Microsoft Office 12's Radical New Look
Posted by Harry McCracken | Tuesday, September 13, 2005 8:30 AM PT
Down in Los Angeles, Microsoft is holding its annual PDC conference for software developers, led off by a keynote by Bill Gates. Among the things that he's slated to show off is the user interface of the next version of Microsoft Office. We got a sneak peek at it yesterday--and much to our surprise, it's a radical departure, not just from Office 2003 and all previous versions, but from the basic look and feel that most Windows applications have had for as long as there's been a Windows.
How much of a departure? Here are some of the new elements in the suite upgrade, due next year and codenamed Office 12 (actual product name TBD--wonder if it'll be "Office Vista?").
The "Ribbon." With one fell swoop, this all-encompassing UI conceit mostly replaces drop-down menus, toolbars, dialog boxes, and task panes as we know them. The Ribbon is an oversized area at the top of the screen that holds formatting tools for an array of Office options. It's broken down into multiple panels, and the tools change both at your command and in context as you work with different elements in a document.
In general, Microsoft says, it's trying to revamp the Office interface so it's less about commands and more about results. So in the Ribbon and elsewhere, you often get What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get thumbnails of the results you'll get if you choose an option. (For instance, Excel has various cell formatting effects which you can view right in the Ribbon.)
The Ribbon looks awfully large, and the logical reaction is to grow suspicious that it's stealing screen space that would otherwise go to displaying your document. It
is big, but Microsoft describes its effect as a "Flat Tax" on screen real estate. Which means that the Ribbon stays the same size at all times, incorporating functions which would in the past have been accomplished through multiple toolbars and other elements which would have hogged additional space.
Real-time previews. When you select an item for formatting and run through options in the Ribbon (say, various fonts), your document will change to show how it would be affected by that formatting. (If this notion sounds familiar, you're probably a WordPerfect user--Corel's suite has had this for years.)
"Floaties." I'm guessing these will get a more serious-sounding name, but they're already useful-looking: In some places in Office, you'll get a pop-up menu of formatting options that appear right next to the document element that can be formatted. These look like a hybrid of today's right-click menus and Office's SmartTags...the former of which will also survive in the Office 12 interface, and the latter of which may also remain.
The whole goal of these changes, the company says, is to get more of the power of the applications into users' hands, putting features at your fingertips which are currently buried in menus. The new interface elements supercede the current interface in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access. In Outlook, they appear in the window in which you compose e-mail, but not elsewhere. (Microsoft says the new interface is tweaked for document creation, and isn't necessarily optimal for other types of work.)
Other apps that are nominally part of the Office family, such as Publisher and Visio, won't use the new interface at first, according to Microsoft, but may pick it up eventually.
One of the first questions out of my mouth at our demo was, "Is there a 'Go Back to the Old Office look and feel' mode?" The answer is...no, absolutely not. Microsoft's so confident in this new approach that it'll be the only interface option in Office 12.
Microsoft hasn't released a beta version of Office 12 yet, so all I can show you are some sample images that the company is distributing. Here's a closeup of part of the Word interface (click on it, and the other screen images below, to see the whole screen in question):
A couple of things of note about the above screen:
Those items such as "References" and "Mailings" don't lead to drop-down menus. Click on one, and the Ribbon changes, revealing a different set of tools. (There's still a File drop-down menu, but it leads to a more visual, interactive menu than we're used to.)
Unlike the current Office, a lot of the tools in Office 12 involve showing canned formatting effects and letting you apply them with a click. Such as the type effects in the above screen's "Quick Formatting" section. (Tools for manually formatting documents are still there in the new suite, but it looks like they'll be played down.)
Here's a bit of a PowerPoint screen showing the Ribbon in that application, complete with drawing and formatting tools:
And here's a taste of the new Access interface:
What to make of all this? I suspect that a lot of the initial reaction to this change will be really negative. Microsoft, after all, has a history of tweaking the Office interface in ways which end up being either reviled or ignored by most of the world at large. (I was present at the reviewer's workshop in 1996 or thereabouts at which the company unveiled "Clippy"--the shortly-to-be-infamous talking paperclip--and explained how its research showed he'd be loved by newbies and IT pros alike.)
It
is natural to approach this makeover with a healthy dash of skepticism. But my initial reaction based on an hour of demo is this: "Microsoft is doing something really ambitious, in reaction to real problems with today's bloatware--it'll be interesting to see if they can pull it off." That's lot more hopeful than my initial reaction upon learning about Clippy all those years ago, which was "Is this some sort of perverse practical joke?"
Until we can try the software for ourselves--and let you know what we think--we've got more questions than answers. Such as these...
Will people be willing to give the new look a shot? If you commit to Office 12, you're going to commit to this new interface and the learning curve it requires...no looking back. It'll be fascinating to learn how many people are willing to make the leap, and how quickly they do it.
Will the new interface break anything? Microsoft says that most macros, Visual Basic customizations, and other third-party tweaks to the Office apps should still work in Office 12. I'm guessing that there will be at least some high-profile problems. (It's unclear to me, for instance, how an add-in that adds items to menus will work if Office
doesn't have menus as we know them.)
Is inconsistency going to be a problem? The new Office isn't even going to appear throughout the core Office apps, let alone in other Microsoft office programs or third-party mainstays such as Photoshop and Quicken. Even once you're comfortable with the new Office, leaping back and forth between old-school apps and new-school ones will take some getting used to.
Will it be a trendsetter? I'm guessing that this new look will either start to influence other applications very quickly--or it'll turn out to be a dead end. I don't see a scenario in which the Microsoft apps behave completely different from every other program on the market.
Will it feel dumbed down? Interfaces that try to make things simpler for the masses have a way of getting in the way of savvy, experienced users. And many folks tend to look at highly visual, colorful interfaces as being childish. (As the Microsoft program manager who demoed the software mentioned herself, DOS fanatics sneered at Windows itself for years.)
Based on Microsoft's demo, I think there's a chance, at least, that it's found a way to streamline the applications' designs without unduly irritating old pros--at least old pros with an open mind--but we won't know for sure until we've had the opportunity to bang away at beta versions of the apps for awhile. Which we will as soon as we can. Stay tuned...
Will it get richer over time? With maybe a year to go until Office 12 shows up, Microsoft still has time to polish up its interface. But it looks like this pass at the new UI will be less customizable than the Office interface we know today. (The Ribbon will have a "Quick Launch" section that lets you store favorite features, but you apparently won't have much ability to rearrange the Ribbon's elements.) Assuming this new interface sticks around in Office 13 and beyond, it'll be intriguing to see how it develops.
What happens to the competition? I've
written recently of how Microsoft Office-like OpenOffice.org, the free office suite, is looking these days. When Office 12 ships, OpenOffice.org will suddenly sport the "old" interface. The same holds true for WordPerfect, which has lately been following a "We're a lot like Microsoft Office, only more affordable" strategy. That's not necessarily a knock on those products--actually, it might turn out to be a major point in their favor, since they'll presumably still sport the look and feel which the world is familiar with, while Office 12 will be an unknown quantity. But at the very least, the question "From a typical user's standpoint, how are Microsoft Office and cheaper alternatives different?" will have a number of strikingly clear new answers.
In most ways that matter, Office 97 was the last Microsoft upgrade that presented a significantly different experience for end users. That'll change when Office 12 ships; it's too early to tell whether it'll change for better or worse, but at least it's going to
change.
So what sort of features would
you find irresistable in a Microsoft Office upgrade?
The #1 feature I'd like to see is the Styles and Formatting UI simplified. It seems easy at the outset, but there are too many gotchas. It's powerful with many options, but the implementation is just "too many checkboxes." For most people it is confusing to learn as well. I like the idea behind Apple's Pages templates driven app though it is too limited ATM.
In addition, the S&F in relation to templates are confusing. I would like to be able to EASILY define several document templates with their own heading 1, 2, 3, normal, etc and know which template I'm editing. Somehow no matter which template you open, you always change normal.dot.
And I would like autoformatting to be turned off permanently when I tell it. The current "off" is really just a "snooze" button. Esp in regards to bullet/ #'d lists and indentation.
Word wrapping around images in a text box is a pain too.
In Word, do something to make indenting text less cranky. I want to be able to place my cursor at a point in the document and click on a button that says "Indent Here.'
The things that I decide to turn off, should stay turned off and not become active again when I start a new document. If I want bullets and numbered lists I will invoke them.
I would like to be able to create my document and then have the ability to elect to "Save as Template" and give the templates my own names and not have everyting be called normal.dot: Steve's Visio Process Flow Template, Steve's Project Summary Template, etc.
I would like to see Excel be able to recognize when someone is doing word processing in Excel and suggest that they use Word instead!
I find the comments made by ultravires absolutely disgusting and Microsoft should dismiss them outright. Styles and Formatting is the most intelligent concept ever by Microsoft and moreover, it is based on empirical linguistic principles designed to set a standard in word processing. S&F is like an outline where a norm is set in the first level (i.e., Normal style) and then all other levels are dependant thereon (i.e., body text). In order to understand styles, you must know and understand your language and the principles behind it, otherwise you are lost. Microsoft Word is not for the illiterate, who can only and just want to scribble. Styles are obligatory in every document created. If you do not feel comfortable with them, you are better off resorting to an inferior word processor that just types outputs what you type - Neal Bangia
The ribbon, to me, sounds a lot like the properties box in Macromedia Studio. It changes to reflect whatever object you have selected.
Fix the autoformatting of bullets and numbering!!!
More on point, I like the new interface, for its looks anyway. Functionality, well I guess we'll have to reserve judgment on that aspect until we can actually work with it.
Frankly, I still haven't found a compelling reason to upgrade from Office 2000. For what I do with the included programs, there is not enough newness to extract from me the exorbitantly higher prices of the newer versions.
However, with the new interface, if Office 12 functions as it seems designed to, it will certainly merit cvonsideration if not purchase.
Beyond that, it's very, very hard to convince me that computer-savvy people are going to be set back years just because a program has a new interface; that idea has never made sense to me, nor been borne out by what I have seen or experienced. While it will certainly take some time to learn where everything is, it just as certainly won't be tragic! Most people will just learn it and move on.
For gawd?s sake, is a new ?LOOK? the focal point here or is the continuity of maintaining, supporting and enhancing what we currently doing more important. First, it appears that the new yuwee (UI) requires using the mouse more than the keyboard. I resist using the mouse so much that I have a framed art piece of old and new, two button to a gazillion button, optical, blind, trackball mice, all with a six inch nail impaled in the middle of each and dripping red paint from their impalement. Okay, so I don't have such an art piece but point is that I'm sure that there are more power users (my experience goes back 25 years from DOS to 95/98 to ME (shudder) to XP) who are highly effective using the keyboard than the infernal productivity sapping mouse. If I'm forced to use the mouse than my keyboard, I'll uninstall it without hesitation. Second, to ?accept? that Office 12 ?might? be able to run all the macros that have been developed by you and me, power users, user groups to major corporations with major investment of time and money and testing would be ?unacceptable?. Before that would be ?acceptable?, I would strongly recommend not to migrate for gawd sake?s a new ?LOOK? to keep your home, business, and corporations running smoothly. Lastly, I would gladly defer the migration to the new ?LOOK? for a couple of years, keep my menu bar, keyboard commands, macros that have been developed over the years using Visual Basic.
I'll be sticking with Office 2000. I'm a Systems Administrator, and we upgraded several PC's with 2002 and 2003 on our corporate network. None of the users seem to like it all that much, myself included. I got a hundred phone calls asking me if I could, "Change it back to look like the way it was."
Microsoft applies UI in the next version of Office is a great thing. I am sure that almost all of Office users by now are familiar with button bar; and most of us have been clicking one of these buttons once or twice or rather go through a lenghthy menu bar. Me too. I think this is a good thing because why we still have to go through the menu when Windows was already in graphical. A picture worth thousand words.
Interesting verrrrrry interesting!
Would I switch?
More than likely not...
I've always been a big Windows supporter but I do like to keep my options open. I do dabble a bit with Linux and recently with OS X. After looking at these new changes I feel that MS is heading in the right direction. The best implementation of a UI that I have seen so far has been done by Apple and it works because it is a minimal interface that hides all the extra stuff you don't usually need. This makes learning a new program a snap.
Unfortunatley, as Justin stated, people do not like change. Office 2003 is many times better and more stable than office XP or 2000 yet people want to use the older versions because they can't take 15 minutes to adapt to the new interface. Thankfully, people like these are not responsible for taking technology to new heights. If it were because of them, we would still be living in caves because the ground outside is "brighter" than the one in the cave.
What about Outlook? It seems MIA. No screenshots, no comments. Outlook is an unique feature of the MS Office suite so it seems strange that is not mentioned at all,
Yo Areil,
Fuck you. Maybe living in a cave wouldn't be such a bad idea.
hmm...even with the new UI people still need to "navigate" panels to get to places where they want, which is not radically different from previous version except that we get a preview of what the feature does, which is not a bad idea. Maybe we could also make these features searcheable. For example, we got a search box in a toolbar where the user can type "increase font" and the proper panel would pop up.
Why in the world don't people like change? I find that change keeps things exciting and interesting- as long as the changes work. It's easy to get bored working with the same 'look and feel' in life day after day. That's why people (like myself) change the skins on Winamp or other programs every week! Eye candy, new tweaks to discover and improved efficiency are welcome... I hate that we have to wait another year for Windows Vista!
In response to Ariel statement about resistence to change, I would like to add that it is very true and in human nature. Why bother changing things that does the job ok? This is even more true for users of Microsoft than those of Apple or Linux. The reason is very simple. The Apple or Linux community are mainly composed of enthusiastic users. Most of them are developers or software engineers themselves. In the Apple community, we can even add artists. The common trait of all these people is they like changes, they like new things, they like innovation. The Microsoft user based, which significantly larger and, consequently, is composed of a wider variety of people. Some like changes, some don't. Some wants to play games, other wants to ban them. Some wants $$$, others wants it free. To please everyone from John Doe to their main business partners is not a small tasks.
Looks like bigger buttons with less room for work.
Looks sexy. Hopefully it performs well.
Are you people joking me? This is BS...it's just windows '95/office '97 all over again with a new color palette and marketing hoo-ha to make you all pay another $500. So what if all the menus are spread out. Ooooh it's a "ribbon"...must be good. All it is, is more memory-sapping and time-wasting cheap, gimmicky effects to make you all think it's "new". There's nothing new. Just more of the same, worthless, annoying, self-destructive old code that's been crammed down the business world's throat for the past 30 years!
Microsoft's time has come....and gone. Their products can't cut it anymore (if they ever really did) and their tried and true strategy of merely throwing more cash than anyone else can at a market to "beat" the competition will soon dwindle, as well. You can't do that forever!
And I, for one, can't wait to see the whole company implode on its worthless self! It'll probably take about 10 years....but this "new" suite's going to be a huge bust and it will mark the beginning of the empire's ultimate demise!
Good riddance!
This new office will change the world! I'm so excited by interfaces that morph themselves as I work. It is the software that finds the oppropriate options instead of me. This will be a huge productivity gain. I hope MS is bringing this to OSX.
Jo-Jo is hilarious... he needs his own sit-com. I find those just about as relevant and insightful as his infantile ranting.
Microsoft has finally caught on to something Apple has known all along: "Users prefer a stylish/elegant UI over an inhuman, plain, and overly-corporate one." There's no doubt that the user feels a more engaging, fun computing experience when their graphical environment is an inspiring one. Previous versions of Windows have been everything but inspiring.
But alas, here's the final catch. More style-ish environments and GUIs are great to look at, but nothing is for free. Every anti-aliased graphic, every extra 3D button requires that much more memory and performance from the computer. Mac users haven't had to worry about this due to the 64-bit architecture in most recent Macs, plus the fact that newer versions of OS X such as Tiget incorporate Core Graphics libraries which handle graphics processing in the most efficient manner. Let's see how Microsoft handles this issue.
Intill a week ago I had a positive view of Office 2003 also known as Office XP. That is intill I had to reinstall my operating system (XP Home) due to a virus that destroyed my internet connection. I couldn't reinstall Office because I've made several upgrades to my computer since I last installed Office XP and now it will not install becasue it beleaves my computer to be a different machine then the one I regestered with microsoft.
Being that I upgrade my computer often and OS failers are bound to happen. I fear that spending the money on a new office app may be in vain because it too will fail to renstall after a certin amount of upgrades are made.
So to fix the problem (so that I could get my homework done) I downloaded and installed openoffice. I does everything I need it to do and then some. As of right now I have no reason to spend money on a product that I know will fail to install over a free product that works just as well and will always install.
I don't care what it looks like I just want it to work!
One of the things that I like most about Word is it's customizeability. You can really bend it to your will and optimize it through macros and toolbsr buttons to serve your taste. I hope that that does not go away. If it does it will be time to give Wordperfect another evaluation.
So what? Microsoft is still copying mac! Big deal! I'm not even a mac user and I think this whole "cartoonish" UI trend is a joke.
If people want their computers to look like toys, they must not have real jobs that require productivity. Maybe their OS of choice should be Nintendo?
At the end of the day my boss wants results. He couldn't care less what pretty icons I clicked on!
Jo-Jo should go crawl into a hole.he does not have to buy it.a PT cruser looks a lot like its from the 40s but it has a lot of improvements.
i just hope that there is a sidebar (like in versions 2002 and 2003); you know the one that allows you to do most features without going intoo the menubar, at least until you open or create a document (i hope that it also stays put)
also, if your working on an essay, and you have to print something out using an explorer window, that it doesn't close down whatever Office program you were using (i suggested this to Microsoft)
I think this could be the first chance for someone to finally beat office.
"irresistable?" how about a quick spell check :)
I have to agree with most ?who cares how it looks?? Just make what you have freaking work! It?s amazing how people (so called professionals) follow the Billy Gates marketing game! Everybody knows (who does it for a living, IT that is) that you never install anything that is first release by Microsoft for at least 2 years. That way, it?s at least usable and supportable. (somewhat)
Stability is far more important at this point! I could care less how it shines!
Can you say UNIX!
Since Microsoft is making changes to Office, I would like to be able to see the complete path of any file I open and/or save. It would make it easier, then, for me to note the path in all my documents while working on them. And then later after I use the hard copy for a while and need to make changes, it would be quicker for to retrieve the file. It is hard to remember where I put my all my hundreds of files, even if they are in some kind of order.
Don't let Microsoft fool you... again. A new look does not mean new features. For example, did they add, in Access, a badly needed wizard to create multiple lookup combo boxes for forms? Have they improved speach funtionality in the suite? Have they added better tutorials? (Office 97 seemed to have some decent tutorials.) What are the real features of this thing?
But what we really can't wait to see, is all the old features that they eliminate or screw up.
Does Bill understand simplicity sells? Look at Google's UI? There are millions and millions of users would like to see simpler UI with fanzy things available only on demand, slimmed, less crashes, faster loading Office suite. If they do that there'll be more and more PC's and lower spec notebook users would buy the new versions. Even pirate users may switch.
95% of office users use no more than 5% of the features and never knew where to find them anyway when features were needed.
Office is fine for dashing off a letter or memo, but people in the academic world (professors, grad students, even undergrads in some majors) are moving rapidly to the free, powerful program called LaTeX.
When combined with WinEdt (a front-end) and JabRef (a Java-based front end for LaTeX's bibliographic database manager), it's leaps and bounds ahead of MS Word. It doesn't fight you, it keeps track of citations and creates bibliographies automatically, it has hundreds of free "packages" for various document formatting rules (such as dissertation guides from various universities), and it's completely free. Plus, it produces beautiful documents.
Please consider reviewing this software so that more academics and students can learn about it.
Uh eagekr? Office Xp is office 2002, and Office 2003 is just that...Office 2003. Don't confuse the two.
Here's a feature I'd love to see... the ability to print an envelope from Outlook contacts with a single click without going though Word...
Outlook 12 needs some tweaking. Mostly it needs to bring back LAN shared folders that doesn't require exchange. When they killed this feature, a part of me died.
--WoW-- Access with Tabbed Documents? And look at the Database Window, it looks like a collapsable pane on the left side of the screen, Amazing! Where can I get a copy to try out?????
Actually, this looks pretty awesome, not just the same old look. The Ribbon sounds like a pretty good idea ("If they can make it work right"). Hopefully it'll be a lot less clicks than navigating menus.
Styles, formatting and bullets seem to be the main areas that most folks complain about. These definitely need improvement. As for the new 'look', bring it on!! I thrive on changes to software and the challenges of making them 'mine.' If you are an IT person and don't have at least some of that elan, perhaps you're in the wrong profession. And please - don't paint Mr Gates as the devil everytime Microsoft is mentioned. If it weren't him, it would just be someone else. And if your 'free' products are so darned good, please explain why Office is used in SO MANY offices around the world!
The problem with Microsoft has been that new releases of Office have not included "earth-shattering" features. There is not a huge difference between Office 95, 97, 2000, and XP for most users.
I recently won a copy of Office 2003. I upgraded my laptop from Office XP and I can tell you that it is a huge difference. I love the new Outlook. I love the colors. I love the formatting features. I asked my boss if we could upgrade to 2003 at work, since we are still using 2000, as are most companies from my take.
If Office 12 is such a great change, this might be the version that finally gets corporations to upgrade.
I'm more interested in Windows Vista though.
Oh great another piece of crappy MS bloatware I have to learn to use
Make embedded pictures work instead of disappearing like they do in 2003.
No customzation is a good thing. User's should not be allowed to change their UI. How much productivity is lost because you go to someone else's machine and things are in different places? People should only be allowed to use their systems, not change them. We ONE master UI server that controls ALL computers. Lot more efficiency that way.
I didn't read to see if anyone else posted this, but I've been using the Ribbon for months and it's not at all hard to switch paradigms between Ribbon and other apps with menus. The concept -- "commands at the top separated into categories above them" -- is still the same.
The Ribbon is essentially toolbars on steriods. They've just shifted the focus from menus into these super-toolbars. It's not going to be that big of a deal to adjust since most users eventually use toolbars instead of menus after awhile. You had to see this coming ever since Microsoft introduced ReBar controls in Visual Studio 6.
On an average saturday I regularly switch between Painter, photoshop, maya, Illustrator, inkscape, UT2004, Quake3, Counterstrike, Zsnes, Firefox, Internet Explorer, command prompt, Zuma, Bejeweled, Open Office, Office 97, Office 2003, mspaint, mIRC, project64, MSN Messenger, Audacity, Adobe Audition, Adobe Aftereffects, JEdit, notepad, and about a dozen extremely different flashed based websites.....people who actually 'use' their computers shouldn't have a problem switching to anything. They might get pissed at some obviously stupid changes, but they shouldn't have a problem. I remember how much most people LOVED the extremely limiting and simple interface of early Print Shop versions. Microsoft targets the average and I predict this new version will be well accepted by home and small office users. The 'few' 'advanced' office users will have little choice but to switch to open software that supports the soon to be standard opendocument format.
I like the new Ribbon: it's consistent with an earlier stated HIG (Human Interface Guideline) from Microsoft to prefer task-oriented UI to command-oriented. Computers should implicitly ask you what you want to do, or - even better - suggest to you things that you can do. I hope the Ribbon has an option to present your most frequently accessed functions upfront (which can be toggled off, of course).
As for the "processing overhead" of this new UI, it looks like a Vista-centric application, and performing loads of effects in Aeroglass won't be a chore at all due to being handled by the GPU and computed entirely in 3D space. It's unintuitive, but lots of complex computations have zero additional cost in 3D because of the basic representation of logical extents.
I work as a technical consultant, providing support, development, deployment and configuration services to fairly high-profile New York businesses. Anyone who thinks "users don't care about how things looks" is clearly navel-gazing. Font size and properties and desktop wallpaper are probably the top two concerns of my high-powered clients, followed by getting Outlook contacts onto their iPods and not being asked any configuration questions by Office.
I, for one, welcome Ribbon with open arms!
It looks kinda like they took the window-botton toolbox from Blender3D, shortened it a bit, and stuck it to the top of the window.
at the end of the day, microsoft still doesnt work.
first they need to build a whole new kernel, and have their software know how to use the memory and not have it freeze and crash every 10 minutes...
if microsoft went openSource for things, maybe their apps would be more stable...
microsoft can choke on a pretzel just like bush's dumb-a$$... just that i hope they roll over and die...
i think even beta UI apps for KDE/GNOME work more efficient then "Stable" win32 apps
For the guy with the indenting issue, use OneNote, it rocks!
"if microsoft went openSource for things, maybe their apps would be more stable..." <--- open source software is actually very unstable, proprietary software has the capital backing behind it... maybe you should install your software correctly, and try not to install all that "LOOK AND FEEL" stuff which makes it unstable
In response to John Burton's comments above, it is because of people like you that a lot of software vendors are fooled into believing that the majority of users want "skins" for software because a normal interface would be boring and uninteresting.
I do not appreciate having to study the interface to a piece of software for a few minutes in order to figure out how to use it! Graphical user interfaces have developed over time, and things such as buttons and combo boxes have ended up looking the way they do because they afford pressing or dropping down. Having to think really hard about just how I might achieve a button press doesn't seem to spell productivity in my books!
Software vendors that skin their rubbish ought to be hung, drawn, and quartered (with a live webcast so that we may all watch). What's worse are software vendors that ONLY provide a skinned interface to their abominations so that you can't even go back to "plain, old, widgets"! Skinning, and rearranging deck chairs in general, is a PLAGUE on any software and should be eradicated wherever you see it!
The phrase that springs to my mind is;
'Turd Polishing' !
Gee, I move to the Mac two and a half years ago and began writing about these wonderful features in the Mac. Looks like Microsoft is once again stealing from someone else - Steve Jobs! Yep, even in e-mail, if I have a misspelled word underlined, I just right click or control click that mouse and I get a menu with correct spellings, fonts, formatting, etc. The whole system is engineered this way in Mac OS X! So much for the innovations at Microsoft! I suppose if it only took 5 years to understand what the client wants before ripping off someone else's ideas, it's better than nothing. I myself like the Interface on ULEAD's PhotoImpact best. That program makes Adobe Creative Suite look like bull pucky. I hate Adobe graphics products. AND I also hate floating WINDOWS and Bubble popups in my Virtual PC Windows XP. How does one with over 22 years in this industry turn this crap off?
let me get a allowence on the money i just put out on 2003,and we could talk business
Ray
I would like Office NOT to think for me. I get very agravated when it makes changes that I don't want to my work. Then I waste time undoing it's changes. (case in point - numbering, indents)
As far as the "ribbon". I like menus because I can search for a feature. Since most programs have similar menus, I have at least an idea where to look. Furthermore, I have always helped others understand computers by explaining the basic menu options you will find in almost any program and teaching them how to look for themselves. Sounds like this "ribbon" will make that consistency disappear. Hey MS - How about stability and functionality instead of "cool looks".
WOW! I really want this! I can't wait when it comes out! Will it work with Windows XP or just Windows Vista?? And how much do you think it will cost?
Yet again, Microsoft copies WordPerfect. Property Bars have existed in WordPerfect since Version 8 (1997). It's only taken Word nearly 10 years to catch up. The RealTime Preview has existed in WordPerfect since Version 9 (1999): only 7 years to catch-up with that feature. :rolleyes:
Gee, Corel had better come up with some new features in WordPerfect Office 13, otherwise Microsoft won't have any ideas left for future versions of MSO.
Dump MS Office for good and start using OpenOffice...
I believe Neal Bangia has it exactly 1,000% wrong on this...people should not have to think about presentation in the midst of composing a document, and the way MS pushes stylessheets on you, you absolutely cannot hope to come out with something that hasn't been mauled by the paint fatory unless you perfect the style and formatting before the first word is typed. It is not good that styles are so interdependent on each other, that a single errant formatting change can corrupt the entire document, nor is it good in that it is such intensive..invasive..whateve hat not even Word itself can cope..leaving mutant half-styles in its wake.
I'd like to congratulate Neal Bangria for informing me that "Microsoft Word is not for the illiterate", then proceeding to stumble through the English language like a blind man running an obstacle course. Maybe Neal should take his own advice and try "resorting to an inferior word processor that just types outputs what you type"
Bravo sir
As usual, the"new look" is not for ease of use, but a MS rationale to force upgrades and drive revenue.
Of course users should not be adverse to change, but past history has taught us that this is where the bugs and the crashes and unexpected things happen, be it from MS "features", bugs or lack of knowledge of the new way. Even a power user fears the deadline approaching, the idea in your head, and the software not cooperating because you dumped your good old tools that were working fine in favor of a "new look".
I also agree that the program should allow you to produce your material more plainly, and then apply the formatting if that is they way you choose. The interactive meddling (a la clippy and bullets and having to undo automatic first capitals, etc.) is certainly the most complained about thing in MS Office in my experience.
It's great, terrific, marvelous, Wonderful, etc......
For years, Microsoft have said that migrating to an alternative program (linux, Open office, etc), is something that will increase the TCO because it goes againt standards (Microsoft standards), but after this "innovation" where (Open Office for example) alternatives are more alike to traditional office than the new office, I think people won't believe this anymore.
That is innovation.
Congratulations,
My percepcion after utilizing productivity software starting with VisiCalc back in the early 80's, is that what has been demo'ed here is how to take the VBA "menu items" and presenting them to the user.
Software engineering needs the "bricks" and "mortar" of the XVIII century revolution, but I don't see that happening here. Let's wait for a few months to see what BG comes up with!!!
Just what incompetent employees need to justify their inflated salaries! The button system that currently exists where you press a button to open a choice panel (i.e., borders) works well while balancing the need to keep the document visible. They're only there when you ask them to be there. I hate the stupid balloons that pop up in Windows XP and it sounds like now they're going to have toolbars jump out at me. I don't need MORE distractions! Automatic formatting is annoying, especially since I cannot even put typist initials at the bottom of a letter without having to go back and un-capitalize the first letter. Will these new ribbons be customizable like toolbars are? There are features in Word that I add to my toolbars because I use them all the time and the commands aren't even in the drop-down menus (they're under "customize toolbars" "all commands"). Like many, I don't care how it looks if it works. The first thing I did with Windows XP is change the look to be less "cute". I guess cute is ok if you're 10 yrs. old. I would like to see Outlook improved with some of the email features from Outlook Express - like message blocking for spam control (Norton can't do everything!).
I don't need the program to tell me how to format my document. I am intelligent enough to know how it should look. I would like to see more customization options rather than a whole new look. Meaning to say, you should be able to use the "cute" version if you don't know how to type a business letter (why is there even a wizard?), but just go ahead and type your letter, report, etc. and lay it out how you want if you already know how. I don't want removal of choice, I want more control over how my document appears. Anyone who's ever seen the Millenium Edition of Windows knows what I'm talking about. Stop trying to cover for people's ignorance and incompetence and start marketing something useful to those who aren't. It's all just another example of the dumbing-down of America. I think I'll stick with my Office 2000 which is better than the 2003 that I'm stuck with at work. Oh, and what about previous-version compatability - will the new Office be able to open older version documents? Will there be any backwards-support? A patch so that my 2000 can open documents and spreadsheets created on the newer version?
I'd like to see Microsoft incorporate an IQ test into the setup process for their software. Based on the results, you'd get a custom installation suited to your needs. After you've been using the program a while and start showing that you have a grasp, you'd get a cartoony little pop-up that said, "It looks like you're not a moron. Would you like to install the advanced features?"
Thanks for all your comments on the upcoming MS Office. I will be sure to avoid it as I prefer to think for myself. As I write this Star Office is installing on my machine.
As soon as I get my main machine back in service it's Hello Linux and Bye Bye M$!
I have not downgraded to any MS operating system since 2000. I have no desire to beg and cry at M$ feet for the privelege of reinstalling it.
Here's how I see use of Office in the business world:
Excel - productivity is key, pretty output only counts for 5%-10% of spreadsheets, if that many. Maximum productivity in Excel comes from using keyboard shortcuts and avoiding the mouse. This "enhancement" is a productivty killer for power-users. I don't see what the novice user will get from it.
Word - Formatting of the document is generally the most important feature. Ease of applying formats is key. Another very important feature is mail merging. There may be some benefit here.
Powerpoint - It's all about look and feel in presentation mode. Being able to preview changes before they are applied could be very nice. In full-screen presentation mode, the menu bar and tool bars vanish. Provided that the ribbon does as well, this is no change. If they've enabled Powerpoint to use a 3D graphics processor (onboard or card) for its effects, that could be valuable to the high end user.
Access - This UI hasn't been great, so improving it could help. But it is absolutely critical that all the automations built in earlier Access databases continue to work. Given the Access track record on being able to work with prior version files, I'm very dubious.
Personally, I've just about decided to make sure I purchase my next machine before this product comes on the market, to be sure that I don't get this. I'm definitely going to teach my kids about computers on a machine using a menu based version Office. They'll be better off in the long run.
It seems to me the posts have gotten far a field from the original question which was what features would you find irresistable...? The feature I miss most (being a WordPerfect crossover) is a reveal codes that actually reveals the formatting codes.
Can the new interface be turned off?
If not, I will stick to Office 2003.
Improve cross referencing in Word.
It is still after all these years clumsy, slow, inefficient and unreliable if you have more than a very short document.
Improve cross referencing in Word.
It is still after all these years clumsy, slow, inefficient and unreliable if you have more than a very short document.
Great!
More fantastic UI innovations from the company that brought you Clippy, Menus that constantly change (grow, shrink) and oh yeah, that masterpiece of usability -- Windows.
Pass. I'll stick with Office 2000 until one of the OSS implementations becomes usable (or Google decides to mix it up with MS!)
MS Word outliner stinks. Hopefully they can get someting more intuitive like Word Perfect's outliner. I can't believe how many upgrades they been through and it still stinks.
Why don't people like change? Because they have to pay for it perhaps. Is the change worth the cost?
Will people change? Most likely yes. The file format is new and will not be readable by old versions - so it's good old network effect again. Change whether you like it or not!
Sounds great. MS will set the standard that other compnaies will follow. I just wish we knew more about outlook.
Sounds great. MS will set the standard that other compnaies will follow. I just wish we knew more about outlook. By the way: openoffice is a living he;;. I used along with MS O. for a while, and they just make everything more comlicated, and take away the quality Im used.
If Powerpoint can use the custom dictionary from Word, why the heck casn't it be made to use Word's autotext feature?
Excel needs to take its 256 columns and multiply it by 64. Cash flow programmers who want to progarmme daily cashflows shouldn't be forced to programme down columns. Time series were meant to seen on the left-right "Y" axis.
I can't be ***** with the 65,000 rows, if I want to use a Excel as a database, I'm better off running with Access.
People don't like changes because they have to pay for it and they have to learn it
Great! Now I have even less real estate for the task at hand.
In stead of allowing me to see more of the important thing (my document), I now loose the top third of my screen to "tools" I might never use.
Why I still have 4-6 seperate tools to communicate does not make sense. I cannot see why a table in Word should be different to a spreadsheet in Excel.
Before I start I should be allowed to choose my medium on which I want to communicate (printer, screen, presentation or web).
Once I have done this my interface should be seemless and allow be to create text, drawings, diagrams, auto calculating tables, process flows, org charts, etc.
It should show me in real time what my output will look like without cluttering the output with all sorts of menus and tools!
That is what I call re-design, not just painting a new layer on the outside.
Microsoft's gambit reminds me of IBM's "Microchannel" strategy in the late 1980s. Microsoft's attempt to change the standard architecture for UIs, if successful, will have the effect of diverting even more users away from competitors' applications. People will look back at Office 12 as the turning point in the erosion of Microsoft's apps monopoly.
Just a note for the 'it's just a candy coating on the same old dogturd' people:
I've been an Access developer for about 10 years, and participate in many Access-related discussion groups and mailing lists.
I am told - in two cases by people who literally 'wrote the book' on Access *for MS* - that the changes to Access and especially VBA are being characterized as similar in scope to the difference between VB6 and VB.Net.
For you non-techies out there, this can be fairly likened to the diff twixt Win3.1 and 95, or if you're REALLY not tech inclined, between Super Mario 3 and Super Mario 64. Not enough room here for details, but it ain't just a candy coating - saying so is like replacing a honda with a porsche and calling it a paint job.
The biggest problem I have with Microsoft Word is Auto-Format. Despite Microsoft's greatest efforts (I presume), Auto-Format does not format the document the way I am trying to get it. When I don't have it turned off, it in fact detracts and undoes what I am trying to do (resulting in endless hours of trying to set up a tab at a certain spot, while auto-format informs me that that is not where I want the tab.) It should either be improved or done away with.
it looks mad okay !!!!
and i have a copy but there is one problem with the beta - spell check doesnt work !!!
Why is everything for the last few years about catering to the feminine mentality?
Dodge began with the minivans, stupidly lowering them to a point of looking ridiculous so, oh my gosh, women wouldn't need to step up a couple inches.
Apple is the WORST offender by far with their computers and IPods almost thoroughly lacking in BUTTONS, you know, those things that make functions happen in one press, visually before your eyes to even be found without opening them?
And now Microsoft has decided to hide the things used every few minutes behind cupboard doors so they, yet, don't mess up the everything must be clean and tidy look.
Boo on Microsoft for a dozen reasons, most notably terrible Word updates in past releases that couldn't be overridden. Remember 2000's forced task bar item for EVERY open Word document? I sometimes have 11 open at a sitting. Thankfully, someone got a clue and removed the insanity for 2002, but then installed those ugly red lines around highlights instead of the fairly pleasant yellow background.
Ya know, all it requires is the hiring of ONE person in each company who is fussy, meticulolus, logical, willing to challenge the existing order. But nooooooo, we couldn't have THAT.
I wish they'd just clean up the flaws in the existing version of Word without adding new problems.
Look at the screenshot above: there isn't much of a difference at all. Texts will look just the same next year, and so will the tools and buttons you need to edit them. I do hope open source and freeware will further develop, at the expense of those MS guys getting rich by selling just mud. I'm a very satisfied Mozilla user, and although there are still some flaws (such as bullets, numbering, tabs and spell control), I would recommend anyone to use Openoffice.org 2.0 since it's free and its impress (powerpoint) program has improved a lot.
I am all for open source application development, and would gladly switch to OpenOffice ... but I can't stomach the idea of using an application with a DOT extension.
Regarding the new UI in Office, it's more about accessibility than look. If they can present the user with applicable options for a given task in an intuitive manner, it should work fine. Yeah, it will probably take some getting used to, but at the end of the day, if they can remove unnecessary clutter and improve usability, it sounds like a good change to me.
Microsoft could make a killing in academic circles if they included an integrated reference manager. I am an academic and am forced to use EndNote. Put simply, it sucks. It's unstable and far too expensive. OpenOffice includes a manager, but it's not as good as EndNotes. LaTeX is a pain, but Linux users (myself included some of the time) have few options aside from it.
Integrating a wordprocessor and a reference manager on par with EndNote would give universities and students a more cost-effective, stable, and user-friendly alternative to today's options.
Micro$haft are now having this new interface across its whole range. For example similar GUI is being used in Vista, Windows Live (MSN Messenger) and now Office Vista.
I want to be able to see what is happening in my documents and I don't want hidden menus until you click them. I want to be able to see all my options at once not have to waste my time looking for them.
Does anyone like the windows XP Classic theme (blue) its so ugly, I want simple lines like in windows 2000. Now I have a new computer I refuse to upgrade to XP but stick to 2k because of better security and ease of use, but Micro$haft is forcing users to upgrade by stopping new software installing on older versions of windows.
Office 2000 vs. 2003?
I don't see why users don't like '03. Its features are better and the style is much the same. For my essay the research tool is very helpful. Even tho my school has got a licence for '03 they stick with '02 (XP) because of the way it looks? In fairness they are pretty much the same. I have both 2000 and 2003, but i have to say I won't go back to 2000.
Will I get Office Vista? No. I will not be upgrading any of my windows software that looks so ugly, that is the reason I have W2000, even on the XP comp i refuse to get WP10 but stay with 9 because of the looks.
If more PC games become available on Linux I can see myself making the switch. With it also becoming more stable Suse may just be the future.
My problem with Office 2003 is the crappy side bar in Outlook. Pain in the **** that it is always there and is even where the calendar shows.
Great. So to see more than 1 month I need to hide half my screen and then have to manually move it back when I change to looking at emails.
I don;t see the change to Office 12 being good at all. A "Ribbon" (read toolbar that changes what it shows you with masses of wasted space) instead of a simple button bar that I can customise to show what I want to see.
I recently rolled back from Office 2003 to Office XP so that I can work with Outlook. Guess I'll be sticking with it for a lot longer.
Rincewind, You can have office 2003 and use Outlook Xp. Just don't install outlook in the 2003 setup.
MS Powerpoint needs to be more competitive in the worship areas for churches and religious organizations. Easyworship has stolen a lot of your custormers of powerpoint.
Hello all,
Well I found that Office 12 still needs to come with many bug fixes like when you run 2 threads of Excel and copy content from one Sheet to other thread sheet it will give ERROR and wont work... so many such issues keep reporting to MS for Improvements... friends...