office can be done in a really old version of Office. I disagree about office 97 though, Office 2000 actually fixed all the bugs and was fast.

Office 2007 offers nothing other than confusion. office 2003 added slowness.

Yawn...

[sbeckstead]

Who cares?

Re:Yawn...

[Dude McDude]

You do.

Re:Yawn...

[sbeckstead]

Who do?

Re:Yawn...

[heffrey]

I guess some of the half a billion people with Office installations may take more than a passing interest....

Re:Yawn...

[sbeckstead]

Once again why do I have to care. They have alternatives now and MS is self destructing. It's hardly news let alone of interest to nerds. Secretaries and office personnel maybe but hardly anything I care about. And as you know if I don't care no one else needs to. So there!

There's more to Office than the Ribbon

[Toreo asesino]

...but you wouldn't think so looking through some of these comments. Office works real well with MOSS (Paid version of SharePoint); which works real nice on a Active Directory and SQL Server; which is only realistic on Windows Server. When I say works well, I mean your grandmother could get it running.

Office on it's own is missing the point really; documents should never stay on just one machine.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Office.

Re:There's more to Office than the Ribbon

[xtracto]

.but you wouldn't think so looking through some of these comments. Office works real well with MOSS (Paid version of SharePoint) [$7,325]; which works real nice on a Active Directory and SQL Server [ $5,232 ]; which is only realistic on Windows Server $2,586 ]. When I say works well, I mean your grandmother could get it running.

(prices, links and emphasis mine)

Which means that to make use of the "new features" provided by a $252 product, you need to pay more than $15,000 !

And of course, in 5 years you will have to pay 15,000 more because the products you bought won't have support.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Office.

Really wonderful for Microsoft if you ask me :)

Re:ODF-Which 3rd Party App?

[Nom du Keyboard]

the crappy third-party app option

Just which 3rd party app are you referring to, and what in particular makes it crappy to you?

Re:who uses it anyway?

[mathx314]

I have long argued that Office '97 was the best version they ever put out. All the features you need, very few you don't, and a decent enough UI and the ability to turn off AutoCorrect. I discovered OpenOffice a few years back, realized how similar it was to '97, and haven't looked back.

Re:who uses it anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

you missed what was being replied too, read at -1 or at least view parent.

Will Outlook finally get proper IMAP support?

[gpuk]

Where I work, our users are all happily using Office 2003 with no immediate desire to change. However, if Outlook 2010 gets proper IMAP support and Samba 4 is a bit more mature by then we'll move our whole user base over in flash as we'll finally be able to move to postfix/Samba4/LDAP and dump Exchange/AD thereby realising our dream of transitioning all of our back end to an open-source stack.

Can it be any worse than Office 2007?

[KoshClassic]

IMHO, Office 2007 was such a gigantic leap backwards in terms of its UI, that any "progress" towards "increased usability" this time out I fear will be in the wrong direction.

WordPerfect 5.1 Redux

[handy_vandal]

So install it and quit complaining.

I wasn't complaining -- I was (worse yet) sighing wistfully ...

But seriously: thanks, I hadn't actually thought of installing it. But it might be a kick, for old time's sake. (Hell, I'm still fond of BattleZone, no matter how good the Quakes and Half-Lifes get.) And thanks for posting that link.

... the lack of copy-and paste between apps, an OS-based printer driver system, etc... makes it just that much more of an effort to use ...

Well, yeah, that's all true. And I'd quickly run into these shortcomings and get fed up, if I spent much time reviving an archaic program.

Still, back in the day, it was the schiznitz.

Re:WordPerfect 5.1 Redux

[adonoman]

It was certainly better than the alternatives at the time, and a great leap up from 4.1. The day I could get rid of that little function key paper template that listed the commands was a very happy day.

WordPerfect 5.1 - maudlin sentimentality

[handy_vandal]

You're right -- I've succumbed to maudlin sentimentality about archaic software.

You wouldn't happen to have any spare GOTO statements, would you? I haven't seen mine for decades but I'm feeling kind of homesick for the good old days ....

Re:WordPerfect 5.1 - maudlin sentimentality

[spyrochaete]

10 print "mumble"
20 if $wordperfect > "5.1" then goto 10
30 else print "phew!"

Re:WordPerfect 5.1 - maudlin sentimentality

[An ominous Cow art]

10 print "mumble"
20 if $wordperfect > "5.1" then goto 10
30 else print "phew!"

*beep*
?SYNTAX ERROR IN LINE 30

WordPerfect 5.1 - Reveal Codes

[handy_vandal]

Especially because Reveal Codes was so much faster for fixing formatting problems than Word to this day.

Yes! You have hit the nail square on the head, my friend! Reveal Codes, that's what I immediately and sorely missed when my then-employer switched from WordPerfect to Word!

Re:WordPerfect 5.1 - Reveal Codes

[FishWithAHammer]

If you're using styles (which you should be, I don't care what you think is a good exception to this statement because it's not a good exception), Reveal Formatting in Word gives a lot of the same functionality.

Mark Parent +Informative

[handy_vandal]

Word has had a style inspector since Office 2003 (or possibly Office XP).

Thx!

Word Processing and Occam's Razor

[handy_vandal]

" ... WP was gross overkill for just about everyone ... "

Point well taken: even WP 5.1 had plenty of features and functions (a less charitable critic might say "bloat") of no interest to me.

What makes MS's version of ODF worse

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that they had a more conformant version in an add-on product.

Then when it came to their built-in, they nerfed it.

Worse, the bit they nerfed was, effectively, "until we have something, do what Microsoft Excel does".

Yes, Microsoft couldn't even manage their own product implementation in their own product...

Re:What makes MS's version of ODF worse

[man_of_mr_e]

You are conflating "more compatible" with "more conformant".

There is no standard sepcification for formulas to be "conformant" to. Yes, the CleverAge plug-in was more interoperable with OOo impelementation than SP2 is, but because the impelemantion of such things is not defined by the standaard, both are equally "conformant".

If you were a programmer, you'd understand. Spend some time on the C++ std newsgroups, and when someone mentions some "undefined" behavior, you get blasted that "undefined can do anything, including delete all your files or blow up the computer".

No, SP2 is not interoperable with OOo, but you don't have to be to be ODF 1.1 compliant. Is MS being a dick about it? Probably, but they're more making a point, I think. A point that ODF propoents know is true, and embarassing to them, so they react with name calling and vitriol.

The point was that ODF was not the better standard. It might, eventually, be... but the lack of interoperability guaranteed by the standard is ridiculous.

Yes, as Rob Weir points out, anyone can weasel word a standard, but MS isn't weasel wording. There are literally giant mac-truck sized holes in the standard.

Re:What makes MS's version of ODF worse

[koiransuklaa]

Yes, as Rob Weir points out, anyone can weasel word a standard, but MS isn't weasel wording. There are literally giant mac-truck sized holes in the standard.

If you had ever worked on a standard even half as big as these standards are, you'd know that it's impossible to write a standard that you couldn't break like this. Standards cannot force anyone to interoperate.

Re:What makes MS's version of ODF worse

[man_of_mr_e]

You're still missing the point. No, standards don't force anyone to do anything, but you can at least say "You're not conforming to the standard".

And as I said, yes, you can weasel word your way around any standard, but that's not what Microsoft is doing.

The only reason that so many apps that use ODF are interoperable is because they all chose to reverse engineer the way OOo did it, or they used OOo's code. That's called a de-facto standard, which is what .doc and .xls are. de-facto standards are not good.

Your thinking head is broken.

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's how that makes sense. Even BEFORE you read the flaming article (just approach is with "how could that be right?" rather than "that cannot be right!" the first is inquiry the second dogma. then again you have a hard-on for all things Microsoft, so no surprise there).

Interviewed users.

Do you

a) Love Office
b) Like Office
c) Tolerate Office
e) Dislike Office
f) Hate Office

And those who liked or loved MS Office, 28% said they didn't like the ribbon. Of those who didn't like it or hated it, 34% said they didn't like it.

Over all users, half said they lost producivity.

That would be all the users in a, b, c, d, e and f, and over all those categories, on average they lost productivity. Some may have gained. Most lost, or there were more losses than gains. Or there were more big losses than big gains.

Or you can just go "it's all bollocks because I can't think straight".

Either works for me.

More 'Stuff', Same Crap

[TW Burger]

Just as Windows 7 still can not copy more than one file at a time between directories without possible problems (abort on a locked file fails the copy and there is no return to original state ability, very large collections can take hours - Linux can handle this very well) I'm sure Office 2010 Excel is still limited to 65536 rows (I miss Quattro) and Word completely screws up with constant re-pagination that takes forever with large documents containing heavy graphics content.

Please give me a version that works for what I need to do. Not a version with mostly useless features that no one uses and features that are useful buried in impossible to find new places in the menu structure (it's a menu - not a 'Ribbon').

I switched to Open Office.

Re:More 'Stuff', Same Crap

[el_gordo101]

Not sure about the Win 7 file copy thing (or what it has to do with Office 10), but Excel has had 1,048,576 rows since Office 2007.

Re:More 'Stuff', Same Crap

[Anonymous Coward]

And the row limit's actually increasing again in 2010.

Re:who uses it anyway?

[EvanED]

All the features you need...

Word 2000's 'track changes' feature is notably better than the on in '97, and PowerPoint introduced a presenter view in 2003 (even if it was sort of crappy at the time). The former is "nice to have", but the latter is almost a "must-have" feature for software of that nature.

(And OpenOffice still has neither, though there is an extension that gives Impress an okay presenter view.)

Re:who uses it anyway?

[LaskoVortex]

office 97 had enough features already. the bloat continues ever forward.

Yes, but you don't understand. Office 97 will no longer be supported by Windows [Version #] and Office [Version #] will not open files from Office 97. Moreover the new computer you got comes with Windows [Version # Home Edition] and you can not install Windows 2000 on it to run Office 97 because the computer won't let you. So, you see, you must now use Windows [Version # Home Edition (or better)] requiring an upgrade to Office [Version #]. New features don't matter because no one knows how to use them anyway. It's all about the upgrade cycle, which somehow we are supposed to embrace, mostly because our clueless coworkers are afraid of OpenOffice and the version of Office they run will not save to ODF by default and, even if you can manage to persuade your clueless coworkers to save in ODF, [Office Version #] will probably save a non-conforming document anyway that purposefully doesn't open correctly in OpenOffice.

Killer app

[JediTrainer]

Guys, I can't say I'm a fan of MS but I have to say I think I've found the next killer app. Or at least, killer app combo.

OneNote 2007 plus SharePoint

It's like everything I've wanted in a wiki. Collaborative editing, automatic synchronization between team members, drag *anything* into it (text, emails, screenshots, files), with easy-to-use annotation. Write anywhere, on anything. It's easy to reorganize, easy to search and plain easy to use. Editing a OneNote page is just all drag+drop plus familiar Word Processor-like controls. Every Windows app can now "print" to a virtual printer device that turns anything into a OneNote page as well.

Bonus screen-capturing made easy (windowkey+s lets me snap anything I want from the screen into the clipboard), and a "live" mode that does the whole realtime digital whiteboard thing so I can hold meetings with remote users and we can all see what we're talking about.

I'll agree I hate the new UI of Office 2007. Can't stand it. And I'm not a fan of SharePoint on its own (I find it cumbersome to use). But I have to say I see big things for OneNote (on SharePoint) in the future. Once set up, the OneNote folders do all the synchronization/checkout/commits transparently while keeping my local copy working. There are a few things that could use a little bit more work (I don't like how something can only be a folder OR a folder group, and not both) but I see this as the next killer app in enterprise organizations.

Re:Killer app

[xtracto]

OneNote 2007 plus SharePoint

I will be very very happy with OneNote Live. I have used OneNote in my University and found it really nice. However given that OneNote doesn't "do" anything concrete related to the work I am doing, it is not possible to get it (buy, install) in my current work :( and all the open source wannabes are terrible in comparison (don't flame me, I use KmyMoney for booking and it is the best!).

What's with people getting angst about

[Anonymous Coward]

a new product ever 3-5 years is

a) they maintain copyright for another 90 years
b) the old product worked fine
c) nobody else can fix any problems
d) they have to buy another one that will have the same problems in 3-5 years

Re:What's with people getting angst about

[furby076]

[quote]a) they maintain copyright for another 90 years b) the old product worked fine c) nobody else can fix any problems d) they have to buy another one that will have the same problems in 3-5 years[/quote] WIth regards to your items:
a) Irrelevant to this topic - who cares? It's a new copyright btw. Honestly in 90 years who will care about win3.1...who cares about win3.1 right now?
b) So does a 1980 toyota corolla but look at where we are now - upgrades, new features, etc
c) This doesn't make sense. Rephrase?
d) They don't have to buy a new one. You can still use office 2003 and someone using office 2010 can read it...and a new version with new/updated features is not a problem.

Unless you have more information to flesh out, which makes sense, it seems like you are trolling.

Good Enough, is.

[PeanutButterBreath]

Good enough is often as close as you are going to get for a massive user base.

Also, I see that you don't even credit any of the "competition" for rising to the the lowly standard you castigate Microsoft for settling on.

"I'll see your crappy 'good enough' Office and raise you with my 'very useable' Open Office". LOL

Re:Good Enough, is.

[Archangel Michael]

Office is good software. I just can't figure out why Microsoft thinks it is worth $325 or so (pricewatch-retail), can you?

Microsoft: Solving problems you'll never have

[gestalt_n_pepper]

>Please give me a version that works for what I need to do.
.
LOL. Microsoft stopped responding to non-business users over a decade ago.
.
Seriously, if you're not selling widgets to wankers on the web, Microsoft would like to pretend you don't exist. This seems to hold especially true for Windows developers, not like I'm bitter or anything.

What makes it worse is it isn't compatible

[Anonymous Coward]

Most vendors of editors which save and open ODF files are compatible. Only Microsoft, the best funded software corporation by far, famed for extending standards to suit itself, implemented only the version 1.0 of ODF. Why did they do that? To adhere to standards maybe. Possibly, but I think it is more likely to make their rivals files unreadable.

Conversation cleanup!?

[dstones]

"The Conversation Clean-Up tool will condense long email chains into summaries of the conversation, allowing you to catch up with all the key information without having to open dozens of different messages individually." http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/261430/everything-you-need-to-know-about-microsoft-office-2010.html>

Congratulations Microsoft. Welcome to the 21st century. 'Bout time.

2001 called

[HangingChad]

I find OpenOffice quirky and unreliable. It often crashes for me.

2001 called and wants that review back. I've used OO on Linux, Windows XP, and Vista. On old machines, brand new ones and everything in between. And the number of times it's crashed on me or here at the office where we also use it....

0

Quirky you can argue, especially if you're used to something else. But if it crashes your computer, then your computer has much bigger problems.

Half-assery

[Orne]

Our company rolled out an upgrade from Microsoft Windows 2000 + Office 2002 to Vista + Office 2007 last fall. Needless to say, it was not exactly the smoothest of transitions... so we have the Ribbon, which is creating a polarizing user experiences between new and old users. Powerusers in Excel are completely exasperated, filled with hate towards MS and actually asking for Office XP downgrades just so they can get the toolbars back. It now takes 4 clicks to do things that used to be 1 click, or none because the keyboard commands were actually stable and not tab sensitive...

Personally, I'm coping with it, because I don't have an option. So, embracing the ribbon, it's bugging the heck out of me because the whole damn thing is anti-intuitive:

• Why is Row and Column Insert on the Home menu, and not the Insert menu?
• Table creation is on the Home tab, and not on the Insert tab Table section, unless you actually want to manipulate the table, in which case commands are on the Data tab
• I click on a Table, and I get a context sensitive tab, to recolor it, but not to sort or filter? No, those commands are in a right-click contect menu of the Table. At least you can get the traditional cross-tab format back by going into the context menu.
• I use PivotTables all the time. They used to be on the Data menu, since you are processing data, but now they are on the Insert tab.
• Right-click and Format a cell, and the window is Tabs options across the top. Right-click on a chart and Format an axis, and Tabs are on the left going down.
• Number Formatting for cells: Right-click a cell, click the Number tab; or use the Home tab Number section. You can type in the combo box in the Home tab, but don't actually enter a Custom formatting string here, because it won't work; that only works when you use the right-click menu.
• Number Formatting for charts: Right-click an axis, click the Number tab, and it looks the same as cell formatting -- BUT unlike all the rest of the menu options that are applied immediately (notice no [Apply] button here), number formatting doesn't apply until you hit the [Add] button. Oh, and don't think about using the Home tab Number section on a chart, it won't work, even though you are applying the exact same formatting
• Oh, and why do I have to go to Google to figure out how to un-break a Surface Chart being used as a top-down contour map? Surface Charts now automatically have a 3D shadow style applied by default, which makes the top-down look like crap. Each series, you now have to click 3-D Format -> Surface -> Lighting -> Flat
• Style and Line Coloring, very nice, until you try to use an Excel chart in PowerPoint or Word, and it recolors all of your data with the new application's Style, even if you changed the line and fill colors.

Thank you Microsoft, for helping me where I didn't know I needed help.

Re:Half-assery

[MBCook]

I almost never use Excel. The only thing I use it consistently for is making little graphs when I want to visualize some data, because I know how to do it and have the software installed.

At least I knew how to do it. The data range selection stuff makes no sense to me anymore. I knew exactly how it worked in '03 and before. But now I get two multi-line select boxes, one of which holds one thing and one of which holds one thing for every data point. I find it very confusing, it's certainly not an improvement over the old system.

Banging down the door.

[westlake]

...is the new Clippy. If you want people to use Office, you need to get rid of it.

The geek hasn't got a clue - and you can't slam one into his head with a twenty-pound sledge.

Software Best Sellers In Business [Updated Hourly]

1 MS Office Home & Student 2007. 931 Days In The Top 100.
4 MS Office Home & Student 2008. - Mac. 609 Days
7 Outlook 2007. 930 Days
17 MS Office Small Business 2007 Full Version. 400 Days
18 MS Office Pro 2007 Full Version. 494 Days
19 MS Office Standard 2007 Full Version. 916 Days.
23 MS Office Pro 2007 Upgrade. 930 Days.
24 MS Office Small Business 2007 Upgrade. 575 Days.

26 of the top 100 Business Best Sellers in Software at Amazon are MS Office 2007 products.

WordPerfect X4 Home&Student at $70 comes in at #60.
50 Days In the The Top 100.

Re:Banging down the door.

[MrEricSir]

And that's supposed to mean what exactly?

Do people WANT Office 2007?
Are people really compelled to use 2007?
Are more people using 2007 than 2003, XP, or 2000?

Bloat

[Mr_Silver]

I noticed that someone tagged this article with "bloat".

Ignoring the fact that this is not the proper way to tag an article, they really should read Joel Spolsky's excellent article "Strategy Letter IV: Bloatware and the 80/20 Myth".

To quote (emphasis mine):

A lot of software developers are seduced by the old "80/20" rule. It seems to make a lot of sense: 80% of the people use 20% of the features. So you convince yourself that you only need to implement 20% of the features, and you can still sell 80% as many copies.

Unfortunately, it's never the same 20%. Everybody uses a different set of features. In the last 10 years I have probably heard of dozens of companies who, determined not to learn from each other, tried to release "lite" word processors that only implement 20% of the features. This story is as old as the PC. Most of the time, what happens is that they give their program to a journalist to review, and the journalist reviews it by writing their review using the new word processor, and then the journalist tries to find the "word count" feature which they need because most journalists have precise word count requirements, and it's not there, because it's in the "80% that nobody uses," and the journalist ends up writing a story that attempts to claim simultaneously that lite programs are good, bloat is bad, and I can't use this damn thing 'cause it won't count my words.

What you consider to be bloat, many other people consider to be essential functionality.

Reveal Formatting in Word

[handy_vandal]

If you're using styles (which you should be, I don't care what you think is a good exception to this statement because it's not a good exception), Reveal Formatting in Word gives a lot of the same functionality.

Useful -- thanks.

I've been dabbling with styles in Word lately, thinking it would be a sensible thing to do. But I hadn't noticed Reveal Formatting.

Re:Reveal Formatting in Word

[FishWithAHammer]

I found that it helps if you think of a Word document as you would HTML and CSS. Each paragraph gets styled, like a P tag. Inside a paragraph, use another style on a span of text, i.e. the SPAN tag. Images within a paragraph can be told to float, etc.

It kind of falls over when you consider DIVs (which would probably be the text box or whatever), but it was a good metaphor when I started really digging into Word.

What's the problem?

[Godwin O'Hitler]

I use Office 2003 and I'm not intending to stop - because nobody is making me stop.
Come on now, folks, let MS do what they like with their new stuff. Why the hell should you care?
If you want the new stuff and like it, fine. It won't stop my 6-year old version working, no more than it will stop my 6-year old microwave oven working.

I've tried the ribbon and rejected it. So what. I still have a decent, intuitive, unencumbered version of Office. Hard luck on those that haven't. :shrug:

We do, sadly

[theolein]

We're still getting used to Office 2007 and now they bring along Office 2010???? I wonder, with no attempt at flaming Microsoft, just who the fuck is going to buy this given the current state of the economy? What exactly will Office 2010 do that we couldn't live without? This actually applies to almost all Office versions, since a good 90% of what we use it for could just as easily be done with Office 2000 or OOo or even Google Apps for that matter.

I appreciate Microsoft's burning need to try and come up with new features in order to justify the high costs of its products, but this is just ridiculous. This is like the PC magazines making wild claims about new exclusive content on some or other product only for it to be the same rubbish as before, with a new type face and different images.

Re:We do, sadly

[ozmanjusri]

What exactly will Office 2010 do that we couldn't live without?

I've been using Office 2000 (on a Windows 2000 VM) while working with a team using Office 2007.

Despite using .doc as a common file format, it was a frustrating experience dealing with dozens of small incompatibilities and errors as a result of the different versions.

And let's face it, even in normal offices, exchanging documents is fraught enough at the best of times. Most people don't know how to properly structure them, or to use styles, so many Office files have weirdly nested tables, odd or inconsistent layouts and other traps anyway. When the mess eventually causes errors, or when an important document is late or fails to print correctly, the finger of blame often gets pointed at the "cheapskate who won't update" instead of the crappy software suite which is so hard to manage.

In the end, I bought Office 2007 and installed it on a spare XP laptop simply to reduce the annoyance and accusations. That's how Microsoft makes their money - being a monopoly has its advantages...

Translation from MS marketing speak

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article

However, Adams says that "customers will not have to accept loss of formatting, loss of content, or loss of fidelity" when they edit documents in the online applications.

Translation:

However, Adams says that "customers will have to accept loss of formatting, loss of content, or loss of fidelity" when they edit documents in the online applications.

Word as markup language

[handy_vandal]

I found that it helps if you think of a Word document as you would HTML and CSS.

My experience is similar. I found myself wanting to use Dreamweaver as a word processor, because I like the CSS interface. HTML/CSS is kind of clumsy for business docs; but thinking about page markup put me on the trail of Word styles.

WordPerfect and Corel

[handy_vandal]

Damn you Corel for destroying a perfectly good and lean product.

Yeah, WP 5.1 was a good lean product, although I try to cut Corel some slack because they're the scrappy underdog.

I like Office 2007, but I don't like it too.

[DimmO]

here's some "features" in Office 2007 that I hope they fix:
1. in the Outlook 2007 journal, document edits are not logged if the document is stored on a network drive.
99% of my work documents are on a network server. When i go to fill in my weekly time sheet (so I can get paid), I go to the journal to review what my work was, and there's nothing there! (inb4 you didn't do any work)
2a. Copying a spreadsheet chart from excel to word can not be done by drag-and-drop.
2b. copy / pasting a chart from excel to word pastes it as a vector image. a) you can not edit the chart as a OLE object in the word document, and b) text formatting on the axes gets screwed up.

I *do* like the ribbon interface and the context formatting menu that pops up when you select text.

Has scanning into a document been brought back?

[nuckfuts]

Interface issues aside, perhaps the most surprising functional change between Office 2003 and Office 2007 was that they took away the ability to click "Insert -> Picture -> From Scanner or Camera". In Word 2007, it's necessary to save a scanned image as a file (outside of Word), and then locate/insert the file (within Word).

I would be pleased if I could scan into a document directly again.

Oops, it's starting to look like Lotus Notes

[1mck]

Their tool bars are becoming much like Lotus Notes. I had to use it at my last job, and it was bewildering to say the very least! Of course, I had no formal training on it, but it should be intuitive...right?

Sparklines?

[AdamHaun]

If Excel 2010 is getting Sparklines, does that mean someone at Microsoft has read Tufte? Could we finally be getting default graphs that don't break every rule of good data graphics? It's probably too much to hope for, but I can dream...

How about this one?

[pedestrian crossing]

In Outlook, make receipts selectable on a per-message basis. As it stands now, it's all or nothing, so if a user thinks they need a receipt once, they end up requesting them for -every- stupid little email for ever and ever.

Wait, what?

[geminidomino]

Word's picture-editing function...

I thought Word was a word processor...

Talk about feeping creaturism. No wonder Microsoft can't write a goddamn plaintext editor that can run in < 128MB ram without crashing[0]...

[0]Yes, that's hyperbole.

Re:Wait, what?

[recoiledsnake]

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000020.html

Re:Wait, what?

[geminidomino]

I'm not sure what I was supposed to get out of that, other than the old apologetic that Moore's Law excuses bloated design.

The simple fact of the matter is that an image editor in a word processor is a creeping feature. It doesn't matter that it only costs 1/3 in terms of hard drive space (who the hell measures anything other than buying storage in terms of cost of storage, anyway?)

So what's the new default format: docy?

[slashbart]

xlsy?

MS Office is no longer fit for work environment

[Anonymous Coward]

I used MS Office for years, the best version in my opinion being 2003. Sure, I had Star Office on the side and it was always better but everyone else insisted that I give the .doc files. Then the ribbon and 2007 come along. Now it might have been possible that I could have eventually gotten along with the ribbon, maybe. However it was the overall greed of MS that finally pushed me away. I work at a company in Japan where we have people from more than 25 different countries, who all speak a different native language working in the same office. That said, English was the language of the office, not Japanese. Our Japanese boss knew that the second she walked through our door, she had to speak English or not be understood. So what does MS do, they sell JAPANESE MS office 2007 to the company as the upgrade instead of the English version.

What really pissed us off more than suddenly finding Japanese MS Office on our computers was the fact that the English is in there, we just can't unlock it. So we are stuck looking at the ribbon in Japanese not knowing what any of the kanji mean. Even the guys who could speak some Japanese could not read Kanji, it is hard. Even some of the Japanese staff did not know what some of that kanji meant. They thought it was the Chinese version. We looked into getting the language packs, even into paying $300 a pop just to be able to get back to work. Well, MS loves the rest of the world but they apparently English speakers who live in Japan because we did not even have the option of buying the language packs. Instead we would need to order the FULL PRODUCT again in English, despite the fact that English was already in the program we had, we just needed to unlock it. Anyone else in the entire world can order those stupid language packs but we can't because we live in Japan.

So we took a step back. We were not about to use this crap. It would have been trouble enough to learn to use the ribbon in English and now we had to learn to use it in Japanese. We all signed a letter, gave it to our boss and refused to work with that crapware. She returned the software to MS and after a lot of hassle got a refund. She was so angry with MS after all that she told us she would never buy their software again. We talked to Sun, got Star Office and everything was fine. Seven months later we got new computers and installed Soalris on all of them. We have never been so productive as we are now. With Solaris and Star Office we finish our work early, make more money and actually have free time enough to learn Japanese now.

Oh, and forcing people who don't care enough about this site to post as Anonymous Coward is pretty arrogant of you all. This is exactly the kind of attitude that Linux guys show the world that makes others treat Linux like Aids. Grow up please.