Well on an acdemic discount at least. So I had this beta version of office 2007 sometime ago and used it on some class projects. In my opinion the best feature of this product is the ability to solve a great mystery to me: the use of color. I've tried for many years to learn these secrets but every time I try to come up with my own coloring scheme the results are disasterous; I end up making my work look like it's for easter (too pastelly) or holloween (just plain scary).
Office 2007 has some features that allow you to apply a "theme" to your documents. Themes are these cohesive and harmonic styles, treatments and colors that can be easily integrated into your document. I made stuff like this:
and graphs like this:
The user interaction techniques used in office 07 are pretty fresh. Instead of a toolbar, they now use what they call a "ribbon" which changes depending on what you are doing. I was pretty impressed and was able to quickly adapt. The only problem is that my beta version ran out sometime ago and I have to use some ol' crusty Visio version from 19-diggity5 or Illustrator which doesn't have a connector tool that I can figure out. That's ok for now, I have two of my own "themes". Easter is over soooo...
7 comments:
The only 2007 item I have used is MS Word and I love it :) So far it has been good. It took a little for me to get used to but after two uses, I got the hang of it. The way they grouped items makes sense...although at first your mind is freaking out because it expects things to be under a certain menu. The color scheme is great as well...Yeah, I am pretty bad at color scheming :( I wish I had more artsy running through my veins!
Also.... the one thing I do find annoying is that when I save in MS 2007.... those who are back in the old age ;-) eh eh eh 2003 cannot see it!!! At least there is an option to save as a 2003 version.
Your diagrams look good....the color tone is perfect... not too bright or too pale..
And yeah!.. the templates look much better in Office 2007
WIth the "ribbon" being dynamic, how difficult is it to use muscle memory to get to menus?
Also, how difficult is it to find an unavailable option? That is, if I'm in a mode that doesn't allow printing, does the print option simply disappear or is there any indication that it's not available BECAUSE we're on a screen that doesn't allow printing?
At least with menu bars the option is typically grayed out so a user goes to the right place and can't use it. Users learn fairly quickly that grayed out means currently unavailable, try again later. If they can't even find it I imagine they'll waste even more time unsuccessfully trying to find it while it's hidden.
Wow, those look nice. It's interesting how programs are coming loaded with really good looking templates for everything from charts to websites to dvd menus these days (apple's ilife suite comes to mind!).
More interesting though, is how color is associated with holidays so much - I do this too and I have some color theory in my background. I've definitely described color schemes as christmasy, halloweeney, and eastery. I wonder what that says about society (or american culture) that our color theory comes from holiday decor!?
I used to be optimistic about Office 2007 but after a while the disappointment came crawling in. I do agree that the templates and styles are much nicer compared to its older version, although that should be expected after snatching lots of top designers from its competition, working your own custom stuff is still a battlefield and cumbersome as usual.
I like the look of Office 2007 quite a bit, but predictably, it's a resource hog. Outlook 2007 usually grabs upwards of 100 MB of memory and a ton of processor time whenever it's loading or doing a send/receive.
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