Office 2007 Beta 2

[Darth Garth]

Been using it for two days and find the new context sensitive ribbon interface replacing the menu bar to be pretty good and better than hunting around for menu options.

Better get used to it as most third party Windows programs follow the UI lead of MS Office.

 

[Ekhaatvensters]

Where can it be got tibby? Usual torretns and warez sites?

Too bad its going to be way to big for me to download...

 

[dualmeister]

http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/beta/getthebeta.mspx

 

[The_Right_Honourable_Brit]

Hmmm. The first thing I noticed is that Word doesn't use Times New Roman anymore - I think it's a san-serif or serif font that is default.

All in all, enjoying it

PS: What do Mac users use? I think this is the only suite that is good.

 

[mooK]

They typically use Office as well.

 

[arf9999]

Hmmm. The first thing I noticed is that Word doesn't use Times New Roman anymore

Hallelujah!!!

- I think it's a san-serif or serif font that is default.

Well, Times New Roman is a serif font... I hope it defaults to a sans-serif font like Arial or Helvetica.

 

[bekdik]

Switched over yesterday. Apart from trying to get used to the new interface it looks fine.

 

[bdt]

Hmmm. The first thing I noticed is that Word doesn't use Times New Roman anymore - I think it's a san-serif or serif font that is default.

Seems the new font is Calibri (other new ones are also shown on that page). In a related note, The Secret Lives of Fonts is worth a read.
-bdt

 

[Brawler]

Downloaded it lastnight, it looks pretty sweet. Now I just have to get used to it.

 

[Roman4604]

Also upgraded this weekend ... must say very impressed with Outlook 2007, which I live in ... To-do Bar is useful & RPC over HTTP is now robust enough to use anywhere anytime, even on slow links (e.g. capped iBurst).

Only disappointing aspect is not enough previewers ... missing pdf (sure adobe will add), zip and (unbelievibly) html?

 

[mic_y]

Also had Office for a few days now. Really enjoy the Ribbon. Seems like a decent product, except had a few crashes, and system feels a bit more sluggish in Office 2007 compared to 2003. The crashes could be related to the generally messed up state of my OS though. And I do hope that the sluggishness will be resolved by the time it is released...

 

[bb_matt]

Is this another case of "bloatware"?

My concern about office is that new features are added for "the sake of it" and each and every release requires more processing power.

Why?

Well, the cynic in my says it helps drive PC sales and I'd probably be on the right track.

As it stands now, most people probably use 10% of the power of Office and that's all they really need, but of course, the power users are the ones that require all the extra features (for whatever reason) - hmmm.

I'm forced into using MsWord simply because it's the business industry standard and to be honest, it is a LOT better than OpenOffice, no matter what anyone would say - but do we REALLY need these continuous upgrades?

No, we don't, but that's the nature of the software industry, after all, if they rest on thier laurels, future sales will decline

I'm now starting to make my decisions with open source software where possible - no, I haven't started using OpenOffice (because it really isn't that good), but I recently switched to VLC (video lan client) for my video needs - it's been painful, but guess what?

The memory/download/disk space overheads have been cut so dramatically, I'm smiling. I can put up with the occassional glitches.

As for Office, heck, I'm only using 2003 because that's what my work bought. As far as my needs are concerned, I could use a version 5 years older and not really notice much difference!

Perhaps ...
Clippy would most likely drive me insane

 

[LandyMan]

I am also using it ... major problems with Adobe Acrobat 6.0 (the real one, not the reader). After opening an e-mail, and then trying to open a new one, it crashes Outlook. Have to upgrade to 7 to fix it

EDIT: Outlook 2007 Beta 2 runs faster than Outlook 2003 on my HP notebook

 

[killadoob]

so does this office do the same thing just a few minor changes?

so millions will go this new program only for it to work just like the old ones


suckers

 

[mic_y]

Ok, on the sluggishness issue, realised where the problem was. I had Outlook with Business Contact Manager installed that that wasn't doing a whole world of good for performance, since it requires SQL server running in the background, which ate roughly 120MB of RAM. After I uninstalled SQL server and Business Contact Manager, things got a lot better. Word and Excel still feel a bit slower than 2003, but all in all, not much of a difference.