| |
What does Word 2007 offer as an improvement?
The first thing you’ll notice about the new version is ‘The Ribbon’ – a new set of tabs that run like a ribbon
across the top of a document. It’s clearer and easier to use than the old menus and toolbars. It’s also
dynamic, changing according to the file you have open.
Does the new programme save time?
Formatting is much quicker. A new interface, and the Quick Styles and Document Themes tools really
speed up the process.
What else can speed up efficiency?
When creating new documents, you can save time by using Building Blocks, a system to ensure continuity
of many features such as disclaimer text, pull quotes, sidebars, cover pages and contents.
That could help. Any other new features?
With Word 2007 you can save a document directly as a PDF or XPS file.
That’s perfect, especially when I want to email a diagram or image-heavy Word document without taking up too much space.
The new Word also gives greater scope for professional presentation too, with SmartArt Diagrams and
new charting tools, including 3D shapes, transparency, drop shadows and other effects.
What about publishing on the web?
You can publish blogs direct from Word 2007. You can even configure it to link directly to your blog site, so
there is more scope with rich text, images, formatting and tables.
I can see that’s a useful business tool. What about publishing and maintaining continuity of documents with a large company?
Word 2007 is fully integrated with Microsoft Office Sharepoint. This means multiple access to the same
document through a portal system.
But how about comparing changes to a document?
The new Document Comparison feature makes easy work of that, allowing more thorough automatic
reviews of two versions, even including detail within tables and moved text. Document Inspector looks for
and can remove unwanted comments, hidden text, and other private information.
Sounds ideal – especially just before sending to a client.
So now the new 2007 Excel… How has this been improved?
Apart from an easier, more dynamic interface, Excel 2007 can also handle much bigger data sets with
multicore processing. That means it can handle spreadsheets of 1 million rows by 16,000 columns.
Blimey! No problems with space then. But what about file sizes? Won’t they also be enormous?
No, because new formats offer a dramatic reduction in file size – as is the case with Word.
How about the appearance of spreadsheets?
Again like Word, that’s much improved, with 3D effects, shadowing and transparency – much easier on the
eye, and consistent across the other Microsoft Office applications.
Presentation improvements are always important. How about finding data?
PivotTable views enable you to quickly reorient all data and answer multiple questions – you can drag
fields where you want them to be displayed.
What about analysis of the data?
The new version of Excel makes it much easier to apply conditional formatting to your information to
discover patterns and highlight trends (purchase patterns, for example) in your data. You can also display
them better with new schemes of colour gradients, heat maps, data bars and performance indicator icons
for a quick glance overview.
That makes Excel overall much more colourful, dynamic and useful tool.
Confused about where to find things in Office 2007?
Download here this handy flash tool that will show you the way.
Also in this issue: Top Tips for Microsoft Word and Excel 2003 and Using Wi-Fi Hotspots
|
