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Microsoft Office 2007

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This article or section contains information about Development_stage#Beta>beta software currently in development.
The content may change dramatically as the software development progresses.

2007 Microsoft Office system, also known as Microsoft Office 2007, is Microsoft's next release of its productivity suite, slated to replace Microsoft Office 2003. Microsoft Office 2007, formerly known as Office 12 in the initial stages of its beta cycle, is scheduled to be released in November 2006 for corporate customers and in the beginning of 2007 for end users. Microsoft plans to include several new features and improvements in Office 2007, including a new graphical user interface, the Ribbon, replacing the former menus, toolbars and many task panes.

The first beta of Microsoft Office 2007, referred to as Beta-1 in emails sent to a limited number of testers, was released on November 16, 2005. The Beta-1 Technical Refresh was released to testers on March 13, 2006. The Technical Refresh fixed issues in installing with Windows Vista build 5308. Office 2007 Beta 2 was announced by Bill Gates at WinHEC 2006, and has been made available for free download from Microsoft's web site, although the program will stop functioning after February 1, 2007.

Contents

Editions

The 2007 Microsoft Office system will be distributed in seven editions:

Edition Includes Availability Price (USD)(Retail/Upgrade)
Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Word, Access, InfoPath, Publisher, OneNote, Groove, Communicator, additional tools 1 Retail 9/9
Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007 Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Word, Access, InfoPath, Publisher, OneNote, Groove, Communicator, additional tools 1 Volume License only N/A
Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007 Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Word, Access, InfoPath, Publisher, Communicator, additional tools1 Volume License only N/A
Microsoft Office Professional 2007 Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Word, Access, Publisher, Outlook with Business Contact Manager Retail 9/9
Microsoft Office Small Business 2007 Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Word, Publisher, Outlook with Business Contact Manager Retail 9/9
Microsoft Office Standard 2007 Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Word Retail 9/9
Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 Excel, PowerPoint, Word, OneNote Retail 9/N/A
Microsoft Office Basic 2007 Excel, Outlook, Word OEM only N/A

Notes:

  1. Additional tools include: Enterprise Content Management, Electronic Forms, and Windows Rights Management Services capabilities

New features

User interface

The new result-oriented user interface, "Ribbon", will be featured in the core applications of Microsoft Office: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access and the mail editor of Outlook. These applications have been selected for the UI overhaul, because those applications center around document authoring and present a multitude of options to the same regard. The rest of the applications in the suite will also be upgraded to the new UI eventually. According to Microsoft, the new UI centers on the principle of helping people focus on what they want to do, rather than bothering with the details of how to do it.

Debuting in the Beta 1 refresh is the Office button. It replaces the File menu and provides access to functionality common across all Office applications, including but not limited to Opening, Saving, Printing, and Sharing a file. Users can also choose color schemes for the interface.

The Ribbon

The Ribbon, a panel that houses the command buttons and icons, organizes commands as a set of Tabs, each grouping relevant commands. Each application has a different set of tabs which expose the functionality that application offers. For example, while Excel has a tab for the Graphing capabilities, Word does not feature the same. Instead it has tabs to control the formatting of the document. Within each tab, various related options may be grouped together. The Ribbon is designed to make the features of the application more discoverable and accessible with fewer mouse clicks as compared to the menu-based UI used until Office 2003.

Some tabs, called Contexual Tabs, appear only when certain objects are selected. Contexual Tabs expose functionality specific only to the object with focus. For example, selecting a picture brings up the Pictures tab, which presents options for dealing with the picture. Similarly, focusing on a table exposes table-related options in a specific tab. Contexual tabs remain hidden when the object it works on are not selected.

Galleries

Galleries are a new UI construct which show, as graphic representations, formatting options that can be applied to various elements. For example, document styles, document title page styles, slide designs etc are presented as galleries, which let people have an idea of what they are selecting, rather than sifting through multitude of options, as would have been the case had the UI design been a dialog-box centric one. Galleries help by presenting a much larger list of pre-rendered potential formatting options, rather than have the user figure them out by mixing and matching dialog box options.

The use of Galleries to simplify document layout production has appeared previously in Microsoft's low-end office suite Microsoft Works and in other desktop publishing software, such as The Print Shop.

Live Preview
Microsoft Office 2007 also introduces a feature called "Live Preview", which temporarily applies formatting on the focussed text or object, when any formatting button is moused-over. The temporary formatting is removed when the mouse pointer is moved from the button. This allows users to have a preview of how the option would affect the appearance of the object, without actually applying it.

Live Preview is similar to the features of graphics editors, such as Adobe Photoshop, Corel PHOTO-PAINT or The Gimp, to preview the effect of filters, colour adjustments and other image enhancements before the user OKs the dialog box.

Mini Toolbar
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Mini toolbar, which pops-up near the selected text whenever some text is selected, provides easy access to most used formatting commands. When the mouse pointer is away from it, the toolbar becomes semi-transparent to allow almost unobstructed view of whats beneath. But when the mouse pointer moves over it, it becomes opaque and ready for use. It also appears above the right click menu when a user right clicks on a selection of words.

Other UI features

SmartArt

SmartArt, found under the Insert tab in the ribbon, is a new group of easily editable and formatted organization charts. There are approximately 80 preset SmartArt graphics layout templates in categories such as list, process, cycle, and hierarchy. When an instance of a SmartArt is inserted, a Text Pane appears next to it to guide the user through entering text in the hierarchical levels. Each SmartArt graphic, based on its design, maps the text outline, automatically resized for best fit, onto the graphic. There are a number of "quick styles" for each graphic that apply largely different 3D effects to the graphic, and the graphic's shapes and text can be formatted through shape styles and WordArt styles. In addition, SmartArt graphics change their colors, fonts, and effects to match the document's theme.

Microsoft Word 2007's help feature recommends SmartArt graphics for organization charts of fewer than 30 shapes that have 3D effects (such as bevels and glows) applied to them. It suggests Microsoft Visio organization charts for charts of up to 1000 shapes that must be precisely customizable.

File formats

Microsoft Office will use a new file format, OpenXML as the default file format. It is based on XML and uses the ZIP file container. According to Microsoft, this file format, which is compressed, will be up to 75% smaller than the current Microsoft Office file formats. Microsoft had initially announced that it will support export to Portable Document Format in Office 2007. However, due to legal objections from Adobe Systems, Office 2007 will not have PDF support out of the box, but rather as a separate free download. Office 2007 documents can also be exported as XPS documents, via a plug-in that also has to be separately downloaded.

User Assistance System

In Microsoft Office 2007, the infamous Office Assistants have been completely removed because of the much improved help system. One feature of the new help system is the extensive use of Super Tooltips which explains each button or what each function performs.

Collaboration features

Microsoft Office 2007 includes features geared towards collaboration and data sharing. As such, Microsoft Office 2007 features server components for applications such as Excel, which work in conjunction with SharePoint Services, to provide a collaboration platform SharePoint works with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, which is used to host a SharePoint site, and uses IIS and ASP.NET 2.0. Excel server exposes Excel Services, which allows any worksheet to be created, edited and maintained via web browsers. it features Excel Web Access, the client-side component which is used to render the workseet on a browser, Excel Calculation Service which is the server side component which populates the worksheet with data and perform calculations, and Excel Web Service that exposes Excel functionalities as individual web services. Sharepoint can also be used to host Word documents for collaborative editing, by sharing a document. SharePoint can also be used to hold PowerPoint slides in a Slide Library, from which the slides can be used as a formatting template. It will also notify users of a slide automatically in case the source slide is modified. Also by using SharePoint, Powerpoint can manage shared review of presentations. Any SharePoint hosted document can be accessed from the application which created the document or from other applications such as a browser of Microsoft Office Outlook.

Microsoft Office 2007 also includes Groove, which brings collaborative features to a peer-to-peer paradigm. Groove can host documents, including presentations, workbooks and others, created in Microsoft Office 2007 application in a shared workspace, which can then be used in collaborative editing of documents. Groove can also be used in managing workspace sessions, including access control of the workspace. to collaborate on one or more documents, a Workspace has to be created, and then those who are to work on it have to be invited. Any file shared on the workspace are automatically shared among all participants. The application also provides real-time messaging, including one-to-one as well as group messaging, and presence features, as well as monitoring workspace activities with alerts, which are raised when pre-defined set of activities are detected. Groove also provides features for conflict resolution for conflicting edits. Schedules for a collaboration can also be decided by using a built-in shared calendar, which can also be used to keep track of the progress of a project. However, the calendar is not compatible with Microsoft Outlook.

Themes and Quick Styles

Microsoft Office 2007 puts a huge emphasis on Document Themes and Quick Styles. The Document Theme defines the colors, fonts and graphic effects for a document. The new Office Theme file format (.THMX) is shared between Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook email messages. Almost everything that can be inserted into a document is automatically styled to match the overall document theme creating a consistent document design. Similar themes are also available for data reports in Access and Project or shapes in Visio.

Quick Styles are galleries with a range of styles based on the current theme. There are quick styles galleries for text, tables, charts, SmartArt, WordArt and more. The style range goes from simple/light to more graphically/darker.

Application-specific changes

Microsoft Office Word

Microsoft Office Outlook

Microsoft Office Outlook can also include an optional Business Contact Manager which allows management of business contacts and their sales and marketing activities. Phone calls, e-mails, appointments, notes and other business metrics can be managed for each contact. It can also keep a track of billable time for each contact on the Outlook Calendar. Based on these data, a consolidated report view can be generated by Microsoft Office Outlook with Business Contact Manager. The data can be further analyzed using Microsoft Office Excel. This data can also be shared using SharePoint services.

Microsoft Office OneNote

Microsoft Office Access

Microsoft Office Excel

Microsoft Office PowerPoint

Microsoft Office InfoPath

Microsoft Office Visio

Microsoft Office Publisher

Microsoft Office Project

Microsoft SharePoint Designer

Server Components

SharePoint Server 2007

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 allows sharing and collaborative editing of Office 2007 documents. It allows central storage of documents and management of Office documents, throughout the enterprise. These documents can be accessed either by the applications which created them, Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, or a web browser. Documents can also be managed through pre-defined policies that let users create and publish shared content, through a SharePoint site.

SharePoint server allows searching of all Office documents which are being managed by it, centrally, thereby making data more accessible. It also provides access control for documents. Specialized server components can plug into the SharePoint server to extend the functionality of the server, such as Excel Services exposing data analysis services for Excel services. Data from other data sources can also be merged with Office data.

SharePoint also lets users personalize the SharePoint sites, filtering content they are interested in. SharePoint documents can also be locally cached by clients for offline editing; the changes are later merged.

Forms Server 2007

Microsoft Office Forms Server 2007 allows InfoPath forms to be accessed and filled up using any browser, including mobile phone browsers. Forms Server 2007 also supports using a database or other data source as the back-end for the form. Additionally, it allows centralized deployment and management of forms. Forms Server 2007 hosted forms also support data validation and conditional formatting, as does their InfoPath counterpart. It also supports advanced controls like Repeating section and Repeating table. However, some InfoPath controls cannot be used if it has to be hosted on a Forms server.

Groove Server 2007

Microsoft Office Groove Server 2007 is for centrally managing all deployments of Microsoft office Groove 2007 in the enterprise. It enables using Active Directory for Groove user accounts, and create Groove Domains, with individual policy settings.

Project Server 2007

Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 allows one to centrally manage and coordinate projects. It allows budget and resource tracking, and activity plan management. The project data and reports can also be further analyzed using Cube Building Service. The project management data can be accessed from a browser as well.

Project Portfolio Server 2007

Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 allows creation of a project protfolio, including workflows, hosted centrally, so that the information is available throughout the enterprise, even from a browser. It also aids in centralized data aggregation regarding the project planning and execution, and in visualizing and analyzing the data to optimize the project plan. It can also support mutiple portfolios per project, to track different aspects of it. It also includes reporting tools to create consolidated reports out of the project data.

PerformancePoint Server 2007

Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 is a performance management (PM) application that encompassed business scorecarding, analysis, planning, forecasting, consolidation and financial reporting. PerformancePoint allows creation of strategic plans and detailed budgets and scorecards and link them together with rules that express their relationships. Forecasts can be made for individual divisions, and compared as well. Consolidated forecasts can also be made. It also includes the Business Modeler that allows creation and management of roles, workflows, rules and information. PerformancePoint centrally stores all data so that they can be simultaneously worked on by multiple users.

Related Products

References

External links

Microsoft

Internal bloggers and evangelists

Channel 9 videos

Other reviews

 

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

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