Wondering about Office 2007

I haven't really played with it so I can't speak as to whether or not it is really any better but one thing that REALLY annoyed me was that the file types that it uses are totally and completely incompatible with previous versions - so in order to use a file made with 2007 you need to have 2007. So if your grandpa plans on sending any of these documents to other people he'd better make sure that they have 2007 too or that he can figure out how to make it use a backwards-compatible file format (I'm not sure if it can do this or not but I would assume it could - but it doesn't use that by default).

I have it at home and at the office, is really different from 2000 and even more so from 2003, and takes awhile to learn... In the end office is office, no need to upgrade if what you have is working....

I'm one of the people at my work that is "Beta Testing" Office 2007, and I use it extensively as part of my job. Theres a few factors to take into making your decision:

1) Office 2007 is chunky. That is, load times are longer, its a bit 'bulky', so if he has an old computer it might run slow. My work computer is a P4 2.8 GHZ with 1gb RAM, and it runs fine, though opening large files takes about 5-10 seconds in Excel, and sometimes it crashes all together.

2) The layout is a big departure from how office 2000 and office 2003 look. Does your grandpa like big changes and will he want to learn an interface that looks different then office 2003 and 2000?

3) What aspects of office does he use? Excel, Word, Powerpoint? My experience with office 2007 is if you do alot of stuff with formulas, charts, graphs (i.e. Excel stuff) then the 2007 version is alot better. If hes not using Excel, I'd probably go with 2003 or stick with what hes got.

4) I haven't seen the compatability issues mentioned above. I make reports in 2007 and email them to my boss who is still using 2003, and they work fine. You just have to make sure to do "Save As.." and pick the right format.


So, without knowing what he'll be using it for, thats the best I can tell ya about Office 2007.

According to what I've found online, all you have to do is have your office completely updated and it can import the data to be able to open the 2007 files...

Openoffice


Is all you'll ever want to use. "#%"% that Microsoft garbage, woe is me that I gotta work with it again.

Eh, I use it -- grandfather doesn't want to.

Anyway, he uses excel, outlook, word, going to start working with access... looks like he's going to go for it.

Outlook makes me want to slit my wrists too. Having to use it at work makes me miss Thunderbird.

Novaburst thinks companies should toss MS products in the bin