Hands-On Preview of Microsoft Office 2010 291
Barence writes "Microsoft has announced full details of Office 2010 and its plans for an accompanying suite of online applications, and PC Pro has been given special access to a technical preview. Contributing Editor Simon Jones gives his initial verdict on the new suite, concluding that there's 'still a long way to go in terms of fit and finish ... but overall Microsoft has made good strides in increasing usability, cohesiveness and collaboration.' This is followed by detailed first looks at Word 2010, Excel 2010, Outlook 2010 and PowerPoint 2010, with Outlook certainly looking to be the greatest beneficiary. And finally, a gallery of screenshots shows off all the new interface touches in Office 2010, including Outlook's conversation view, Word's picture-editing function and the new cut-and-paste preview option."
ODF (Score:5, Insightful)
Any traction on solving or at least improving Microsoft's ODF implementation? The last time I checked, there were serious issues [odfalliance.org] with the implementation.
By the way, how does Office 2007's "Save-As-PDF" feature compare to the real thing?
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Re:ODF (Score:4, Informative)
The Save-As-PDF works quite well for us, particularly since it's a compromise somewhere between the crappy third-party app option and the thousands of dollars that Adobe's products cost us in years past.
Outlook 2007's rendering, OTOH, makes me want to kill people and break things.
Re:ODF-Which 3rd Party App? (Score:2)
Just which 3rd party app are you referring to, and what in particular makes it crappy to you?
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I'm kind of curious. What makes Microsoft's version of ODF any worse than anyone elses? Or for that matter, what makes OOo's any better? Just because OOo's non-standard spreadsheet formula is used more commonly doesn't make it better.
Until ODF 1.2 is out, it's just a bunch of he-said-she-said.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes. I've read it before. Other than one part that is false, the rest is hand waving.
It basically says "Yeah, we know the standard doesn't specify so much stuff that the only way to be compatible is to get people to agree on how to do things.."
That's not "interoperability", that's "praying" everyone manages to make it work.
The part about section 8.3.1 is completely bogus. Read the specification yourself. 8.3.1 says nothing about requiring brackets.
http://docs.oasis-open.org/office/v1.1/OS/OpenDocument-v [oasis-open.org]
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You are conflating "more compatible" with "more conformant".
There is no standard sepcification for formulas to be "conformant" to. Yes, the CleverAge plug-in was more interoperable with OOo impelementation than SP2 is, but because the impelemantion of such things is not defined by the standaard, both are equally "conformant".
If you were a programmer, you'd understand. Spend some time on the C++ std newsgroups, and when someone mentions some "undefined" behavior, you get blasted that "undefined can do anyt
Re:What makes MS's version of ODF worse (Score:4, Insightful)
You're still missing the point. No, standards don't force anyone to do anything, but you can at least say "You're not conforming to the standard".
And as I said, yes, you can weasel word your way around any standard, but that's not what Microsoft is doing.
The only reason that so many apps that use ODF are interoperable is because they all chose to reverse engineer the way OOo did it, or they used OOo's code. That's called a de-facto standard, which is what .doc and .xls are. de-facto standards are not good.
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not as good or as fast as cutePDF works.
Plus I can print to pdf from any program.. Extra BONUS!
ribbons (Score:5, Interesting)
I find that hard to believe. How many of those people they asked actually used office as a mission critical application in their day to day use? In my admittedly small sample, nobody that I work with at all enjoys using the ribbons, which is about 5 that I have spoken to about it. The majority of people have Office 2003 put on instead, only those who are reluctant to change software on their computers leave it on.
Re:ribbons (Score:5, Insightful)
I find that hard to believe.
Well it's a good thing that your incredulity doesn't override statistical evidence.
How many of those people they asked actually used office as a mission critical application in their day to day use? In my admittedly small sample, nobody that I work with at all enjoys using the ribbons, which is about 5 that I have spoken to about it.
In my larger sample of about 30-50 people almost all of them enjoy the new GUI and once they start using Office 2007 for a few weeks they never want to go back to 2003. I guess this is why anecdotes aren't good evidence of something.
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It take me forever to find anything I used to find simply in the past.
I'm guessing if you're kind of 'grown up' with the ribbon, it is easy, but, for someone like me, that is used to simple menus, it sure seems a PITA.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I agree. I don't know anyone that anyone that likes the new ribbon interface.
Let me paraphrase your post and the one you replied to.
Your parent: "I really like the ribbon now."
You: "I agree. I really dislike the ribbon."
Did I get that right?
Re:ribbons (Score:5, Informative)
You want statistical evidence? Look here [exceluser.com], from a survey of Excel users from May, 2009:
They found that 36% of advanced and 29% of intermediate users "hate or dislike" the ribbons, which vastly outweighs the people who "love or like" the ribbons at 20 and 24%, respectively.
How 'about them apples?
Re:ribbons (Score:5, Insightful)
In my very humble opinion, and as an additional (possibly worthless) data point, people that dislike the ribbon interface are more likely to be "power users" that tinker and customize everything (like me).
The rest of the demographic that tends to use Office software - you know, the millions of corporate users that still have the default background, theme, sounds and everything else that originally came with their laptop or desktop - the ribbon tends to be a little baffling at first and eventually extremely useful to them, because it mirrors the way they work. That's the reason it was designed and why it was introduced with 2007.
Microsoft places much more importance on the latter group and tends to make design decisions based on their working habits and patterns. If you are part of the first group, it's best to get used to that fact.
And of course, there are millions of people still using Office 2003 and even 2000.
Re:ribbons (Score:4, Interesting)
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Wait, a survey that uses percentages estimated by the surveyed? Wow, that's not only inaccurate, it's inaccurately inaccurate. Everyone with a bone to pick will more than likely grossly over-estimate their inconvenience.
Still, the numbers say that 64% of advanced and 71% of intermediate users either have no opinion or like the ribbon. That seems like an overall win to me. I note you don't include novices, which given the trend sould be as high as 85 or 90% who like or have no opinion of it.
Since you can
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I should have read your link first, so my figures are wrong.
However, having read the link, I'm baffled by such claims as "On average, all users who responded estimated that the Ribbon has reduced their productivity."
"on average" and "all users" do not belong in the same sentence. WTF?
That sounds like someone trying to use statistics and weasel words to say something the statistics don't actually say.
Still the survey's numbers look good, but don't really make a lot of sense because of the way they're presen
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That's probably because, after a few weeks of a replacement, it's hard to remember the original, much less the REAL original (the one with simple menus rather than personalised menus).
Personally, I can never find things in the ribbon. Menus are much simpler and more intuitive, EVEN when organised incorrectly.
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Get 33 people and I'll believe you. Even then, at a 99% confidence interval your anecdotal evidence may not be statistically significant. I'm more inclined to believe that that 2.4% dislike it because they expected to find it harder to use, and, not being disappointed, continued to not use it.
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Re:ribbons (Score:4, Informative)
here (douzens of thousands of heavy Office users), we're not quite done testing all our stuff with 2007 (our documents are fine, but some plugins have to be upgraded, and integration with in house apps have to be tested, etc), but we have to hold users back with chains from upgrading to 2007 (well, its a metaphore obviously, they can't upgrade on their own). -EVERYONE- wants it. Bad. The UI is a lot better for people who don't know Office by heart, and there's a lot of new features, mainly in the business intelligence integration and collaboration that make people drool over it.
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And 85% couldn't find the damn print option hidden under the shiny round globe thing in the corner...
Not again! (Score:2, Insightful)
Good Lord, the business hardly deployed Office 2007 with big troubles, we just got used to the new interface absolute madness and yet again more changes :(
Will this crazy running for "the new" ever end?
Re:Not again! (Score:5, Insightful)
So what you're saying is that when a company makes changes to something it is bad, but when it refuses to change things it is bad. I thought that Microsoft wasn't making enough changes to its software to keep up with other innovations. Correct me if I'm wrong, but nobody has ever attempted to create an interface like the Ribbon before in an office suite. So when Microsoft comes up with something new, suddenly it's not okay to be running for the new.
This community constantly rails against how Microsoft has aped other OS vendors to try to make their products better, and then rails against Microsoft trying to innovate in their own software. It's like every post is a new punch bowl filled with red kool-aid stupid. Could we please get past the 1990's Microsoft vs. Linux attitude and admit that it's possible for one arm of a company to do bad things while another arm of the company does good things? Not everything boils down to a "good vs. evil" essential conflict.
Re:Not again! (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean, they do it for Windows (I've not gone past XP yet, dunno if they do it for Vista). I prefer the classic mode, I like to use and view the directory structure, that's how I'm used to working. I don't like when they try to abstract too much for my 'benefit'.
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First thing - "this community" is made up of individuals with differing opinions, so it's probably not the same people. It's a sympathetic audience, so no matter what you disagree with you're likely to find support here if you just post. Not surprising.
For my part, it's because no matter what they do, they get it wro
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What's with people getting angst about a new product every 3-5 years? Adobe comes out with a new photoshop every 1-2 yeasr. Same with Intuit products. Not a big deal...keep using what you like. I still know many people who use office 2003. It works great.
The biggest group of users to use 2010 will be those who got brand new computers and don't have an older version.
Techies all of a sudden wanting to slow down progres...all in the hate of MS.
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Good Enough (Score:4, Interesting)
Microsoft has long been promoting "good enough" approach to things. It isn't the most secure ... it is good enough. It isn't the most robust ... it is good enough. It isn't the most productive ... it is good enough.
This is the Achilles heal of Microsoft. With Windows XP and Office since 2000 or even 2003, has been "good enough". I can't think of ANYTHING Microsoft can offer in Win 7 or Office 2010 that I would actually use. And changing how things work, just for the sake of changing how they work, is counter productive.
In early 2003 I made the statement that 2008 was going to be the first sign of Microsoft's demise as tech leader. The Storm has hit, and is now ravaging Microsoft. Google is building Chrome OS (which I would assume is tied to Android ... somewhere), Open Office is very usable, Wine is getting to the point of being solid, Linux is appearing on desktops, Webservices, mobile devices (iPhone, Blackberry, Android) etc.
You can see the panic at Microsoft in their web services division, from the search engines changes to Live and now to Bing. You can see the panic in the OS and Office with the huge changes in the UI to cover up that really nothing has changed since 2000.
Microsoft is suffering from the "good enough" syndrome. Everything they have made for the last 6 or 8 years is "good enough" and when Vista comes along and changes things just to change things, people buck against it. You'll see more of the same with Office.
I honestly think one of the reasons Gates left, was because he saw the writing on the wall, and got out while the getting was good.
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Problem is, you're arguing against yourself. I quite agree that Microsoft products are good enough -- and by "good," I mean "familiar" -- but this undermines your point about OpenOffice and Linux gaining traction. These are still unfamiliar to most people, and they are unwilling to start over on the learning curve just because of some ethereal philosophical viewpoint. They're going to stick with what they know, which is Word on XP, over either Windows 7 or Linux. The only time Linux has a fighting chance is
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Not really. Open Office resembles MS Office 2000 more than MS Office 2007(2010??). Therefore, people are willing to go to OO rather than have change.
And Linux can be configured to look and function just like XP, and Ubuntu, except for the "start bar" being at the top, functions almost like XP for most things.
Further, if people are being made (forced) to "learn" something new, they are more willing to look at alternatives, like OO and Linux or even Apple.
The point being, if people are having to "change" they
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What Shuttleworth and gang need to do is polish their desktop up a bit more, get everything stable and then advertise the heck out of it. Even if people can't install an OS (which is a pretty big deal, honestly) they'll kno
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The interesting note to watch is what happens when the next generation of computer users comes forward. Teenagers these days know a lot more about computers than their parents do, on average. They understand the difference between Mac and Windows (and a heck of a lot know about Ubuntu - more
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You're right, but there's one other important thing about Microsoft you have to realize:
When they have no competition, they don't bother. When Microsoft's web browser competition dissolved away, we ended up with IE6 for years and years and years-- when the web browser competition picked-up again, thanks to Mozilla and Apple and later Google, suddenly, WHAM! IE7, IE8, back to a regular development schedule, tons of great features.
Office moves slow because it has very little serious competition. And, hell, ev
Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone (Score:4, Insightful)
Word's been around, what, 20 years? Guys, if you want to provide maximum usability to use users, leave it alone. We've all figured out how the app works, what the keyboard shortcuts are, where in each menu our most-used commands are, and how to use mail merge. STOP CHANGING IT. Every time you change how Word works, all you're doing is decreasing my usability and needlessly taking away time I could otherwise spend doing actual productive work.
Full disclosure: I've been trying to avoid Office for the past year or so, relying on Apple's Pages instead - in part simply because Word is a bloated beast, and in part because Microsoft just keeps pointlessly adding useless crap and changing things to give the illusion of "innovation".
Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes,
But you are getting old and are going to die and you probably have no intention of buying a new version of Word since you are happy with the current one.
New users will see a wierdly arcane program or an easy to use (for a novice) program.
Think of these versions of word as targeted to naive users.
---
What I can't see is how they intend to compete with free (Openoffice) when we have 25% real unemployment and no growth in sales for the rest- with the corrupted financial industry pillaging and looting heavily from the 75% that are still producing.
Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone (Score:4, Interesting)
> What I can't see is how they intend to compete with free (Openoffice)
Simple. By giving away Office Web Edition for free on the web, via live.com. (This was mentioned quite widely in the tech press but the /. summary doesn't mention in specifically.) Frankly, given that I prefer Google Docs over OpenOffice, if Office Web is any good it'll be the 800lb gorilla in the market.
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Or, keep just enough people on the upgrade treadmill that other people who absolutely have to be able to read the documents of these people are forced to buy the latest version of Microsoft Office. If your client, who pays your bills, insists on using the latest Microsoft Office, then most places will see it as simply easier to upgrade. Especially if your client is a government agency.
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The question is if you buy a new computer, will you bother adjusting to OO.o for a few months, or pay $80+ for Word 2007, which you will probably also have to adjust to? Google Docs is good and all, but it's still quirky as well (I've ran into more bugs in GD than OO.o, but
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I would argue that OpenOffice Writer is inferior. It's slower. It's ugly. It lacks a lot of the niceties of Word 2007 (unless they added stuff like the formatting-menu-on-hover gizmo that Word 2007 has in a recent release, I haven't installed it since 3.0 and didn't really play with it much).
It's a workable program, but it's not really as good as either 2003 or 2007. Frankly I think KOffice has a better chance of being a really good Office competitor than OpenOffice ever will.
2001 called (Score:4, Informative)
I find OpenOffice quirky and unreliable. It often crashes for me.
2001 called and wants that review back. I've used OO on Linux, Windows XP, and Vista. On old machines, brand new ones and everything in between. And the number of times it's crashed on me or here at the office where we also use it....
0
Quirky you can argue, especially if you're used to something else. But if it crashes your computer, then your computer has much bigger problems.
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Besides linux people, the people that I personally see using openoffice most often are young, hip college students. The reason? They have no money to spend on things like software. You forget that young people also grew up with the internet and are accustomed lots of free software and see no reason to pay to use something that some other software does
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I fit that statement too, and I bought Office 2007 after using it on school computers. Why? Because the difference in productivity between 2003 (which I already owned, so I had no reason to use OpenOffice) and 2007 is huge. It's just a hell of a lot nicer to actually work with, and I dig it. The cost, as high as it was (like $60 or something), was worth it because the improvements are that good.
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So just stop upgrading. Files from recent versions go back and forth about as well as files from the same version, so compatibility isn't a huge problem.
Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, I do expect Word 2003 to work on Windows 8 and 9.
Microsoft's support for binary backwards compatibility is generally better than Linux support for source backwards compatibility (the source has the advantage that you can fix it after it has been broken, but in practical terms, a Windows binary from 1995 is more likely to work on Vista than an unedited open source program from 1995 is to directly compile on Ubuntu 8.04).
And really, I don't have any trouble upgrading software (I tend to believe that the hundreds of thousands of dollars Microsoft spends on usability testing is probably productive) or keeping track of install media for expensive software (To test this, I just eyeballed my Windows 95 CD that came with the computer I purchased in 1997).
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Just because "View / Header and Footer" is the way you're used to doing it, doesn't mean it's the best way. Word has been evolving and expanding all this time. You can only shoehorn new features into the old UI for so long before it becomes convoluted.
To learn the new ribbon all you have to do is think about what you are trying to accomplish and then navigate where you think it ought to belong. The new layout means you will find related functions that will improve your productivity and quality of communi
Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Memo to Microsoft: Leave it alone (Score:4, Insightful)
But...still not fixed (Score:4, Insightful)
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or how about Excel's cut & paste functionality working in even remotely the same fashion as everywhere else in Windows (or Office)?
A lot of effort and money (Score:2, Funny)
... for software that really isn't needed these days. Other than a one-off printed letter, what place does a word processing document have in today's world of Wikis and such? Same with spreadsheets. Great for high school and college labs, and quick what-if stuff, but outside of that, should they really be used (don't get me started on the number of spreadsheet 'databases' or printable tables are out there).
Re:A lot of effort and money (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you set foot in a typical large business lately? These people live and die by these things, on -TOP- of using wikis and such. A big part of it is that you can't really link a customer waiting to sign a 15 million dollar contract a link to a wiki, and the accounting department can't do their "one shot deal" calculations on their blog.
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Other than a one-off printed letter, what place does a word processing document have in today's world of Wikis and such?
You mean other than for writing novels, papers and articles? Yeah, other than major stuff like that, I can see no use for a word processor at all. Last time I checked my professor or your editor isn't going to accept a wiki page as a way to turn in your writing to.
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... for software that really isn't needed these days. Other than a one-off printed letter, what place does a word processing document have in today's world of Wikis and such? Same with spreadsheets. Great for high school and college labs, and quick what-if stuff, but outside of that, should they really be used (don't get me started on the number of spreadsheet 'databases' or printable tables are out there).
Wikis? Are you on crack. Wikis are not only often disorganized but they are also the epitome of poor usability. They do have their place but they are not a replacement properly rewritten and organized documentation. Wikis are a fad like twitter and will be forgotten in a few years.
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Mod parent -1 incredibly naive
Re:A lot of effort and money (Score:4, Funny)
Mod parent -1 incredibly naive
Try adding "in my basement" to the end of each of the GP's sentences and you can understand his perspective a bit more.
... for software that really isn't needed these days in my basement. Other than a one-off printed letter, what place does a word processing document have in today's world of Wikis and such in my basement? Same with spreadsheets in my basement. Great for high school and college labs, and quick what-if stuff, but outside of that, should they really be used in my basement (don't get me started on the number of spreadsheet 'databases' or printable tables are out there in my basement).
The Ribbon... (Score:3, Interesting)
...is the new Clippy. If you want people to use Office, you need to get rid of it.
WordPerfect 5.1 (Score:3, Insightful)
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I remember a WordPerfect demo for the Atari ST. Everyone in attendance agreed then that WP was gross overkill for just about everyone.
For most people that have to put up with msword for no other reason to "be compatable", that's still true.
Word Processing and Occam's Razor (Score:2)
" ... WP was gross overkill for just about everyone ... "
Point well taken: even WP 5.1 had plenty of features and functions (a less charitable critic might say "bloat") of no interest to me.
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WordPerfect 5.1 Redux (Score:2)
So install it and quit complaining.
I wasn't complaining -- I was (worse yet) sighing wistfully ...
But seriously: thanks, I hadn't actually thought of installing it. But it might be a kick, for old time's sake. (Hell, I'm still fond of BattleZone, no matter how good the Quakes and Half-Lifes get.) And thanks for posting that link [columbia.edu].
Well, yeah, that's all true. And
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I guess I don't need to ask why your sentence is in past tense. DOS and dot matrix printers used to suffice as well, but do you intend to distribute your hard work with modems and floppies?
WordPerfect 5.1 - maudlin sentimentality (Score:2)
You're right -- I've succumbed to maudlin sentimentality about archaic software.
You wouldn't happen to have any spare GOTO statements, would you? I haven't seen mine for decades but I'm feeling kind of homesick for the good old days ....
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I will second that. Especially because Reveal Codes was so much faster for fixing formatting problems than Word to this day. There are times in Word some piece of formatting garbage gets so stuck in place that I have to delete entire paragraphs and repast the text as Paste Special Unformatted Text.
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Word has had a style inspector since Office 2003 (or possibly Office XP). It'll tell you exactly what formatting has been applied to the text, and it's pretty easy to reset it. Screenshot: http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/9540/o2007.png [imageshack.us]
Mark Parent +Informative (Score:2)
Word has had a style inspector since Office 2003 (or possibly Office XP).
Thx!
WordPerfect 5.1 - Reveal Codes (Score:2)
Especially because Reveal Codes was so much faster for fixing formatting problems than Word to this day.
Yes! You have hit the nail square on the head, my friend! Reveal Codes, that's what I immediately and sorely missed when my then-employer switched from WordPerfect to Word!
The last good version of Microsoft Word (Score:2, Troll)
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Problem is that Office 2010 now has the Xbox Achievements system...
"Achievement, you found the file menu function +10gp"
Oh using Office 2010 will require a Office Live gold account or higher.
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one-upping Google (Score:2)
I found it really interesting to hear that Microsoft is pushing so hard for web-based solutions, as well as incorporating network features into the local client. They seem to be adopting all the best features of Google Apps/Writely and putting extra polish on them.
For instance, anyone who's used Google Apps knows how bad the cross-compatibility is with Office documents so this alone will be the main decider for most businesses. Also, Google Apps' interface is rudamintary and the applications are utterly w
Not so surprising (Score:3, Interesting)
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Unlikely. Microsoft partners have bigger customers already have had access to the Office 2010 preview for months now. I'm amazed it took that long for it to be seen in public (though there were already some previews and screenshots, including official ones by microsoft bloggers, for a while now)
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Except for the fact that this preview was announced in May [http://blogs.msdn.com/excel/archive/2009/05/12/microsoft-office-2010-technical-preview.aspx] and Microsoft has had sharepoint and other things. And ChromeOS being a little netbook OS to just browse the internets when people do so much more with Windows.
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First Question (Score:3, Insightful)
Would be the first time that MS has tried to force an OS upgrade.
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Yes, Office 2010 will run on XP. Wouldn't make sense for them to bump up the requirements. I wouldn't be surprised if some features were disabled on XP though.
Three Reasons to Hate the Ribbon (Score:5, Insightful)
2: It changes based on what it's Application Telepathy thinks you are doing.
3: You are not even offered the option of backwards compatibility to the old, customizable, fixed menuing system -- Microsoft dictates that they know what's best for you!
Can forced Dvorak keyboards with no QWERTY option be far behind?
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Lots of folks love it. Bizarre isn't it? I've tried using it - honestly I have - but it just feels like a lot of hard work for no benefit I can find over the good old menu.
Word (and its ilk) have bucketloads of features most folks would agree. A logically laid out, branching menu structure allows you to quickly home in on and find the feature you want. Each entry from the bar right down to the items is a clearly worded unit of descriptive text. Seems really simple, reliable, usable and effective to me.
With
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1) You can make the ribbon go away by a single mouse click or hotkey.
2) No, it changes based on what you are ACTUALLY doing. If you click on an image, it gives you image editing tools. If you click in a table, it gives you table tools. It's context, not telepathy.
3) Microsoft has learned (the hard way) that if you give people the option to go back to the old, they will never learn the new. Thus you are stuck supporting the old for life. The only way is a clean break.
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1: It takes away valuable vertical screen real estate and cannot be repositioned to less valuable side areas.
2: It changes based on what it's Application Telepathy thinks you are doing.
3: You are not even offered the option of backwards compatibility to the old, customizable, fixed menuing system -- Microsoft dictates that they know what's best for you!
1 - You can double click one of the major headings on the ribbon to hide it until it's clicked again. Then it behaves like a pulldown menu.
2 - It's called semantic computing. It makes computing task-based instead of command-based. People don't want to think about repeatedly putting one foot in front of the other - they want to walk to the store.
3 - AKA older is betterer? I disagree - especially when you call the old pulldown menus "fixed". Pick 5 tasks, do them on Office 2003 and 2007, and count the mo
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1: It takes away valuable vertical screen real estate and cannot be repositioned to less valuable side areas.
Word! (pun not intended) I'm typing this on a netbook with a 1024x600 screen, and having "the Ribbon" visible would use probably most of it. Yes, this (thankfully) isn't my only/main computer, but I like to write documents on the go every now and then.
There's more to Office than the Ribbon (Score:2)
...but you wouldn't think so looking through some of these comments. Office works real well with MOSS (Paid version of SharePoint); which works real nice on a Active Directory and SQL Server; which is only realistic on Windows Server. When I say works well, I mean your grandmother could get it running.
Office on it's own is missing the point really; documents should never stay on just one machine.
Welcome to the wonderful world of Office.
Re:who uses it anyway? (Score:5, Insightful)
me neither.
office 97 had enough features already. the bloat continues ever forward.
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The contraction of "it is" called. It wants its apostrophe back.
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wine already supports office. Winedoors is free and makes installing office dead easy.
Crossover office costs money but makes it even more brain-dead easy.
Re:Office on Linux? (Score:4, Funny)
Between Windows, Doors, and Offices, it's pretty clear that programmers need to get outside more.
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Im not too sure whats the difference, but Outlook has had thread support for years too. So this is probably a fancier rehash of the same deal, or maybe natively integrated with Exchange or something.
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The ability to group messages by conversation has been in Outlook for as long as I've been using it (which is since 2003) - probably longer, though, as Outlook Express had it since the first version that came with Win98. I'm not sure how this is new by any measure...
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Outlook has supported threaded discussion views for email and post folders since the 2000 version. Here's a walk through [microsoft.com] for 2003. First hit on Google searching for 'outlook threaded view'
While threaded mode is useful for some things, there are other nice ways to visualize your stuff on Outlook that I like.
View -> Arrange By -> Conversation on OLK2003 is essentially the same as GMail mode, for example.
A quick switch to Message
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Congratulations on getting modded up though. My theory that mod points are being increasingly farmed out to rhesus monkeys and squirrels on steroids continues to pan out.
Dude your saying good things about MS. Let me get on my other five /. accounts so i can mod you down.
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I've tried using a threaded view with different email clients over the years and I always switch back. I don't understand why. I've spent a lot of time on Outlook so that may be why I could care less about threading. Maybe it has to do with the fact that the entire thread is appended to the end of each new mail I get in the thread. That is, unless someone in the chain deliberately doesn't include it in a reply.
What I have grown to love is the way gmail does threading. It's like a hybrid between what O
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Outlook has supported threaded mail for a long time. The feature they were trying to highlight was the ability to condense the content of the thread to a single (or small number of) message when much of the content in the replies is the same (ie the previous sender's message quoted back in a reply). Therefore you could look at the top-level of the thread and possibly read the whole thread without having to go through several messages, most of which contain the previous messages quoted over and over again.
Ho
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Outlook's had Threaded View for decades. I don't exactly know what "conversation view" is, but it's something new.
But good job posting your ignorant bullshit for everybody to read. I guess it's easier to lie about what features Outlook has than to check your facts. Why do people mod up posts that *make shit up*?
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You could try making a macro of the necessary configuration changes to set things up the way your users want and then just email them the xlb file and tell them to run it after they install OOo.
If a macro command exists for the action, it ought to work.