Microsoft Office 2007
Encyclopedia
Microsoft Office 2007 is a Windows
version of the Microsoft Office System
, Microsoft
's productivity suite
. Formerly known as Office 12 in the initial stages of its beta cycle, it was released to volume license
customers on November 30, 2006 and made available to retail customers on January 30, 2007. These are, respectively, the same dates Windows Vista
was released to volume licensing and retail customers. Office 2007 contains a number of new features, the most notable of which is the entirely new graphical user interface
called the Fluent User Interface (initially referred to as the Ribbon User Interface
), replacing the menus and toolbars – which have been the cornerstone of Office since its inception – with a tabbed toolbar, known as the Ribbon. Office 2007 requires Windows XP
with Service Pack 2 or higher, Windows Server 2003
with Service Pack 1 or higher, Windows Vista or Windows 7. Office 2007 is the last version of Microsoft Office which is officially supported on Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
.
The 'Ribbon User Interface' is a task-oriented Graphical User Interface (GUI
). It features a central menu button, widely known as the 'Office Button'. The Ribbon Interface has been improved in Microsoft Office 2010.
Office 2007 also includes new applications and server-side tools. Chief among these is Groove, a collaboration and communication suite for smaller businesses, which was originally developed by Groove Networks
before being acquired by Microsoft in 2005. Also included is Office SharePoint Server 2007, a major revision to the server platform for Office applications, which supports "Excel Services
", a client-server architecture for supporting Excel workbooks that are shared in real time between multiple machines, and are also viewable and editable through a web page.
Microsoft FrontPage
has been removed from the Office suite entirely. It has been replaced by Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer, which is aimed towards development of SharePoint portals. Its designer-oriented counterpart Microsoft Expression Web
is targeted for general web development. However, neither application has been included in Office 2007.
Speech recognition
and handwriting recognition
are now part of Windows Vista. Speech and ink components have been removed from Office 2007. Handwriting and speech recognition work with Office 2007 only on Windows Vista or Windows XP Tablet PC Edition. However, XP users can use an earlier version of Office to use speech recognition.
According to Forrester Research
, as of May 2010, Microsoft Office 2007 is used in 81% of enterprises it surveyed (its sample comprising 115 North American and European enterprise and SMB decision makers).
Microsoft revealed the Ribbon UI on March 9, 2006 at CeBIT
in Germany.
Office 2007 Beta 2 was announced by Bill Gates
at WinHEC
2006, and was initially released to the public at no cost from Microsoft's web site. However, because of an unprecedented number of downloads, a fee of $1.50 was introduced for each product downloaded after August 2, 2006. The beta was updated on September 14, 2006 in Beta 2 Technical Refresh (Beta2TR). It included an updated user interface, better accessibility support, improvements in the robustness of the platform, and greater functionality.
The beta versions continued to function in a reduced functionality mode after February 1, 2007. If users downloaded the Technical Refresh to update Beta 2, then users could use its full functionality until March 31, 2007 for client products and May 15, 2007 for server products. The Beta program ended on November 8, 2006, when Microsoft declared the product "Released to Manufacturing" (RTM) and started manufacturing the final product. After RTM, the availability of the beta download ended.
Office 2007 was released to volume licensing customers on November 30, 2006, and to the general public on January 30, 2007.
Microsoft published a list of changes. Official documentation claims that SP1 is not simply a rollup of publicly released patches, but that it also contains fixes for 455 total issues throughout the entire Office suite.
, XPS, and PDF
standards as well as a large number of bug fixes.
, Excel
, PowerPoint
, Access
, and in the item inspector used to create or edit individual items in Outlook
. These applications have been selected for the UI overhaul because they center around document authoring. The rest of the applications in the suite will also be changed to the new UI in subsequent versions. The default font used in this edition is Calibri
. Original prototypes of the new user interface were revealed at MIX
2008 in Las Vegas
.
The Office 2007 button, located on the top-left of the window, replaces the File menu and provides access to functionality common across all Office applications, including opening, saving, printing, and sharing a file. It can also close the application. Users can also choose color schemes for the interface. A notable accessibility
improvement is that the Office button follows Fitt's law.
, a panel that houses a fixed arrangement of command buttons and icons, organizes commands as a set of tabs
, each grouping relevant commands. The Ribbon is present in Microsoft Word 2007, Excel 2007, PowerPoint 2007, Access 2007 and some Outlook 2007 windows. The Ribbon is not user customizable in Office 2007. Each application has a different set of tabs which expose the functionality that application offers. For example, while Excel has a tab for the graphing capabilities, Word does not; instead it has tabs to control the formatting of a text document. Within each tab, various related options may be grouped together. The Ribbon is designed to make the features of the application more discoverable and accessible with fewer mouse clicks as compared to the menu-based UI used prior to Office 2007. However, many users feel that the existing menus should have been left alone. An online survey reports the ribbon menu has decreased productivity by an average of 20% for users. Moving the mouse scroll wheel while on any of the tabs on the ribbon cycles—through the tabs. The Ribbon can be minimized by double clicking the active section's title, such as the Home text in the picture below. Without third party add-ins, it is not possible to remove the Ribbon, modify it, or replace it with menus with the normal Office 2007 functions. There are third party add-ins which can be purchased that can bring menus and toolbars to Office 2007 as well as add-ins which allow users to customize the Ribbon commands. Add-ins that restore the ability to use a standard Windows menus and toolbars interface include Classic Menu for Office, ToolbarToggle, and Ubitmenu. Others like RibbonCustomizer enable the customization of the Ribbon interface. Office 2010 does allow user customization of the ribbon out of the box.
Office Open XML is based on XML
and uses the ZIP
file container. According to Microsoft, documents created in this format are up to 75% smaller than the same documents saved with previous Microsoft Office file formats, owing to the ZIP data compression.
Files containing macros are saved with an extra M letter in their extension instead (.docm/xlsm/pptm/etc.).
PDF
Initially, Microsoft promised to support exporting to Portable Document Format (PDF)
in Office 2007. However, due to legal objections from Adobe Systems
, Office 2007 originally did not offer PDF support out of the box, but rather as a separate free download. However, starting with Service Pack 2, Office allows users to natively export PDF files.
documents. This is part of service pack 2 and prior to that, was available as a free plug-in in a separate download.
in Office 2007, as well as earlier versions (up to Office 2000), through a converter add-in for Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and also a command-line utility. As of 2008, the project supports conversion between ODF and Office Open XML file formats for all three applications. According to ODF Alliance this support falls short and substantial improvements are still needed for interoperability in real-world situations.
Third-party plugins able to read, edit and save to the ISO-standard Open Document Format (ODF) are available as a separate download.
Office 2007 Service Pack 2 adds native support for the OpenDocument
Format. The ODF Alliance has released test results on ODF support of Office 2007 SP2, concluding that Office ODF support, both SP2 and other add-ons, have "serious shortcomings that, left unaddressed, would break the open standards based interoperability that the marketplace, especially governments, is demanding". Particularly, SP2 has no support for encrypted ODF files and has limited interoperability with other ODF spreadsheet implementations.
The ISO/IEC 26300 OpenDocument standard specifies encryption of files
, which is based on sha1, Blowfish
, and RFC 2898.
Microsoft Office 2007 SP2 does not support reading and writing encrypted (password protected) ODF files. Users are presented with a message: “cannot use password protection using the ODF format.”
The ISO/IEC 26300 OpenDocument standard has no spreadsheet formula language included (or referenced) in the standard specification. Office 2007 SP2 uses the spreadsheet formula language specified in the ISO/IEC 29500 Office Open XML open standard
when creating ODF documents. According to the ODF Alliance report "ODF spreadsheets created in Excel 2007 SP2 do not in fact conform to ODF 1.1 because Excel 2007 incorrectly encodes formulas with cell addresses. Section 8.3.1 of ODF 1.1 says that addresses in formulas "start with a "[" and end with a "]"." In Excel 2007 cell addresses were not enclosed with the necessary square brackets." The ISO/IEC 26300 specification states that the semantics and the syntax is dependant on the used namespace which is implementation dependent leaving the syntax implementation defined as well.
Microsoft stated that they consider adding support for an official ODF formula language (OpenFormula
), once a future version of the ISO/IEC 26300 standard specification includes one.
Microsoft's ODF spreadsheet support in SP2 is not fully inter-operable with other implementations of OpenDocument, such as the IBM Symphony, which use the non-standardized OpenOffice.org 2.x formula language, and OpenOffice.org 3.x, which uses a draft of OpenFormula. The company had previously reportedly stated that "where ODF 1.1 is ambiguous or incomplete, the Office implementation can be guided by current practice in OpenOffice.org, mainly, and other implementations including KOffice and AbiWord. Peter Amstein and the Microsoft Office team are reluctant to make liberal use of extension mechanisms, even though provided in ODF 1.1. They want to avoid all appearance of an embrace-extend attempt."
The EU investigated Microsoft Office OpenDocument Format support to see if it provided consumers greater choice.
which strips Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents of information such as author name and comments and other "metadata".
s have been eliminated in favour of a new online help system. One of its features is the extensive use of Super Tooltips, which explain in about one paragraph what each function performs. Some of them also use diagrams or pictures. These appear and disappear like normal tooltips, and replace normal tooltips in many areas. The Help content also directly integrates searching and viewing Office Online articles.
. Excel server exposes Excel Services, which allows any worksheet to be created, edited and maintained via web browsers. It features Excel Web Access, the client-side component which is used to render the worksheet on a browser, Excel Calculation Service which is the server side component which populates the worksheet with data and perform calculations, and Excel Web Services that extends Excel functionalities into individual web services. SharePoint can also be used to host Word documents for collaborative editing
, by sharing a document. SharePoint can also be used to hold PowerPoint slides in a Slide Library, from which the slides can be used as a formatting template. It will also notify users of a slide automatically in case the source slide is modified. Also by using SharePoint, PowerPoint can manage shared review of presentations. Any SharePoint hosted document can be accessed from the application which created the document or from other applications such as a browser or Microsoft Office Outlook.
paradigm. Groove can host documents, including presentations, workbooks and others, created in Microsoft Office 2007 application in a shared workspace, which can then be used in collaborative editing of documents. Groove can also be used in managing workspace sessions, including access control of the workspace. To collaborate on one or more documents, a Workspace has to be created, and then those who are to work on it have to be invited. Any file shared on the workspace are automatically shared among all participants. The application also provides real-time messaging, including one-to-one as well as group messaging, and presence features, as well as monitoring workspace activities with alerts, which are raised when pre-defined set of activities are detected. Groove also provides features for conflict resolution for conflicting edits. Schedules for a collaboration can also be decided by using a built-in shared calendar, which can also be used to keep track of the progress of a project. However, the calendar is not compatible with Microsoft Outlook.
Quick Styles are galleries with a range of styles based on the current theme. There are quick styles galleries for text, tables, charts, SmartArt, WordArt and more. The style range goes from simple/light to more graphical/darker.
Microsoft Office Outlook can also include an optional Business Contact Manager (included on a separate installation disc in Office 2007 Small Business and above) which allows management of business contacts and their sales and marketing activities. Phone calls, e-mails, appointments, notes and other business metrics can be managed for each contact. It can also keep a track of billable time for each contact on the Outlook Calendar. Based on these data, a consolidated report view can be generated by Microsoft Office Outlook with Business Contact Manager. The data can be further analyzed using Microsoft Office Excel. This data can also be shared using SharePoint Services.
for users of SharePoint. People who don't use SharePoint can use Microsoft Expression Web.
SharePoint Server allows searching of all Office documents which are being managed by it, centrally, thereby making data more accessible. It also provides access control for documents. Specialized server components can plug into the SharePoint Server to extend the functionality of the server, such as Excel Services exposing data analysis services for Excel services. Data from other data sources can also be merged with Office data.
SharePoint also lets users personalize the SharePoint sites, filtering content they are interested in. SharePoint documents can also be locally cached by clients for offline editing; the changes are later merged.
2007 in the enterprise. It enables using Active Directory
for Groove user accounts, and create Groove Domains, with individual policy settings. It allows Groove workspaces to be hosted at the server, and the files in the workspaces made available for collaborative editing via the Groove client. It also includes the Groove Server Data Bridge component to allow communication between data stored at both Groove clients and servers and external applications.
wrote that the new "ribbon" interface crowds the Office work area, especially for notebook users. Others have called its large icons distracting. Essentially, the GUI-type interface of the ribbon contrasts sharply with the older menus that were organized according to the typical functions undertaken in paper-based offices: for instance, the old "File" menu dealt with opening, (re-)naming, saving, and printing a file, and the old "Edit" menu dealt with making changes to the content of the file. As a result, users who were more familiar with the logic of the old menus would feel some frustration with the new, more visually oriented ribbon. PC World has stated that upgrading to Office 2007 presents dangers to certain data, such as templates, macros, and mail messages. The ribbon cannot be moved from the top to the side of the page, as floating toolbars could be.
Some users with experience using previous versions of Microsoft Office have complained about having to find features in the Ribbon. Others state that having learnt to use the new interface, it has improved the speed with which "professional-looking" documents can be created. Microsoft has released a series of small programs, help sheets, videos and add-ins to help users learn the new interface more quickly.
The Microsoft Word 2007 equation editor, which uses MathML
, is also incompatible with that of Microsoft Word 2003 and previous versions. Upon converting Microsoft Word 2007 .docx files to .doc files, equations are rendered as graphics. On June 6, 2007, Inera Inc. revealed that Science
and Nature
refused to accept manuscripts prepared in Microsoft Word 2007 .docx format; subsequently Inera Inc. informed Microsoft that Microsoft Word 2007's file format impairs usability for scholarly publishing. Nature still does not support Office Open XML format; Science however, accepts this format but discourages its use.
publication format, are made freely available by third parties.
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
version of the Microsoft Office System
Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office is a non-free commercial office suite of inter-related desktop applications, servers and services for the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems, introduced by Microsoft in August 1, 1989. Initially a marketing term for a bundled set of applications, the first version of...
, Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
's productivity suite
Office suite
In computing, an office suite, sometimes called an office software suite or productivity suite is a collection of programs intended to be used by knowledge workers...
. Formerly known as Office 12 in the initial stages of its beta cycle, it was released to volume license
Volume license key
Volume License Key is a term used by many computer software companies to denote the product key used when installing software licensed under volume licensing, which allows a single product key to be used for multiple installations....
customers on November 30, 2006 and made available to retail customers on January 30, 2007. These are, respectively, the same dates Windows Vista
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
was released to volume licensing and retail customers. Office 2007 contains a number of new features, the most notable of which is the entirely new graphical user interface
Graphical user interface
In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...
called the Fluent User Interface (initially referred to as the Ribbon User Interface
Ribbon (computing)
In GUI-based application software, a ribbon is an interface where a set of toolbars are placed on tabs in a tab bar. Recent releases of some Microsoft applications have embraced this form with a modular ribbon as their main interface. The Ribbon is a contextual interface that offers functionality...
), replacing the menus and toolbars – which have been the cornerstone of Office since its inception – with a tabbed toolbar, known as the Ribbon. Office 2007 requires Windows XP
Windows XP
Windows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base...
with Service Pack 2 or higher, Windows Server 2003
Windows Server 2003
Windows Server 2003 is a server operating system produced by Microsoft, introduced on 24 April 2003. An updated version, Windows Server 2003 R2, was released to manufacturing on 6 December 2005...
with Service Pack 1 or higher, Windows Vista or Windows 7. Office 2007 is the last version of Microsoft Office which is officially supported on Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition released on April 25, 2005 is an edition of Windows XP for x86-64 personal computers. It is designed to use the expanded 64-bit memory address space provided by the x86-64 architecture....
.
The 'Ribbon User Interface' is a task-oriented Graphical User Interface (GUI
Gui
Gui or guee is a generic term to refer to grilled dishes in Korean cuisine. These most commonly have meat or fish as their primary ingredient, but may in some cases also comprise grilled vegetables or other vegetarian ingredients. The term derives from the verb, "gupda" in Korean, which literally...
). It features a central menu button, widely known as the 'Office Button'. The Ribbon Interface has been improved in Microsoft Office 2010.
Office 2007 also includes new applications and server-side tools. Chief among these is Groove, a collaboration and communication suite for smaller businesses, which was originally developed by Groove Networks
Groove Networks
Groove Networks was a software company based in Beverly, Massachusetts. Founded by Ray Ozzie, the creator of IBM's Lotus Notes application, the privately held company specialized in productivity software that allows multiple users to work collaboratively on computer files simultaneously.On...
before being acquired by Microsoft in 2005. Also included is Office SharePoint Server 2007, a major revision to the server platform for Office applications, which supports "Excel Services
Excel Services
Excel Services is a new server technology included in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. This shared service enables users to load, calculate, and display Excel 2007 workbooks on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007....
", a client-server architecture for supporting Excel workbooks that are shared in real time between multiple machines, and are also viewable and editable through a web page.
Microsoft FrontPage
Microsoft FrontPage
Microsoft FrontPage was a WYSIWYG HTML editor and web site administration tool from Microsoft for the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems. It was branded as part of the Microsoft Office suite from 1997 to 2003...
has been removed from the Office suite entirely. It has been replaced by Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer, which is aimed towards development of SharePoint portals. Its designer-oriented counterpart Microsoft Expression Web
Microsoft Expression Web
Microsoft Expression Web, code-named Quartz, is an HTML editor and general web design software product by Microsoft. It is part of the Expression Studio suite....
is targeted for general web development. However, neither application has been included in Office 2007.
Speech recognition
Speech recognition
Speech recognition converts spoken words to text. The term "voice recognition" is sometimes used to refer to recognition systems that must be trained to a particular speaker—as is the case for most desktop recognition software...
and handwriting recognition
Handwriting recognition
Handwriting recognition is the ability of a computer to receive and interpret intelligible handwritten input from sources such as paper documents, photographs, touch-screens and other devices. The image of the written text may be sensed "off line" from a piece of paper by optical scanning or...
are now part of Windows Vista. Speech and ink components have been removed from Office 2007. Handwriting and speech recognition work with Office 2007 only on Windows Vista or Windows XP Tablet PC Edition. However, XP users can use an earlier version of Office to use speech recognition.
According to Forrester Research
Forrester Research
Forrester Research is an independent technology and market research company that provides its clients with advice about technology's impact on business and consumers. Forrester Research has five research centers in the US: Cambridge, Massachusetts; New York, New York; San Francisco, California;...
, as of May 2010, Microsoft Office 2007 is used in 81% of enterprises it surveyed (its sample comprising 115 North American and European enterprise and SMB decision makers).
Development
The first beta of Microsoft Office 2007, referred to as Beta-1 in emails sent to a limited number of testers, was released on November 16, 2005. The Beta-1 Technical Refresh was released to testers on March 13, 2006. The Technical Refresh fixed issues in installing with Windows Vista build 5308.Microsoft revealed the Ribbon UI on March 9, 2006 at CeBIT
CeBIT
CeBIT is the world's largest and most international computer expo. CeBIT is held each year on the world's largest fairground in Hanover, Germany, and is a barometer of the state of the art in information technology...
in Germany.
Office 2007 Beta 2 was announced by Bill Gates
Bill Gates
William Henry "Bill" Gates III is an American business magnate, investor, philanthropist, and author. Gates is the former CEO and current chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen...
at WinHEC
Windows Hardware Engineering Conference
The Windows Hardware Engineering Conference is the annual software and hardware developer-oriented trade show and business conference where Microsoft elaborates on its hardware plans for Microsoft Windows-compatible PCs...
2006, and was initially released to the public at no cost from Microsoft's web site. However, because of an unprecedented number of downloads, a fee of $1.50 was introduced for each product downloaded after August 2, 2006. The beta was updated on September 14, 2006 in Beta 2 Technical Refresh (Beta2TR). It included an updated user interface, better accessibility support, improvements in the robustness of the platform, and greater functionality.
The beta versions continued to function in a reduced functionality mode after February 1, 2007. If users downloaded the Technical Refresh to update Beta 2, then users could use its full functionality until March 31, 2007 for client products and May 15, 2007 for server products. The Beta program ended on November 8, 2006, when Microsoft declared the product "Released to Manufacturing" (RTM) and started manufacturing the final product. After RTM, the availability of the beta download ended.
Office 2007 was released to volume licensing customers on November 30, 2006, and to the general public on January 30, 2007.
Service Pack 1
Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 1 was released on December 11, 2007.Microsoft published a list of changes. Official documentation claims that SP1 is not simply a rollup of publicly released patches, but that it also contains fixes for 455 total issues throughout the entire Office suite.
Service Pack 2
Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 2 was released on April 28, 2009. Service Pack 2 is inclusive of Office 2007 Service Pack 1. It added improved support of ODFOpenDocument
The Open Document Format for Office Applications is an XML-based file format for representing electronic documents such as spreadsheets, charts, presentations and word processing documents....
, XPS, and PDF
Portable Document Format
Portable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
standards as well as a large number of bug fixes.
Service Pack 3
Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 3 was released on October 25, 2011. Service Pack 3 is a cumulative update, all updates from Service Pack 1 and Service Pack 2 are included.Contents
- Microsoft WordMicrosoft WordMicrosoft Word is a word processor designed by Microsoft. It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS , the Apple Macintosh , the AT&T Unix PC , Atari ST , SCO UNIX,...
2007 - Microsoft ExcelMicrosoft ExcelMicrosoft Excel is a proprietary commercial spreadsheet application written and distributed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications...
2007 - Microsoft PowerPointMicrosoft PowerPointMicrosoft PowerPoint, usually just called PowerPoint, is a non-free commercial presentation program developed by Microsoft. It is part of the Microsoft Office suite, and runs on Microsoft Windows and Apple's Mac OS X operating system...
2007 - Microsoft AccessMicrosoft AccessMicrosoft Office Access, previously known as Microsoft Access, is a relational database management system from Microsoft that combines the relational Microsoft Jet Database Engine with a graphical user interface and software-development tools. It is a member of the Microsoft Office suite of...
2007 - Microsoft InfoPathMicrosoft InfoPathMicrosoft Office InfoPath is a software application for designing, distributing, filling and submitting electronic forms containing structured data...
2007 - Microsoft OneNote 2007
- Microsoft OutlookMicrosoft OutlookMicrosoft Outlook is a personal information manager from Microsoft, available both as a separate application as well as a part of the Microsoft Office suite...
2007 - Microsoft PublisherMicrosoft PublisherMicrosoft Publisher is a desktop publishing application from Microsoft. It is an entry-level application, differing from Microsoft Word in that the emphasis is placed on page layout and design rather than text composition and proofing...
2007 - Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 (Service Pack 2 Required)
- Microsoft Groove 2007
- Microsoft SharePoint DesignerMicrosoft SharePoint DesignerMicrosoft SharePoint Designer is a specialized HTML editor and web design freeware for creating or modifying Microsoft SharePoint sites and web pages. It is a part of Microsoft SharePoint family of products...
2007 (free, downloadable product) - Microsoft VisioMicrosoft VisioMicrosoft Visio , formerly known as Microsoft Office Visio, is a commercial diagramming program for Microsoft Windows that uses vector graphics to create diagrams.- Features :...
2007 (not included in any Office 2007 Package) - Microsoft ProjectMicrosoft ProjectMicrosoft Project is a project management software program, developed and sold by Microsoft, which is designed to assist a project manager in developing a plan, assigning resources to tasks, tracking progress, managing the budget, and analyzing workloads.The application creates critical path...
2007 (not included in any Office 2007 Package)
Comparison
| Programs and Features | Basic | Home and Student | Small Business | Professional | Ultimate | Professional Plus | Enterprise | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Licensing | OEM | OEM and Retail | Retail and Volume | OEM, Retail, and Volume | OEM and Retail | Retail | Volume | Volume |
| Word Microsoft Word Microsoft Word is a word processor designed by Microsoft. It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS , the Apple Macintosh , the AT&T Unix PC , Atari ST , SCO UNIX,... |
||||||||
| Excel Microsoft Excel Microsoft Excel is a proprietary commercial spreadsheet application written and distributed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications... |
||||||||
| PowerPoint Microsoft PowerPoint Microsoft PowerPoint, usually just called PowerPoint, is a non-free commercial presentation program developed by Microsoft. It is part of the Microsoft Office suite, and runs on Microsoft Windows and Apple's Mac OS X operating system... |
||||||||
| OneNote | ||||||||
| Outlook Microsoft Outlook Microsoft Outlook is a personal information manager from Microsoft, available both as a separate application as well as a part of the Microsoft Office suite... |
||||||||
| Publisher Microsoft Publisher Microsoft Publisher is a desktop publishing application from Microsoft. It is an entry-level application, differing from Microsoft Word in that the emphasis is placed on page layout and design rather than text composition and proofing... |
||||||||
| Access Microsoft Access Microsoft Office Access, previously known as Microsoft Access, is a relational database management system from Microsoft that combines the relational Microsoft Jet Database Engine with a graphical user interface and software-development tools. It is a member of the Microsoft Office suite of... |
||||||||
| Communicator1 | 1 | 1 | ||||||
| InfoPath Microsoft InfoPath Microsoft Office InfoPath is a software application for designing, distributing, filling and submitting electronic forms containing structured data... |
||||||||
| Groove | ||||||||
| Project Microsoft Project Microsoft Project is a project management software program, developed and sold by Microsoft, which is designed to assist a project manager in developing a plan, assigning resources to tasks, tracking progress, managing the budget, and analyzing workloads.The application creates critical path... |
||||||||
| Visio Microsoft Visio Microsoft Visio , formerly known as Microsoft Office Visio, is a commercial diagramming program for Microsoft Windows that uses vector graphics to create diagrams.- Features :... |
||||||||
| Office Customization Tool (OCT)2 |
- Remarks:
- 1 Service Pack 2 added this program for select office 2007 suites (listed as "Yes").
- 2 Office Customization Tool is used to customize the installation of Office 2007 by creating a Windows Installer patch file (.MSP) and replacing the Custom Installation Wizard and Custom Deployment Wizard included in earlier versions of the Office Resource Kit which created a Windows Installer Transform (.MST).
Additional Components
Microsoft markets additional software tools as part of the Microsoft Office 2007 suite, although not included in any of the Microsoft Office 2007 editions:- Microsoft Office Project
- Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer
- Microsoft Office Visio
Additional Notes
Eligible employees of companies with Volume License agreements for Office can obtain copies for use on a home computer.- Additional tools include enterprise content managementEnterprise content managementEnterprise Content Management is a formalized means of organizing and storing an organization's documents, and other content, that relate to the organization's processes...
, electronic forms, and Information Rights ManagementInformation Rights ManagementInformation Rights Management is a term that applies to a technology which protects sensitive information from unauthorised access. It is sometimes referred to as or Enterprise Digital Rights Management...
capabilities - As noted on the packaging, below the comparison grid on the back, the OEM and Retail Home and Student 2007 edition is not licensed for commercial, non-profit, or any revenue-generating use. This is displayed in the actual programs themselves with a line of text after the program name.
User interface
The new user interface (UI), officially known as Fluent User Interface, has been implemented in the core Microsoft Office applications: WordMicrosoft Word
Microsoft Word is a word processor designed by Microsoft. It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS , the Apple Macintosh , the AT&T Unix PC , Atari ST , SCO UNIX,...
, Excel
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Excel is a proprietary commercial spreadsheet application written and distributed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications...
, PowerPoint
Microsoft PowerPoint
Microsoft PowerPoint, usually just called PowerPoint, is a non-free commercial presentation program developed by Microsoft. It is part of the Microsoft Office suite, and runs on Microsoft Windows and Apple's Mac OS X operating system...
, Access
Microsoft Access
Microsoft Office Access, previously known as Microsoft Access, is a relational database management system from Microsoft that combines the relational Microsoft Jet Database Engine with a graphical user interface and software-development tools. It is a member of the Microsoft Office suite of...
, and in the item inspector used to create or edit individual items in Outlook
Microsoft Outlook
Microsoft Outlook is a personal information manager from Microsoft, available both as a separate application as well as a part of the Microsoft Office suite...
. These applications have been selected for the UI overhaul because they center around document authoring. The rest of the applications in the suite will also be changed to the new UI in subsequent versions. The default font used in this edition is Calibri
Calibri
Calibri is a humanist sans-serif typeface family under the Microsoft ClearType Font Collection.In Microsoft Office 2007, it replaced Times New Roman as the default typeface in Word and replaced Arial as the default in PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, and WordPad...
. Original prototypes of the new user interface were revealed at MIX
MIX (Microsoft)
MIX is a Microsoft conference held annually for web developers and designers at which Microsoft showcases upcoming web technologies. The conference is held each spring at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas...
2008 in Las Vegas
Las Vegas Strip
The Las Vegas Strip is an approximately stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard in Clark County, Nevada; adjacent to, but outside the city limits of Las Vegas proper. The Strip lies within the unincorporated townships of Paradise and Winchester...
.
Office button
Assistive technology
Assistive technology or adaptive technology is an umbrella term that includes assistive, adaptive, and rehabilitative devices for people with disabilities and also includes the process used in selecting, locating, and using them...
improvement is that the Office button follows Fitt's law.
Ribbon
The RibbonRibbon (computing)
In GUI-based application software, a ribbon is an interface where a set of toolbars are placed on tabs in a tab bar. Recent releases of some Microsoft applications have embraced this form with a modular ribbon as their main interface. The Ribbon is a contextual interface that offers functionality...
, a panel that houses a fixed arrangement of command buttons and icons, organizes commands as a set of tabs
Tab (GUI)
In the area of graphical user interfaces , a tabbed document interface is one that allows multiple documents to be contained within a single window, using tabs as a navigational widget for switching between sets of documents...
, each grouping relevant commands. The Ribbon is present in Microsoft Word 2007, Excel 2007, PowerPoint 2007, Access 2007 and some Outlook 2007 windows. The Ribbon is not user customizable in Office 2007. Each application has a different set of tabs which expose the functionality that application offers. For example, while Excel has a tab for the graphing capabilities, Word does not; instead it has tabs to control the formatting of a text document. Within each tab, various related options may be grouped together. The Ribbon is designed to make the features of the application more discoverable and accessible with fewer mouse clicks as compared to the menu-based UI used prior to Office 2007. However, many users feel that the existing menus should have been left alone. An online survey reports the ribbon menu has decreased productivity by an average of 20% for users. Moving the mouse scroll wheel while on any of the tabs on the ribbon cycles—through the tabs. The Ribbon can be minimized by double clicking the active section's title, such as the Home text in the picture below. Without third party add-ins, it is not possible to remove the Ribbon, modify it, or replace it with menus with the normal Office 2007 functions. There are third party add-ins which can be purchased that can bring menus and toolbars to Office 2007 as well as add-ins which allow users to customize the Ribbon commands. Add-ins that restore the ability to use a standard Windows menus and toolbars interface include Classic Menu for Office, ToolbarToggle, and Ubitmenu. Others like RibbonCustomizer enable the customization of the Ribbon interface. Office 2010 does allow user customization of the ribbon out of the box.
Contextual Tabs
Some tabs, called Contextual Tabs, appear only when certain objects are selected. Contextual Tabs expose functionality specific only to the object with focus. For example, selecting a picture brings up the Pictures tab, which presents options for dealing with the picture. Similarly, focusing on a table exposes table-related options in a specific tab. Contextual Tabs remain hidden except when an applicable object is selected.Live Preview
Microsoft Office 2007 also introduces a feature called "Live Preview", which temporarily applies formatting on the focused text or object when any formatting button is moused-over. The temporary formatting is removed when the mouse pointer is moved from the button. This allows users to have a preview of how the option would affect the appearance of the object, without actually applying it.Mini Toolbar
The new "Mini Toolbar" is a type of context menu that is automatically shown (by default) when text is selected. The purpose of this feature is to provide easy access to the most-used formatting commands without requiring a right-mouse-button click, as was necessary in older versions of the software. Because the Mini Toolbar is automatically displayed, it remains semi-transparent until the mouse pointer is situated on the control in order to allow an almost-unobstructed view of what is beneath it. It also appears above the right-click menu when a user right-clicks on a selection of words. The Mini Toolbar is currently not customizable, but can be turned off.Quick Access Toolbar
The Quick Access toolbar, which sits in the title bar, serves as a repository of most used functions, regardless of which application is being used, such as save, undo/redo and print. The Quick Access toolbar is customizable, although this feature is limited compared to toolbars in previous Office versions. Any command available in the entire Office application can be added to the Quick Access toolbar, including commands not available in the Ribbon and macros. Keyboard shortcuts for any of the commands on the toolbar are also fully customizable, similar to previous Office versions.Other UI features
- Super-tooltips, or screentips, that can house formatted text and even images, are used to provide detailed descriptions of what most buttons do.
- A zoom slider present in the bottom-right corner, allowing for dynamic and rapid magnification of documents.
- The status bar is fully customizable. Users can right click the status bar and add or remove what they want the status bar to display.
SmartArt
SmartArt, found under the Insert tab in the ribbon in PowerPoint, Word, Excel, and Outlook, is a new group of editable and formatted diagrams. There are 115 preset SmartArt graphics layout templates in categories such as list, process, cycle, and hierarchy. When an instance of a SmartArt is inserted, a Text Pane appears next to it to guide the user through entering text in the hierarchical levels. Each SmartArt graphic, based on its design, maps the text outline, automatically resized for best fit, onto the graphic. There are a number of "quick styles" for each graphic that apply largely different 3D effects to the graphic, and the graphic's shapes and text can be formatted through shape styles and WordArt styles. In addition, SmartArt graphics change their colors, fonts, and effects to match the document's theme.Office Open XML
Microsoft Office 2007 introduced a new file format, called Office Open XML, as the default file format. Such files are saved using an extra X letter in their extension (.docx/xlsx/pptx/etc.). However, it can still save documents in the old format which is compatible with previous versions. Alternatively, Microsoft has made available a free add-on known as the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack that lets Office 2000, XP, and 2003 open, edit, and save documents created under the newer 2007 format.Office Open XML is based on XML
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
and uses the ZIP
ZIP (file format)
Zip is a file format used for data compression and archiving. A zip file contains one or more files that have been compressed, to reduce file size, or stored as is...
file container. According to Microsoft, documents created in this format are up to 75% smaller than the same documents saved with previous Microsoft Office file formats, owing to the ZIP data compression.
Files containing macros are saved with an extra M letter in their extension instead (.docm/xlsm/pptm/etc.).
Portable Document Format
Portable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
in Office 2007. However, due to legal objections from Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...
, Office 2007 originally did not offer PDF support out of the box, but rather as a separate free download. However, starting with Service Pack 2, Office allows users to natively export PDF files.
XPS
Office 2007 documents can also be exported as XPSXML Paper Specification
Open XML Paper Specification , is an open specification for a page description language and a fixed-document format originally developed by Microsoft as XML Paper Specification that was later standardized by Ecma International as international standard ECMA-388...
documents. This is part of service pack 2 and prior to that, was available as a free plug-in in a separate download.
OpenDocument
Microsoft backs an open-source effort to support OpenDocumentOpenDocument
The Open Document Format for Office Applications is an XML-based file format for representing electronic documents such as spreadsheets, charts, presentations and word processing documents....
in Office 2007, as well as earlier versions (up to Office 2000), through a converter add-in for Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and also a command-line utility. As of 2008, the project supports conversion between ODF and Office Open XML file formats for all three applications. According to ODF Alliance this support falls short and substantial improvements are still needed for interoperability in real-world situations.
Third-party plugins able to read, edit and save to the ISO-standard Open Document Format (ODF) are available as a separate download.
Office 2007 Service Pack 2 adds native support for the OpenDocument
OpenDocument
The Open Document Format for Office Applications is an XML-based file format for representing electronic documents such as spreadsheets, charts, presentations and word processing documents....
Format. The ODF Alliance has released test results on ODF support of Office 2007 SP2, concluding that Office ODF support, both SP2 and other add-ons, have "serious shortcomings that, left unaddressed, would break the open standards based interoperability that the marketplace, especially governments, is demanding". Particularly, SP2 has no support for encrypted ODF files and has limited interoperability with other ODF spreadsheet implementations.
The ISO/IEC 26300 OpenDocument standard specifies encryption of files
Encryption
In cryptography, encryption is the process of transforming information using an algorithm to make it unreadable to anyone except those possessing special knowledge, usually referred to as a key. The result of the process is encrypted information...
, which is based on sha1, Blowfish
Blowfish (cipher)
Blowfish is a keyed, symmetric block cipher, designed in 1993 by Bruce Schneier and included in a large number of cipher suites and encryption products. Blowfish provides a good encryption rate in software and no effective cryptanalysis of it has been found to date...
, and RFC 2898.
Microsoft Office 2007 SP2 does not support reading and writing encrypted (password protected) ODF files. Users are presented with a message: “cannot use password protection using the ODF format.”
The ISO/IEC 26300 OpenDocument standard has no spreadsheet formula language included (or referenced) in the standard specification. Office 2007 SP2 uses the spreadsheet formula language specified in the ISO/IEC 29500 Office Open XML open standard
Open standard
An open standard is a standard that is publicly available and has various rights to use associated with it, and may also have various properties of how it was designed . There is no single definition and interpretations vary with usage....
when creating ODF documents. According to the ODF Alliance report "ODF spreadsheets created in Excel 2007 SP2 do not in fact conform to ODF 1.1 because Excel 2007 incorrectly encodes formulas with cell addresses. Section 8.3.1 of ODF 1.1 says that addresses in formulas "start with a "[" and end with a "]"." In Excel 2007 cell addresses were not enclosed with the necessary square brackets." The ISO/IEC 26300 specification states that the semantics and the syntax is dependant on the used namespace which is implementation dependent leaving the syntax implementation defined as well.
Microsoft stated that they consider adding support for an official ODF formula language (OpenFormula
OpenFormula
OpenFormula is a draft open standard for exchanging recalculated formulae in spreadsheets, as well as the name of the project to refine this specification. OpenFormula is a draft addition to the OpenDocument standard . OpenFormula was proposed and initially drafted by David A...
), once a future version of the ISO/IEC 26300 standard specification includes one.
Microsoft's ODF spreadsheet support in SP2 is not fully inter-operable with other implementations of OpenDocument, such as the IBM Symphony, which use the non-standardized OpenOffice.org 2.x formula language, and OpenOffice.org 3.x, which uses a draft of OpenFormula. The company had previously reportedly stated that "where ODF 1.1 is ambiguous or incomplete, the Office implementation can be guided by current practice in OpenOffice.org, mainly, and other implementations including KOffice and AbiWord. Peter Amstein and the Microsoft Office team are reluctant to make liberal use of extension mechanisms, even though provided in ODF 1.1. They want to avoid all appearance of an embrace-extend attempt."
The EU investigated Microsoft Office OpenDocument Format support to see if it provided consumers greater choice.
Metadata
In Office 2007, Microsoft introduced the Document Inspector, an integral metadata removal toolMetadata removal tool
Metadata removal tool or Metadata scrubber is a type of privacy software built to protect the privacy of its users by removing potentially privacy-compromising metadata from files before they are shared with others Metadata removal tool or Metadata scrubber is a type of privacy software built to...
which strips Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents of information such as author name and comments and other "metadata".
User assistance system
In Microsoft Office 2007, the Office AssistantOffice Assistant
The Office Assistant was a Microsoft Office feature to assist users by way of an interactive animated character, which interfaced with the Office help content. It used technology initially from Microsoft Bob and later Microsoft Agent, offering advice based on Bayesian algorithms...
s have been eliminated in favour of a new online help system. One of its features is the extensive use of Super Tooltips, which explain in about one paragraph what each function performs. Some of them also use diagrams or pictures. These appear and disappear like normal tooltips, and replace normal tooltips in many areas. The Help content also directly integrates searching and viewing Office Online articles.
SharePoint
Microsoft Office 2007 includes features geared towards collaboration and data sharing. As such, Microsoft Office 2007 features server components for applications such as Excel, which work in conjunction with SharePoint Services, to provide a collaboration platform. SharePoint works with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, which is used to host a SharePoint site, and uses IIS and ASP.NET 2.0ASP.NET
ASP.NET is a Web application framework developed and marketed by Microsoft to allow programmers to build dynamic Web sites, Web applications and Web services. It was first released in January 2002 with version 1.0 of the .NET Framework, and is the successor to Microsoft's Active Server Pages ...
. Excel server exposes Excel Services, which allows any worksheet to be created, edited and maintained via web browsers. It features Excel Web Access, the client-side component which is used to render the worksheet on a browser, Excel Calculation Service which is the server side component which populates the worksheet with data and perform calculations, and Excel Web Services that extends Excel functionalities into individual web services. SharePoint can also be used to host Word documents for collaborative editing
Collaborative editing
Collaborative editing is the practice of groups producing works together through individual contributions. Effective choices in group awareness, participation, and coordination are critical to successful collaborative writing outcomes. Most usually it is applied to textual documents or...
, by sharing a document. SharePoint can also be used to hold PowerPoint slides in a Slide Library, from which the slides can be used as a formatting template. It will also notify users of a slide automatically in case the source slide is modified. Also by using SharePoint, PowerPoint can manage shared review of presentations. Any SharePoint hosted document can be accessed from the application which created the document or from other applications such as a browser or Microsoft Office Outlook.
Groove
Microsoft Office 2007 also includes Groove, which brings collaborative features to a peer-to-peerPeer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads among peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the application...
paradigm. Groove can host documents, including presentations, workbooks and others, created in Microsoft Office 2007 application in a shared workspace, which can then be used in collaborative editing of documents. Groove can also be used in managing workspace sessions, including access control of the workspace. To collaborate on one or more documents, a Workspace has to be created, and then those who are to work on it have to be invited. Any file shared on the workspace are automatically shared among all participants. The application also provides real-time messaging, including one-to-one as well as group messaging, and presence features, as well as monitoring workspace activities with alerts, which are raised when pre-defined set of activities are detected. Groove also provides features for conflict resolution for conflicting edits. Schedules for a collaboration can also be decided by using a built-in shared calendar, which can also be used to keep track of the progress of a project. However, the calendar is not compatible with Microsoft Outlook.
Themes and Quick Styles
Microsoft Office 2007 places more emphasis on Document Themes and Quick Styles. The Document Theme defines the colors, fonts and graphic effects for a document. Almost everything that can be inserted into a document is automatically styled to match the overall document theme creating a consistent document design. The new Office Theme file format (.THMX) is shared between Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook email messages. Similar themes are also available for data reports in Access and Project or shapes in Visio.Quick Styles are galleries with a range of styles based on the current theme. There are quick styles galleries for text, tables, charts, SmartArt, WordArt and more. The style range goes from simple/light to more graphical/darker.
Microsoft Office Word
- New style sheets (quick styles) and ability to switch easily among them.
- Default Font now 'Calibri' not 'Times New Roman', as featured in previous Office editions.
- Word count listed by default in the status bar. The word count dynamically updates as you type.
- New contextual spell checker, signified by a wavy blue underline analogous to the traditional wavy red underline for misspellings and wavy green underline for grammar errors, sometimes catches incorrect usage of correctly spelled words, such as in "I think we will loose this battle".
- Translation tool tip option available for English (U.S.), French (France), and Spanish (International Sort). When selected, hovering the mouse cursor over a word will display its translation in the particular language. Non-English versions have different sets of languages. Other languages can be added by using a separate multilingual pack.
- Automated generation of citations and bibliographies according to defined style rules, including APA, Chicago, and MLA. Changing style updates all references automatically. Connect to web services to access online reference databases.
- Rearchitected native mathematical equation support with TeXTeXTeX is a typesetting system designed and mostly written by Donald Knuth and released in 1978. Within the typesetting system, its name is formatted as ....
-like linear input/edit language or GUI interface. Also supports the Unicode Plain Text Encoding of Mathematics. - Preset gallery of cover pages with fields for Author, Title, Date, Abstract, etc. Cover pages follow the theme of the document (found under the Page Layout tab).
- Document comparison engine updated to support moves, differences in tables, and also easy to follow tri-pane view of original document, new document, and differences.
- Full screen reading layout that shows two pages at a time with maximal screen usage, plus a few critical tools for reviewing.
- Building Blocks, which lets one save frequently used content, so that they are easily accessible for further use. Building blocks can have data mapped controls in them to allow for form building or structured document authoring.
- The ability to save multiple versions of a document (which had existed since Word 97) has been removed.
- Blog entries can be authored in Word itself and uploaded directly to a blog. Supported blogging sites include Windows Live SpacesWindows Live SpacesWindows Live Spaces was Microsoft's blogging and social networking platform. The site was originally released in early 2004 as MSN Spaces to compete with other social networking sites, and re-launched in 2006 as a part of a shifting of community services away from the MSN brand...
, WordPressWordPressWordPress is a free and open source blogging tool and publishing platform powered by PHP and MySQL. It is often customized into a content management system . It has many features including a plug-in architecture and a template system. WordPress is used by over 14.7% of Alexa Internet's "top 1...
, SharePoint, BloggerBlogger (service)Blogger is a blog-publishing service that allows private or multi-user blogs with time-stamped entries. It was created by Pyra Labs, which was bought by Google in 2003. Generally, the blogs are hosted by Google at a subdomain of blogspot.com. Up until May 1, 2010 Blogger allowed users to publish...
, Telligent Community etc. - Drops function for Insert/Picture/From Scanner or Camera. Can be added manually.
- Drops the "Bullets and Numbering" dialog boxes and rich, easily controlled range of options for formatting Outline Numbered lists
Microsoft Office Outlook
- As a major change in Outlook 2007, Exchange 5.5 support has been dropped. Like EvolutionNovell EvolutionEvolution or Novell Evolution is the official personal information manager and workgroup information management tool for GNOME. It combines e-mail, calendar, address book, and task list management functions. It has been an official part of GNOME since version 2.8 in September 2004...
, Outlook ExpressOutlook ExpressOutlook Express is an email and news client that is included with Internet Explorer versions 4.0 through 6.0. As such, it is also bundled with several versions of Microsoft Windows, from Windows 98 to Windows Server 2003, and is available for Windows 3.x, Windows NT 3.51, Windows 95 and Mac OS 9...
and EntourageMicrosoft EntourageMicrosoft Entourage was an e-mail client and personal information manager developed by Microsoft for Mac OS 8.5 and higher. Microsoft first released Entourage in October 2000 as part of the Microsoft Office 2001 office suite; Office 98, the previous version of Microsoft Office for Mac OS included...
, Outlook now works only with Exchange 2000 and above. - Outlook now indexes (using the Windows SearchWindows SearchWindows Search is an indexed desktop search platform released by Microsoft for the Windows operating system....
APIs) the e-mails, contacts, tasks, calendar entries, RSSRSS (file format)RSS is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format...
feeds and other items, to speed up searches. As such, it features word-wheeled search, which displays results as characters are being typed in. - Search folders, which are saved searches, have been updated to include RSS feeds as well. Search folders can be created with a specific search criteria, specifying the subject, type and other attributes of the information being searched. When a search folder is opened, all matching items for the search are automatically retrieved and grouped up.
- Outlook now supports text-messages and SMSSMSSMS is a form of text messaging communication on phones and mobile phones. The terms SMS or sms may also refer to:- Computer hardware :...
s, when used in conjunction with Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging. - Outlook includes a reader for RSS feeds, which used the Windows Common Feeds Store. RSS subscription URLs can be shared via e-mails. RSS feed updates can also be pushed to a mobile device.
- Outlook can now support multiple calendars being worked with, simultaneously. It also includes a side-by-side view for calendars, where each calendar is displayed in a different tab, and allows easy comparison of them. Outlook also supports web calendars. Calendars can be shared with other users.
- Calendar view shows which tasks are due.
- Flagged e-mails and notes can also be converted to Task items.
- Outlook includes a To Do Bar, which integrates the calendar, appointments and tasks items, in a concise view.
- Online or offline editing of all Microsoft Office 2007 documents via a SharePoint site. All edits are automatically synchronized.
- Contacts can be shared among users, via e-mail, Exchange Server or a SharePoint site.
- Attachment preview allows users to view Office e-mail attachments in the reading pane rather than having to open another program.
- HTML in e-mails is now rendered using the Microsoft Word rendering engine which disallows several HTML tags like object, script, iframe etc. along with several CSS properties.
Microsoft Office Outlook can also include an optional Business Contact Manager (included on a separate installation disc in Office 2007 Small Business and above) which allows management of business contacts and their sales and marketing activities. Phone calls, e-mails, appointments, notes and other business metrics can be managed for each contact. It can also keep a track of billable time for each contact on the Outlook Calendar. Based on these data, a consolidated report view can be generated by Microsoft Office Outlook with Business Contact Manager. The data can be further analyzed using Microsoft Office Excel. This data can also be shared using SharePoint Services.
Microsoft Office Excel
- Support up to 1,048,576 rows and 16,384 columns (XFD) in a single worksheet, with 32,767 characters in a single cell (17,179,869,184 cells in a worksheet, 562,932,773,552,128 characters in a worksheet)
- Conditional Formatting introduces support for three new features — Color Scales, Icon Sets and Data Bars
- Color Scales, which automatically color the background of a group of cells with different colors according to the values.
- Icon sets, which precede the text in a cell with an icon that represent some aspect of the value of the cell with respect to other values in a group of cells, can also be applied. Icons can be conditionally applied to show up only when certain criteria are met, such as a cross showing up on an invalid value, where the condition for invalidity can be specified by the user.
- Data Bars show as a gradient bar in the background of a cell the contribution of the cell value in the group.
- Column titles can optionally show options to control the layout of the column.
- Multithreaded calculation of formulae, to speed up large calculations, especially on multi-core/multi-processor systems.
- User Defined Functions (UDF), which are custom functions written to supplement Excel's set of built-in functions, supports the increased number of cells and columns. UDFs now can also be multithreaded. Server side UDFs are based on the .NET Managed.NET FrameworkThe .NET Framework is a software framework that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It includes a large library and supports several programming languages which allows language interoperability...
code. - Importing data from external sources, such as a database, has been upgraded. Data can also be imported from formatted tables and reports, which do not have a regular grid structure.
- Formula Autocomplete, automatically suggests function names, arguments and named ranges, and automatically completing them if desired, based on the characters entered. Formulae can refer to a table as well.
- CUBE functions which allow importing data, including set aggregated data, from data analysis services, such as SQL Server Analysis Services.
- Page Layout view, to author spreadsheets in a way that mirrors the formatting that will be applied when printed.
- PivotTables, which are used to create analysis reports out of sets of data, can now support hierarchical data by displaying a row in the table with a "+" icon, which, when clicked, shows more rows regarding it, which can also be hierarchical. PivotTables can also be sorted and filtered independently, and conditional formatting used to highlight trends in the data.
- Filters, now includes a Quick filter option allowing the selection of multiple items from a drop down list of items in the column. The option to filter based on color has been added to the choices available.
- Excel features a new charting engine, which supports advanced formatting, including 3D rendering, transparencies and shadows. Chart layouts can also be customized to highlight various trends in the data.
Microsoft Office PowerPoint
- Improvements to text rendering to support text based graphics.
- Rendering of 3D graphics.
- Support for many more sound file formats such as .mp3MP3MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
and .wmaWindows Media AudioWindows Media Audio is an audio data compression technology developed by Microsoft. The name can be used to refer to its audio file format or its audio codecs. It is a proprietary technology that forms part of the Windows Media framework. WMA consists of four distinct codecs...
. - Support for tables and enhanced support for table pasting from Excel.
- Slide Library, which lets you reuse any slide or presentation as a template. Any presentation or slide can be published to the Slide Library.
- Any custom-designed slide library can be saved.
- Presentations can be digitally signed.
- Improved Presenter View.
- Added support for widescreen slides.
- Allows addition of custom placeholders.
- Drops function for Insert/Picture/From Scanner or Camera.
Microsoft Office OneNote
- OneNote now supports multiple notebooks.
- Notebooks can be shared across multiple computers. Anyone can edit even while not connected and changes are merged automatically across machines when a connection is made. Changes are labeled with author and change time/date.
- Notebook templates.
- Word-wheeled search is also present in OneNote, which also indexes notes.
- Synchronization of Tasks with Outlook 2007. Also Outlook can send mails to OneNote, or open pages in OneNote that are linked to tasks, contacts, appointments/meetings.
- Support for tables. Using tabs to create tabular structure automatically converts it to a table.
- OCR is performed on images (screen clips, photos, scans) so that any text in them is searchable.
- Audio and video recordings are also tagged and indexed, so that they can be searched.
- Notes can have hyperlinks among themselves, or from outside OneNote to a specific point on a page.
- Embedding documents in notes.
- Extensibility support for add-ins.
- Drawing tools for creating diagrams in OneNote.
- Typing any arithmetic expression, followed by "=" results in the result of the calculation being displayed.
- Send to Microsoft OneNote, via which any application can print to a virtual printer for OneNote and the "printed" document is imported to the notebook, and any text is indexed for searching.
- OneNote Mobile is included for Smartphones and some PocketPC devices. Syncs notes two-way with OneNote. Takes text, voice, and photo notes.
Microsoft Office Access
- Access now includes support for a broader range of data types, including documents and images.
- Whenever any table is updated, all reports referencing the table are also updated.
- Dropdown lists for a table can be modified in place.
- Lookup Fields, which get their values by "looking up" some value in a table, have been updated to support multi valued lookups.
- Many new preset schemata are included.
- Access can synchronize with Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Office SharePoint Server 2007. This feature enables a user to use Access reports while using a server-based, backed-up, IT managed version of the data.
Microsoft Office Publisher
- Templates automatically fill out with information such as company name, logo etc., wherever applicable.
- Frequently used content can be stored in Content Store for quick access.
- A document can be automatically converted from one publication type, such as a newsletter, to another publication type, say a web page.
- Save as PDF supports commercial printing quality PDF.
- Catalog Merge can create publication content automatically by retrieving data, including text, images and other supported types, from an external data source.
- Design Checker, which is used to find design inconsistencies, has been updated.
Microsoft Office InfoPath
- InfoPath designed forms can now be used from a browser, provided the server is running InfoPath Forms Services in SharePoint 2007 or Office Forms ServerMicrosoft Office Forms ServerMicrosoft Office Forms Server 2007 converts InfoPath client forms into html/ajax forms that can be accessed and filled out using any browser, including mobile phone browsers. Forms Server 2007 also supports using a database or other data source as the back-end for the form. Additionally, it allows...
. - A form can be sent out to people via e-mail. Such forms can be filled out from Outlook 2007 itself.
- Automatic conversion of forms in Word and Excel to InfoPath forms. Forms can also be exported to Excel.
- Forms can be published to a network share or to SharePoint Server.
- Adding data validation, using validation formulae, and conditional formatting features without manually writing code.
- Print Layout view for designing forms in a view that mirror the printed layout. Such forms can be opened using Word as well.
- Ability to use Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Office Access, or other databases as back-end data repository.
- Multiple views for the same forms, to expose different features to different class of users.
- Template Parts, used to group Office InfoPath controls for use later. Template parts retain its XML schema.
Microsoft Office Visio
- PivotDiagrams, which are used to visualize data, show data groups and hierarchical relationships.
- Visual modification of PivotDiagrams by dragging data around levels, to restructure the data relationships.
- PivotDiagrams can show aggregate statistical summaries for the data and show them.
- Shapes can be linked with external data sources. Doing so, the shapes are formatted according to the data. The data, and hence the shapes, are updated periodically. Such shapes can also be formatted manually using the Data Graphics feature.
- AutoConnect : Link easily two shapes.
- Data Link : Link data to shapes.
- Data Graphics : Dynamic objects (text and images) linked with external data.
- New Theme behaviour and new shapes.
Microsoft Office Project
- Ability to create custom templates.
- Any change in the project plan or schedule highlights everything else that is affected.
- Analyze changes without actually committing them. Changes can also be done and undone programmatically, to automate analysis of different changes.
- Improved cost resource management and analysis for projects.
- Project data can be used to automatically create charts and diagrams in Microsoft Office Excel and Microsoft Office Visio, respectively.
- The project schedule can be managed as 3D Gantt chartGantt chartA Gantt chart is a type of bar chart that illustrates a project schedule. Gantt charts illustrate the start and finish dates of the terminal elements and summary elements of a project. Terminal elements and summary elements comprise the work breakdown structure of the project. Some Gantt charts...
- Sharing project data with the help of SharePoint Services.
Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer
Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 is new addition to the Office suite replacing discontinued FrontPageMicrosoft FrontPage
Microsoft FrontPage was a WYSIWYG HTML editor and web site administration tool from Microsoft for the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems. It was branded as part of the Microsoft Office suite from 1997 to 2003...
for users of SharePoint. People who don't use SharePoint can use Microsoft Expression Web.
- Supports features and constructs that expose SharePoint functionality.
- Supports ASP.NET 2.0ASP.NETASP.NET is a Web application framework developed and marketed by Microsoft to allow programmers to build dynamic Web sites, Web applications and Web services. It was first released in January 2002 with version 1.0 of the .NET Framework, and is the successor to Microsoft's Active Server Pages ...
and Windows Workflow FoundationWindows Workflow FoundationWindows Workflow Foundation is a Microsoft technology that provides an API, an in-process workflow engine, and a rehostable designer to implement long-running processes as workflows within .NET applications...
. - Support for creating workflows and data reports, from external data sources.
- Allows XML data to be displayed using XSLTXSLTXSLT is a declarative, XML-based language used for the transformation of XML documents. The original document is not changed; rather, a new document is created based on the content of an existing one. The new document may be serialized by the processor in standard XML syntax or in another format,...
SharePoint Server 2007
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 allows sharing and collaborative editing of Office 2007 documents. It allows central storage of documents and management of Office documents, throughout the enterprise. These documents can be accessed either by the applications which created them, Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, or a web browser. Documents can also be managed through pre-defined policies that let users create and publish shared content, through a SharePoint site.SharePoint Server allows searching of all Office documents which are being managed by it, centrally, thereby making data more accessible. It also provides access control for documents. Specialized server components can plug into the SharePoint Server to extend the functionality of the server, such as Excel Services exposing data analysis services for Excel services. Data from other data sources can also be merged with Office data.
SharePoint also lets users personalize the SharePoint sites, filtering content they are interested in. SharePoint documents can also be locally cached by clients for offline editing; the changes are later merged.
Forms Server 2007
Microsoft Office Forms Server 2007 allows InfoPath forms to be accessed and filled out using any browser, including mobile phone browsers. Forms Server 2007 also supports using a database or other data source as the back-end for the form. Additionally, it allows centralized deployment and management of forms. Forms Server 2007 hosted forms also support data validation and conditional formatting, as does their InfoPath counterpart. It also supports advanced controls like Repeating section and Repeating table. However, some InfoPath controls cannot be used if it has to be hosted on a Forms server.Groove Server 2007
Microsoft Office Groove Server 2007 is for centrally managing all deployments of Microsoft Office GrooveMicrosoft Office Groove
Microsoft SharePoint Workspace, previously known as Microsoft Office Groove, is a desktop application designed for document collaboration in teams with members who are regularly off-line or who do not share the same network security clearance....
2007 in the enterprise. It enables using Active Directory
Active Directory
Active Directory is a directory service created by Microsoft for Windows domain networks. It is included in most Windows Server operating systems. Server computers on which Active Directory is running are called domain controllers....
for Groove user accounts, and create Groove Domains, with individual policy settings. It allows Groove workspaces to be hosted at the server, and the files in the workspaces made available for collaborative editing via the Groove client. It also includes the Groove Server Data Bridge component to allow communication between data stored at both Groove clients and servers and external applications.
Project Server 2007
Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 allows one to centrally manage and coordinate projects. It allows budget and resource tracking, and activity plan management. The project data and reports can also be further analyzed using Cube Building Service. The project management data can be accessed from a browser as well.Project Portfolio Server 2007
Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 allows creation of a project portfolio, including workflows, hosted centrally, so that the information is available throughout the enterprise, even from a browser. It also aids in centralized data aggregation regarding the project planning and execution, and in visualizing and analyzing the data to optimize the project plan. It can also support multiple portfolios per project, to track different aspects of it. It also includes reporting tools to create consolidated reports out of the project data.PerformancePoint Server 2007
Microsoft PerformancePoint Server allows users to monitor, analyze, and plan their business as well as drive alignment, accountability, and actionable insight across the entire organization. It includes features for scorecards, dashboards, reporting, analytics, budgeting and forecasting, among others.Removed features
The following Office 2003 features have been removed in Office 2007:- Fully customizable toolbarToolbarIn a graphical user interface, on a computer monitor, a toolbar is a GUI widget on which on-screen buttons, icons, menus, or other input or output elements are placed. Toolbars are seen in office suites, graphics editors, and web browsers...
s and menus for all of its applications Quick Access Toolbar and the Ribbon have limited customizability. Office 2010 reintroduced ribbon UI customizability. - Office AssistantOffice AssistantThe Office Assistant was a Microsoft Office feature to assist users by way of an interactive animated character, which interfaced with the Office help content. It used technology initially from Microsoft Bob and later Microsoft Agent, offering advice based on Bayesian algorithms...
- Speech recognition (included as part of Windows VistaWindows VistaWindows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
and later) - Handwriting recognition and ink features (included as part of Windows VistaWindows VistaWindows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
and later) - Ability to slipstreamSlipstream (computing)In computer jargon, to slipstream updates, patches or service packs means to integrate them into the installation files of their original software, so that the resulting files will allow a direct installation of the updated software....
service packService packA service pack is a collection of updates, fixes or enhancements to a software program delivered in the form of a single installable package. Many companies, such as Microsoft or Autodesk, typically release a service pack when the number of individual patches to a given program reaches a certain ...
s into the original setup files (administrative installation images) - Office Web Components
- Save My Settings Wizard
- Choice of local installation source allowing users to choose whether to keep a locally cached copy of installation source files or remove it. Setup files are now cached locally without user preference and cannot be removed. They are recreated by Office 2007 if removed.
- Several deployment-related utility resource kitResource KitResource Kit is a term used by Microsoft for a set of software resources and documentation released for their software products, but which is not part of that product...
tools. Some primary deployment tools ship with Office 2007 itself. - Office FileSearch object and File Search functionality from File menu
Ribbons
Even though the ribbon can be hidden, PC WorldPC World (magazine)
PC World is a global computer magazine published monthly by IDG. It offers advice on various aspects of PCs and related items, the Internet, and other personal-technology products and services...
wrote that the new "ribbon" interface crowds the Office work area, especially for notebook users. Others have called its large icons distracting. Essentially, the GUI-type interface of the ribbon contrasts sharply with the older menus that were organized according to the typical functions undertaken in paper-based offices: for instance, the old "File" menu dealt with opening, (re-)naming, saving, and printing a file, and the old "Edit" menu dealt with making changes to the content of the file. As a result, users who were more familiar with the logic of the old menus would feel some frustration with the new, more visually oriented ribbon. PC World has stated that upgrading to Office 2007 presents dangers to certain data, such as templates, macros, and mail messages. The ribbon cannot be moved from the top to the side of the page, as floating toolbars could be.
Some users with experience using previous versions of Microsoft Office have complained about having to find features in the Ribbon. Others state that having learnt to use the new interface, it has improved the speed with which "professional-looking" documents can be created. Microsoft has released a series of small programs, help sheets, videos and add-ins to help users learn the new interface more quickly.
Patenting controversy
Microsoft contractor Mike Gunderloy left Microsoft partially over his disagreement with the company's "sweeping land grab" including its attempt to patent the Ribbon interface. He says "Microsoft itself represents a grave threat to the future of software development through its increasing inclination to stifle competition through legal shenanigans." He says that by leaving Microsoft, he is “no longer contributing to the eventual death of programming.”Office Open XML
The new XML-based document file format in Microsoft Office 2007 is incompatible with previous versions of Microsoft Office unless an add-on is installed for the older version.The Microsoft Word 2007 equation editor, which uses MathML
MathML
Mathematical Markup Language is an application of XML for describing mathematical notations and capturing both its structure and content. It aims at integrating mathematical formulae into World Wide Web pages and other documents...
, is also incompatible with that of Microsoft Word 2003 and previous versions. Upon converting Microsoft Word 2007 .docx files to .doc files, equations are rendered as graphics. On June 6, 2007, Inera Inc. revealed that Science
Science (journal)
Science is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is one of the world's top scientific journals....
and Nature
Nature (journal)
Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
refused to accept manuscripts prepared in Microsoft Word 2007 .docx format; subsequently Inera Inc. informed Microsoft that Microsoft Word 2007's file format impairs usability for scholarly publishing. Nature still does not support Office Open XML format; Science however, accepts this format but discourages its use.
Bibliographies
The new Word 2007 features for bibliographies only support a small number of fixed citation styles. Using XSLT, new styles can be added. Some extra styles, such as the standard Association for Computing MachineryAssociation for Computing Machinery
The Association for Computing Machinery is a learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 as the world's first scientific and educational computing society. Its membership is more than 92,000 as of 2009...
publication format, are made freely available by third parties.