MS Office 2007 = Our nightmare

[jhayx7]

According to an article a friend sent me, the old .doc .xls .ppt formats are being thrown out the window for new MS Open XML formats. Maybe this is old news but it is new to me.

Article

Take a long look at the DOC, XLS, and PPT files that have graced your data directories. They?re about to be replaced by Microsoft?s Open XML file format?a change that could have seismic implications for IT managers sitting on top of more than a decade?s worth of legacy Office documents.

 

[Homerboy]

software forum

 

[iamwiz82]

Yep, they are now docx, xlsx, and pptx. just another reason we will not be moving.

Hell, there has been no real reason to move off of 2000. If anything, newer Outlook versions are bigger PITAs to work with because of their "security" features.

 

[CKDragon]

I can't believe people on ATOT are just finding this out. The betas have been downloaded by MILLIONS! No crap they're changing...

 

[Alex]

it will be years before people fully migrate, if at all

the only and i repeat ONLY feature that makes me use ms office instead of open office is vba macro support.

where i work we have gigabytes and gigabytes of 'legacy' office documents from almost the past 10 years... i hate it so much but my boss won't let me touch that stuff even though i bet nobody uses it...

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: iamwiz82
Yep, they are now docx, xlsx, and pptx. just another reason we will not be moving.

Hell, there has been no real reason to move off of 2000. If anything, newer Outlook versions are bigger PITAs to work with because of their "security" features.

I'm sorry man, but out of all the office apps, the one to continually get the most and best usability and feature updates is Outlook. The difference between 2000 and 2007 is night and day. 2007 is just incredibly good.

As for the new file formats, well, it was bound to happen sometime. Doesn't matter if you upgrade or not, if your users share documents with any organization that requires open formats, you're going to be getting them in email and will have to deal with them. Be prepared to upgrade or find the appropriate converter for those filetypes.

 

[Jawo]

Originally posted by: iamwiz82
Yep, they are now docx, xlsx, and pptx. just another reason we will not be moving.

Hell, there has been no real reason to move off of 2000. If anything, newer Outlook versions are bigger PITAs to work with because of their "security" features.

I agree! I have an old laptop running Office 2000 and its loads so much quicker than 2003 running on my new computer. The newer versions are so bloated!

 

[iamwiz82]

Originally posted by: loup garou

Originally posted by: iamwiz82
Yep, they are now docx, xlsx, and pptx. just another reason we will not be moving.

Hell, there has been no real reason to move off of 2000. If anything, newer Outlook versions are bigger PITAs to work with because of their "security" features.

I'm sorry man, but out of all the office apps, the one to continually get the most and best usability and feature updates is Outlook. The difference between 2000 and 2007 is night and day. 2007 is just incredibly good.

As for the new file formats, well, it was bound to happen sometime. Doesn't matter if you upgrade or not, if your users share documents with any organization that requires open formats, you're going to be getting them in email and will have to deal with them. Be prepared to upgrade or find the appropriate converter for those filetypes.

I'm suprised Outlook 2007 even lets you send attachments at this point. WHat are you allowed now, TXT and perhaps JPG?

 

[lokiju]

I was running the beta and don't like how the layout of everything is changed also, WTF is the point of changing it when everyone knows how to use it the 2003 way and older?

I mean totally different menu layout.

 

[EagleKeeper]

The big problem will be when you have different clients that use different formats/versions.

Unless MS makes the ability for automatic conversion and/or a save as capability, they could cause worse problems thant when the did the original Word .doc format shift.

 

[CVSiN]

Originally posted by: loup garou

Originally posted by: iamwiz82
Yep, they are now docx, xlsx, and pptx. just another reason we will not be moving.

Hell, there has been no real reason to move off of 2000. If anything, newer Outlook versions are bigger PITAs to work with because of their "security" features.

I'm sorry man, but out of all the office apps, the one to continually get the most and best usability and feature updates is Outlook. The difference between 2000 and 2007 is night and day. 2007 is just incredibly good.

As for the new file formats, well, it was bound to happen sometime. Doesn't matter if you upgrade or not, if your users share documents with any organization that requires open formats, you're going to be getting them in email and will have to deal with them. Be prepared to upgrade or find the appropriate converter for those filetypes.

I agree.. Office 2003 >> anything before it.. especially Outlook...
as an IT guy I cannot stand the 2 gig limit on PSTs.. do you know how much time a day I wasted tryign to recover users 2gig PSTs back down to a usable level?
prolly at least 5 hours a day...
Now with 2003 and EAS dont even need a PST anymore.. saves me alot of time I used to waste..

and even if you do use PSTs they are unlimited now.. way better than previous versions..

and 2007 does rock.. and My company is rolling out the entire package when we role Vista which will be mid 2007.
already in testing here.

 

[jhayx7]

Originally posted by: EagleKeeper
The big problem will be when you have different clients that use different formats/versions.

Unless MS makes the ability for automatic conversion and/or a save as capability, they could cause worse problems thant when the did the original Word .doc format shift.

Another problem I see is that some companies could be using an Open Source office solution that, as we all know, can sometimes have quirks when working with MS Office. I forsee formatting issues when swapping files between them.

 

[MrChad]

Damned if you do, damned if you don't?

The community has been asking Microsoft to open up its document formats for years. They finally obliged and now they get burned. :roll:

 

[jhayx7]

Originally posted by: CVSiN

Originally posted by: loup garou

Originally posted by: iamwiz82
Yep, they are now docx, xlsx, and pptx. just another reason we will not be moving.

Hell, there has been no real reason to move off of 2000. If anything, newer Outlook versions are bigger PITAs to work with because of their "security" features.

I'm sorry man, but out of all the office apps, the one to continually get the most and best usability and feature updates is Outlook. The difference between 2000 and 2007 is night and day. 2007 is just incredibly good.

As for the new file formats, well, it was bound to happen sometime. Doesn't matter if you upgrade or not, if your users share documents with any organization that requires open formats, you're going to be getting them in email and will have to deal with them. Be prepared to upgrade or find the appropriate converter for those filetypes.

I agree.. Office 2003 >> anything before it.. especially Outlook...
as an IT guy I cannot stand the 2 gig limit on PSTs.. do you know how much time a day I wasted tryign to recover users 2gig PSTs back down to a usable level?
prolly at least 5 hours a day...
Now with 2003 and EAS dont even need a PST anymore.. saves me alot of time I used to waste..

and even if you do use PSTs they are unlimited now.. way better than previous versions..

and 2007 does rock.. and My company is rolling out the entire package when we role Vista which will be mid 2007.
already in testing here.

OWA 2003 is the shiznite! Back at my previous job, when I upgraded from Exchange 5.5 to Outlook 2003, most people used OWA rather than the Outlook client. I can't imagine what 2007 is like (to my dismay the company I work for now uses Groupwise because they do not want to get rid of Novell and all of the people associate with supporting it)

 

[sswingle]

When I ran the Beta, it opened all my old stuff just fine...I dont remember if I made changes to anything though...

 

[thehstrybean]

It's like that it beta, and it always saves in .docx...I always forget to save it in the 2003 format when I send it to someone...

 

[CVSiN]

Originally posted by: ScottSwingleComputers
When I ran the Beta, it opened all my old stuff just fine...I dont remember if I made changes to anything though...

yah its very backward compatible.. havent had any issues at all.. it can save to 2003 mode just fine.

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: iamwiz82

Originally posted by: loup garou

Originally posted by: iamwiz82
Yep, they are now docx, xlsx, and pptx. just another reason we will not be moving.

Hell, there has been no real reason to move off of 2000. If anything, newer Outlook versions are bigger PITAs to work with because of their "security" features.

I'm sorry man, but out of all the office apps, the one to continually get the most and best usability and feature updates is Outlook. The difference between 2000 and 2007 is night and day. 2007 is just incredibly good.

As for the new file formats, well, it was bound to happen sometime. Doesn't matter if you upgrade or not, if your users share documents with any organization that requires open formats, you're going to be getting them in email and will have to deal with them. Be prepared to upgrade or find the appropriate converter for those filetypes.

I'm suprised Outlook 2007 even lets you send attachments at this point. WHat are you allowed now, TXT and perhaps JPG?

You can send whatever you want. Opening? Well, I don't think the Level 1 attachment list has changed much since Office 2000 SP2. And it's easy enough to change attachment rules via Group Policy, but I think the Level 1 attachment list is fair enough, really it's a lot of stuff a very small percentage of people would send legitimately anyways. Oh yeah, the new attachment viewer is awesome. I love flipping through tons of pics people send me right in OL.

Originally posted by: MrChad
Damned if you do, damned if you don't?

The community has been asking Microsoft to open up its document formats for years. They finally obliged and now they get burned. :roll:

Exactly.

 

[PG]

Originally posted by: MrChad
Damned if you do, damned if you don't?

The community has been asking Microsoft to open up its document formats for years. They finally obliged and now they get burned. :roll:

That's not a complete statement is it?
I heard that MS's open formats are not fully open and is not the same as say Open Office's open formats. So it may look open but it's just another proprietary format.

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: PG

Originally posted by: MrChad
Damned if you do, damned if you don't?

The community has been asking Microsoft to open up its document formats for years. They finally obliged and now they get burned. :roll:

That's not a complete statement is it?
I heard that MS's open formats are not fully open and is not the same as say Open Office's open formats. So it may look open but it's just another proprietary format.

Standardization
Microsoft has stated it will be an open standard, and has submitted it to the Ecma standardization process. The charter of the Ecma Technical Committee requires it to submit the completed standard to the ISO. Ecma announced on December 9, 2005 that it had accepted Microsoft's proposal to document the format as a proposed standard. It will be referred to as Ecma Office Open XML.

The Ecma technical committee developing the proposal includes representatives from Apple, the British Library, Canon, Intel, Microsoft, NextPage, Novell, Pioneer, Statoil ASA,Toshiba and The United States Library of Congress.[1]

Since August 2006 Ecma is working on draft version 1.4 of the proposed standard. Also a liaison from the ISO/IEC from SC34 has been appointed to help prepare Open XML submission to ISO/IEC. [2]

[edit]
Licencing
The Microsoft Office Open XML format will be available under a free and perpetual license from Microsoft.[3]

There has been a lot of argument about the ability for OSS software to use the format even under this fairly open license. Microsoft has tried to diminish these concerns by officially stating in a covenant not to sue [4]that it will not sue any organisation for using the format if the implementation complies to the official OOXML file formats. This has led to a greater reassurance that the OOXML formats will also be available for use in OSS software as even expressed by OSS licensing expert Larry Rosen.[5]

A further indication of the totally free and open use of the format was given by Microsoft XML program manager Brian Jones as he presents a legal analysis on the convenant not to sue and also states that there is "no license needed to use the Office Open XML formats."[6]

Sounds pretty open to me.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Other than Outlook, I've always like 2000.

 

[ForumMaster]

i use it and it's fine. the only thing that's annoying is remembering to save as .doc for the majority that don't have Office 2k7.

 

[mzkhadir]

Yes, we all know change is hard, get over it.

 

[PG]

Selective cut and paste doesn't tell the whole story. You missed one important sentence:

"Microsoft will be the main software developer making use of the Office Open XML format. "

It's a new MS created format which is different from other open formats that have been used for years.

Open or not it is still different and everyone else now has to come up with ways to decipher and import the MS files.

 

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: PG
Selective cut and paste doesn't tell the whole story. You missed one important sentence:

"Microsoft will be the main software developer making use of the Office Open XML format. "

It's a new MS created format which is different from other open formats that have been used for years.

Open or not it is still different and everyone else now has to come up with ways to decipher and import the MS files.

No other open office format is as widely adopted as the proprietary Office formats. .DOC, .XLS and .PPT are the de facto standards of the business world.

Microsoft's customers have come to expect certain features and will demand that these features be retained in new versions, regardless of the file format Microsoft chooses to use. Existing open formats do not fulfill all of these features.

So Microsoft can either take an existing format like OpenOffice and try and expand/retrofit it to meet their needs (a timely and costly process with inevitable backlash from the OSS community that developed OpenOffice), or develop their own format and open it up to the community. Frankly, the choice is obvious.