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Office 2007 – A Few Notes

The Ribbon in Office Word 2007
I have been using Microsoft’s Office 2007 beta version for a few months now. I might write a longer review at some point, but here are a few notes and observations after writing a number of lengthy documents in Word and creating a few short PowerPoint presentations:
  • the new ‘ribbon’ interface is pure brilliance. I didn’t believe it when I first heard about it, but after using it, it makes perfect sense
  • I love how the keyboard shortcuts are displayed over the menu (for example, press ‘Alt’ and the menu will pop up the next available options – say ‘Alt’ then ‘R’ then ‘C’ to add a comment) – great for increasing speed and helping my memory to remember these shortcuts
  • the new default fonts look very good – it’s going to take a while before teachers realize that ‘Cambria’ is the new ‘Times New Roman’ though
  • this version is going to make OpenOffice look completely outdated and slow down it’s adoption(not that that matters to a power user, but the general public is going to look at OpenOffice and consider it last year’s technology)
  • the add-ons I used before all still work (most importantly Endnote)
  • the instant word number display at the bottom is very much appreciated (especially how it updates with the number of selected words instantly)

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