What does Office 2007 offer over Office 2003

[JLH]

I'm debating whether to switch to 2007 from 2003 and had several
questions based on other users' experience. First thing, though, is
that I work with Excel and Access OFF-LINE and have not worked on
projects requiring internet collaboration. Nor has compatibility with
docs from other firms been an issue.

In light of that, what features have you found in Office 2007 that make
it worthwhile to switch?

Also, how important is Internet access (aside from obtaining patches)
to the operations in Office 2007?

Another main concern I have is with the Help options. Even though IMO
it was poor in previous editions, at least between topic and keyword
searches, I could eventually find what I needed to find. In the Excel
2003, MS changed it to a "menu" format, and it is IMO abominable. What
have you encountered as you use it. Again, I work off-line, so if all
the important material is on-line, I'd like to know because that
definitely impacts its utility for me.

Thanks,

John

 

[Earle Horton]

There is a big learning curve to get used to the Ribbon. There is a free
trial to see if you can stand it.

Earle

 

[Justin]

I'm debating whether to switch to 2007 from 2003 and had several
questions based on other users' experience. First thing, though, is
that I work with Excel and Access OFF-LINE and have not worked on
projects requiring internet collaboration. Nor has compatibility with
docs from other firms been an issue.

Thanks,

John

The error messages are much more ascetically pleasing.

 

[JLH]

There is a big learning curve to get used to the Ribbon. There is a
free trial to see if you can stand it.

Earle

What is the "Ribbon"?

John

 

[Earle Horton]

What is the "Ribbon"?

That's what the free trial is for, John. Let's just say that they
completely redesigned the user interface, for no good reason.

Earle

 

[Gordon]

That's what the free trial is for, John. Let's just say that they
completely redesigned the user interface, for no good reason.

Actually, for very good reasons.
See here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2008/03/12/the-story-of-the-ribbon.aspx

Plus anyone possessing even moderate applications skills will soon be
familiar with it...

 

[Harlan Grove]

Actually, for very good reasons.
See here:http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2008/03/12/the-story-of-the-rib...

Proving?

Maybe the ribbon is an improvement for Word and PowerPoint, but Excel
users tend to view it as a big mistake.

Plus anyone possessing even moderate applications skills will soon be
familiar with it...

Just as moderately intelligent Hungarians learned Russian in the late
1940s with comparable satisfaction and for broadly similar reasons.

 

[Earle Horton]

Proving?

Maybe the ribbon is an improvement for Word and PowerPoint, but Excel
users tend to view it as a big mistake.

Word and PowerPoint users hate it too.

Earle

 

[Gordon]

Word and PowerPoint users hate it too.

Err SOME users hate it. As I said, anyone with even a MODICUM of application
skills will find it EASY and QUICK to learn.

 

[JLH]

Err SOME users hate it. As I said, anyone with even a MODICUM of
application skills will find it EASY and QUICK to learn.

Please can the sniping at each other. It doesn't help anyone and begs
the question.

That said, I looked at the link you gave. The info didn't really help
at all from my POV. It did have a lot of pretty pictures.

Another source of mine did mention the Ribbon but said that using the
Crtl+ key managed to reduce his problems with it. He also said that he
saw a tremendous improvement in the data handling capability of it;
that projects that brought Excel 2003 to its knees were performed much
more easily in 2007. Has anyone noticed this? What other "under the
hood" changes were made that are immediately apparent from someone used
to 2003?

John

 

[Harlan Grove]

. . . anyone with even a MODICUM of application
skills will find it EASY and QUICK to learn.

....

Not the average Excel user's experience. There was some logic to the
placements of commands in the old menu system. There's considerably
less logic in the ribbon.

Clearly the ribbon was developed with Word users and only Word users
in mind, then forced onto most of the other Office applications.

 

[Harlan Grove]

. . . He also said that he
saw a tremendous improvement in the data handling capability of it;
that projects that brought Excel 2003 to its knees were performed much
more easily in 2007.  Has anyone noticed this?  What other "under the
hood" changes were made that are immediately apparent from someone used
to 2003?

Depends. If you misuse Excel as a database and need to handle tables
with more than 65535 records, Excel 2007's larger grid would be very
helpful. For calculation-intensive rather than data-intensive
spreadsheet models, Excel 2007 can use multiple cores when available.
SUMIFS, COUNTIFS and AVERAGEIFS are much faster than functionally
equivalent SUM(IF(..)) or SUMPRODUCT formula constructs needed in
previous versions. Finally, tables and structured referencing are
useful improvements.

There are other changes that don't affect calculation speed that could
be useful. Excel 2007 now supports more than 3 sort keys (though it
took MSFT 17 years to catch up with Lotus 1-2-3 in this regard) and
more than 3 conditional formats. The Name definition dialog is also
improved.

That said, expert consensus is that charting is considerably more
difficult in Excel 2007 than in previous versions.

 

[Earle Horton]

...

Not the average Excel user's experience. There was some logic to the
placements of commands in the old menu system. There's considerably
less logic in the ribbon.

Clearly the ribbon was developed with Word users and only Word users
in mind, then forced onto most of the other Office applications.

This Word user hates it.

Earle

 

[JLH]

Depends. If you misuse Excel as a database and need to handle tables
with more than 65535 records, Excel 2007's larger grid would be very
helpful. For calculation-intensive rather than data-intensive
spreadsheet models, Excel 2007 can use multiple cores when available.
SUMIFS, COUNTIFS and AVERAGEIFS are much faster than functionally
equivalent SUM(IF(..)) or SUMPRODUCT formula constructs needed in
previous versions. Finally, tables and structured referencing are
useful improvements.

There are other changes that don't affect calculation speed that could
be useful. Excel 2007 now supports more than 3 sort keys (though it
took MSFT 17 years to catch up with Lotus 1-2-3 in this regard) and
more than 3 conditional formats. The Name definition dialog is also
improved.

That said, expert consensus is that charting is considerably more
difficult in Excel 2007 than in previous versions.

Thanks. My source does number crunching more so than using charts
AFAICT, so I'll keep that in mind. Most all of the charts that I
create are bar graphs and sometimes line/point charts to compare
numbers or to show amounts chronologically. Sometimes I would take
that chart and drop it into a Word or PowerPoint doc with the link back
to the Excel doc. Are the creation of simple charts an aspect that is
more difficult in 2007? What about the linking of data from Excel to
other docs, whether it be say Excel, Word or PowerPoint?

Thanks for the insight.

Also, in light of the prior discussion, are there any estimates of how
much time it averages for a user who's been using 2003 and earlier
versions to become comfortable and proficient using 2007? And is that
based on on-the-job use with no support or is that based on training
(and how much) being provided?

Again, thanks in advance.

John