arstechnica.com — Screenshots are a great way for users to get a glimpse of upcoming products. The problem is that screenshots don't really show how the product runs, just how it looks. Luckily, Microsoft has released some new Office 2007 footage so that users don't have to form opinions based on screenshots any longer.
Mar 28, 2006 View in Crawl 4
loeakaodasMar 29, 2006
I've been in the beta since the beginning and it strikes me that they made a significant change in the UI between the current version and the previous one. Maybe they're experimenting with optional skins or just trying to see what will work better for people.The features seem to have increased and one of my most favorite one in Word is the ability to insert Equations, I mean real equations (derivatives, limits, etc. in their original formatting), maybe it was available before, but now it's a lot easier and for some one who deals a lot with math this will make it a lot easier to make equations, I've tried other tools, but they were cumbersome and not as effective.Overall I like what they have done and the Ribbon is mostly useful unless it switches to a different position when you don't need it to. The only drawback is that it's a little slow on the response as the video showed there is a little lag between when you hover over something and you see a result. Hopefully they would optimize it and fix that for the final release. Maybe they can make it use more memory to buffer the most commonly used options so they would show up quicker because as of now for a Beta product it doesn't use that much memory about 70 to 80 MB.
ethergnatMar 29, 2006
I'm about as far from a Mac fanboy as you can get, but Office for Mac is quite polished. In many ways it surpasses the PC version. It lags slightly in compatibility with Windows products and servers but the interface is top notch. Of course, if Microsoft ever stops supporting the Mac Apple is screwed.
veteranrangerMar 29, 2006
So far so good..We'll see when we get our hands on a copy.
evilwicksMar 29, 2006
you chumps are still ONLY using office 2007? lamorzz.microsoft has 2009 work in progress on their private network. its ultra easy to get in.
shanmacMar 29, 2006
It seems like a really good product. Too bad they didn't talk about Outlook or publishing on the web.
15charmaxwtfMar 30, 2006
Vint Cerf needs to give them lessons :D
lazybonesMar 30, 2006
It is about time they added new features that everyone can use.. As far as code day to day functions go very little has changed since Office 97. Sure there where lots of under the hood version control and team features added, but how many of use even in corporate environments use those every day? I have always found it a struggle to get stuff to look the way I want in word, it looks like that is about to change.
stephndolencApr 23, 2006
that is simply incredible -- i suspect this next version of office will be a much larger success than vista.nobody is coming close to the level of innovation. openoffice.org and corel are years behind.