Well … I finally took the plunge. About two weeks, I finally installed Microsoft Office 2007. Not that I scared to take the plunge, or that I was being "old school" and not willing to change; because I've been looking forward to checking it out for a while. It just wasn't time for me until now - I had other priorities that needed more of my attention (no big deal - love you, though.)

But now that the time has come, my first impressions are extremely good. The new interface looks so good, but it's so different - particularly the new ribbon bar. However, the bottom line is that I was able to take care of my tasks without much of a learning curve and just as fast as I would have with Office 2003. Not only is it comfortable, but it's a joy to use - even my wife likes to use it. As a software developer, it is hard to make software enjoyable to the user; in my opinion, Microsoft Office 2007 has accomplished that.

There's a lot of great new stuff that I'm looking forward to learning about. However, I will not submit a post on every single new feature offered (plenty of other sites already do that very well). Instead, I will continue to focus on the features that enhance the document process. One thing I've noticed is that there's a lot of features in Office 2007 that can be found in Office 2003; however, the improvement and placement of them make these features more accessible and easier to use - you will definitely hear more about these in the future.

Another new experience that I've already taken advantage of is using Microsoft Office OneNote. I already know that OneNote will single handedly change the way I organize all aspects of life. Everything on my desk, in my portfolio, and everywhere else I have important info will be reduced to my laptop. This will make my information easier to pull, and I'll be able to keep much more information much more effectively. 

I look forward to continuing to share my Office 2007 joy with you in the months to come. In the meantime, I encourage you to take the plunge and see for yourself.

Well, not completely free; but when you see the new Microsoft Excel limits, it may as well be unlimited. Most of the limits mentioned in this blog never bothered me, because I never needed anymore than what Excel gave me; but there were a couple that always bothered me and that I'm looking forward to taking advantage of:

Number of conditional format conditions on a cell: Old Limit: 3 conditions New Limit: Limited by available memory The total number of available rows in Excel: Old Limit: 64k  (2^16) New Limit: 1M  (2^20) The number of levels of nesting that Excel allows in formulas: Old Limit: 7 New Limit: 64

27 Limits That Microsoft Excel 2007 Scaled Up

Of course, at some point someone's gonna test even these limits with something; but in that case, they should be programming something. As far as all the sane people like me, these new limits are gonna be more than enough. Enjoy!

I have a confession to make. Even though I've posted several blogs related to Microsoft Office 2007, I actually haven't tried it for myself yet. Not because I don't want to; in fact I'm eagerly looking forward to upgrading to it. However, this blog site isn't so much about learning software; it's more about learning how to use this software to create better documents. So you can understand that I'm not in a rush to install it.

That being said, I still plan on trying it out in the near future. The good news is that when I'm ready to do so, I won't have to install it on my computer - thanks to the 2007 Microsoft Office system Beta 2 Test Drive. This site offers a way for you to test out Office 2007 with your web browser. This way you won't have to give up the hard drive space or worry about the risks of running beta software on your computer; but at the same time, you can still prepare to be amazed by the full version of Office 2007.

However, there are some things that you need to be aware of before you use, all of which you read in Jensen Harris' post about this test drive. I encourage you to go to both links to learn about this, and to try it out ... when you're ready of course.

"They killed the File menu, along with all the other menus. They added a giant, weird circular target up in the corner. They actually use part of the title bar as a menu sometimes. They even changed the default font in all the apps. What's amazing is not just that it works, but that it works so well"

In case you don't know, Microsoft Office 2007 Beta 2 is now available to download. This is a great opportunity to try it out for free and check out all the new features - and there's certainly a lot of them. Sure, there's still bugs to be fixed, but I promise it won't bite. Here's the link:

http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/

In addition to the download link, you'll want to check out this two posts from Jensen Harris that contain other links that will help us make a smooth transition.

Some of the Best Beta 2 Resources
Where Did That Feature Go?

Stay tuned for other news and resources about Office 2007 ... this thing is going to take the world by storm!