Office 2003 vs Office 2007

[LindyLouLou]

Hi
I currently have office 2000 and want to upgrade. I thought I would get 2007, but have read a few reviews about people advising that its too slow and prefer 2003. Is there much difference in functionality?

Also, (and this shows how much of a non-techie I am), how would I get all the documents I currently have in word, powerpoint etc from 2000 to whatever new version I go for - do they automatically transfer over???

Many thanks,

Lynne

[ChuckFickens]

There is no difference in functionality that the average user would ever encounter in office 2007... however the user interface has totally changed and you will have to pretty much relearn where everything is again. (I installed 2007 on my work computer, and uninstalled it and went back to 2003 a week later!)

2003 looks pretty much the same as 2000, and again the main functions are all there and pretty much in the same place.

I would ask why do you want to upgrade though? office 2000 is still a perfectly good and usable product

[LindyLouLou]

Hi ChuckFickens

Thanks for that. Thats a good point. The main reason is the extra features in powerpoint - I am a lecturer (with a charity, so still have office 2000 at work too) I use my own laptop and have spied other people with 2003 being able to do more!

[beso]

Office 2007 is a nightmare at first because of the totally redesigned Ribbon Interface. However once you get used to it, it is really is very good.

You can ease yourself into the learning curve by installing the Classic Office Menu plugin. It adds anoother tab to the ribbon that provides the original 2003 style menus and toolbars.

http://www.addintools.com

However if you computer is quite old you might have trouble. I assume it uses more memory and cpu power than earlier versions.

Formattng in Word 2007 is significantly improved. The formatting is applied to the document while you hover over the settings so you can see what it will look like before you select it.

Excel 2007 can handle more rows and columns then you could ever imagine using. Previously Excel was limited to 256 columns and 65536 rows.

Improvements in Access 2007 are awesome for serious database users. I would never go back now.

With PowerPoint beware. Saving presentations in compatibility mode is supposed to allow them to work in Powerpoint 2003 (XP). There can be problems with PP2000. If you give them to others to present also provide them with the free Powerpoint 2007 viewer available at the Microsoft site.

All previous versions of Office documents open in 2007.

And lastly there is the excellent save as pdf plugin which you can download from the Microsoft website for free.

[LindyLouLou]

Hi Beso

Thank you for your response. Its sounds like both good and bad, so am going to mull over it rather than rush anything. (I have newish PC and laptop with vista, so I think they should be OK)

Can I ask a few other things?

What is the 'ribbon interface'. I keep reading about it but a bit unsure!

Also, your comment about the all docs opening in 2007 - how do they get 'transferred' from one version to another. Does the new version just 'update' the old version- I am worried that I would have to delete the old version, (with my docs on) to load the new version.

Sorry if my questions sound so basic, even reading them back sounds daft to me, but I am better to know these things!!!

Thanks xxxx

[beso]

It is not true that Office 2007 is slower than than earlier versions. Once its new layout is mastered it is considerably faster.

The older versions hava a row of menus which drop down to access particular functions. Instead the Ribbon has several tabs with different groups of functions across each.

Once a particular function is selected a smaller ribbon opens above the main ribbon. This holds all the controls for the main function. For example selecting a table will automatically open the table editing mini ribbon. Much quicker than having to drill the menus to access table editing controls.

The main problem for those familiar with the old menu system is that the ribbon functions are in different groupings from the menus. For example, adding a page break or column break in Word was under the insert menu. They are now in the Page Layout Ribbon but people naturally look under the Insert Ribbon because that is where it used to be in the menu structure.

The Ribbon actually makes more sense in a way. Breaks are a page layout function along with margins, columns etc. Insert is for adding headers, footers, tables, images, text boxes, symbols, equasions, etc. Once you get your head around the concept it is easy.

The style selection buttons display the font they are set to use. This is so much better than the plain menu.

Functions you use regularly can be added to the Quick Access toolbar making them available in one click.

Incidentally, the scroll wheel moves through the ribbon tabs when the pointer is on the ribbon. This makes it quite easy to search the ribbons for the required function. Many users haven't discovered this trick and get frustrated clicking back and forwards through the tabs when they don't know the location of the what they are looking for.

[beso]

2007 opens earlier documents without conversion in what is called compatibility mode. This mode disables functions that cannot be saved in the old format. You can set 2007 to default to saving in the old format if you need to share files with old version users.

However old format users can download the compatibility pack which adds the capacity to open and save in the 2007 format. Highly recommended.

You can have multiple version of Office programs loaded on the same computer. However every time you change from one to another, the first time use setup routine will run. There is a simple registry hack to cure this behaviour.

Office 2007 documents use considerably less disk space than earlier formats because they are zipped. Indeed you can unzip them and see the component files inside. This is fabulous when you want to do a mass edit. I had to change the path of hundreds of links inside a Word document. I used a find and replace on the links file and changed them all in a second. It would have taken hours in the old version.

Incidentally, Microsoft support for Office 2000 ends in June 2010. After this no more security patches will be released. It probably doesn't worry most users but should be considered by anyone with security concerns.