Office 2007 than what old Office?

The software giant himself admitted it was difficult to convince consumers to buy new Office versions.

" One of the biggest challenges is to get rid of users' prejudices that old Office software is too good, " said Microsoft vice president of business Chris Capossela.

Office is currently the most popular office software suite in the world. Its latest version, Office 2007, is expected to be released on November 30 in the business world and released in January 2007.

In the context that Office 2003 has not yet expired and still has "good running", can Microsoft use it to convince users, small businesses upgrade to Office 2007?

User interface "molting"

Source: BBC An outstanding feature of Office 2007 is that the user interface will be completely changed, allowing you to access features within Office more simply.

With the name "Ribbon" or ribbon, the new interface is streamlined to the maximum. " We have put in a lot of effort to design it to look natural, but it doesn't create a sense of alienation or surprise for users, " Capossela said.

All keyboard shortcuts for Office 2003 are preserved, and Microsoft provides more than 50,000 technical help articles online.

However, users will have to take a while to get used to and learn how to master the new interface. With 400 million people currently using Office, Microsoft needs to "train" a small audience.

In the face of rising pressure from the open source community (40 million people are using OpenOffice.org, a free Web-based suite of office software), Microsoft has spent thousands of hours in laboratory research, gaining feedback. from hundreds of thousands of users before launching the final final version.

" Features, applications most often clicked on by Office users in the Office suite - we want to put them all on the front and center of the default ribbon. However, the format of the ribbon - The tape will be no different from the old tool bar, intuitive, focused and iconic - all those features are preserved . "

According to Mr. Capossela, the majority of users adapt very quickly to the new interface. Only some people lose more time, and they are all Excel experts.

Online world

In addition to changes in the graphical interface, Office 2007 is also more closely linked to the online world. Documents can be posted directly to the blog, while RSS channels are more seamlessly integrated into the Outlook e-mail application.

Finally, if you visit the Office website, you will come across a huge technical information library. However, one of the biggest changes is a new default file format in XML named .docx.

XML documents will have smaller file sizes and compatibility, interacting with other software vendors' applications. This means that you can create new tables, documents, graphics and databases directly from existing documents.

" XML is much more powerful and secure. It is very difficult to penetrate this file format and destroy it. The information inside Word and Excel will become more useful ," Capossela said. " External software developers can take data and transfer them to other formats, something that in the past was impossible ."

Of course, for users who don't like to complicate matters, Office 2007 retains the familiar .doc format. Also, if you want to save the file in any format, old or new, it will work.

The open source community itself also welcomes the new XML format, because it feels it will allow Office 2007 to open with Open Office.

Trong Cam