office 2007 is so ugly

[oboeguy]

Excel 2007 is vastly superior to previous versions. I say this as a developer for it and as a user. They finally did away with the pathetic 256 column limit, made conditional formatting and named ranges much easier to use, etc. The ribbon is nice once you get used to it. Plus most of the useful shortcut key sequences from previous versions (e.g. Alt+E+S+V for "paste values") still work. For those complaining about charting, fugeaboutit. Charts in 2007 are much nicer and easier to use, IMO (though pre-SP1 there was a serious bug using them with dynamic ranges).

 

[Kelvrick]

Originally posted by: oboeguy
Excel 2007 is vastly superior to previous versions. I say this as a developer for it and as a user. They finally did away with the pathetic 256 column limit, made conditional formatting and named ranges much easier to use, etc. The ribbon is nice once you get used to it. Plus most of the useful shortcut key sequences from previous versions (e.g. Alt+E+S+V for "paste values") still work. For those complaining about charting, fugeaboutit. Charts in 2007 are much nicer and easier to use, IMO (though pre-SP1 there was a serious bug using them with dynamic ranges).

Have you figured out a way to fix my biggest complaint? Select a cell or range of cells, press CTRL and select more. There is shading, but there is almost no color change!

 

[edro]

I love 2007!

It has everything I need in the ribbon bar! No more "Right Click>Tab Click>Tab Click>Check Box, Un-Check Box>OK"!

 

[Farang]

Originally posted by: dullard

Originally posted by: Farang
I mostly deal with styles and in that regard Word 07 is extremely powerful compared to 03, especially because it is so much easier to navigate for me so I can really play around with a document with ease. 03 seemed to discourage style use by making it clunky to deal with, so I like the new interface in 07

Maybe you could help me, since you work with them a lot. I still have lots of trouble with styles in 07. I mostly work with the full styles list (down right arrow on the bottom of the styles tab in the Home ribbon, or press alt-ctrl-shift-S). How come in 1/3rd of the documents that I use, I can't delete styles that I or someone else has created even if the styles are no longer in use? I'd like to keep that styles list to a managable number of styles. Also, when Word refuses to change a style of text, what do I do then? For example, I select the text that I want to change, I select a new style, and 10% of the time Word 07 does nothing. I've tried closing the document, closing Word, rebooting, etc. The only way I can do it sometimes is to completely retype the whole section.

It is difficult to give a tutorial here but I can say I never have the issue with not being able to change text. Are you dealing with documents which have permissions?

I don't really understand the styles list question because you say you're usually working with the full list but want to delete some? If you want a manageable number of styles you should not be using the full list. Check out the other options for what you can show and play around with those.

I can't really be of much help because I don't have Word 07 in front of me. But everything you said seems like a user problem rather than a software problem, I'm sure there are some good tutorials on the web that can help you out.

 

[lxskllr]

I think the GUI is very attractive, but I don't use it. I have 2k3, and Open Office. I use Open Office for just about everything.

 

[Homerboy]

Originally posted by: KoolDrew
I personally have no problems at all with the ribbon and thinks it makes things a lot more logical and organized

Agreed. As do most users new and old.

 

[IceBergSLiM]

People resist change. /thread

 

[Homerboy]

Originally posted by: IcebergSlim
People resist change. /thread

That's pretty much it in a nutshell. Man I HATED deploying new software/policies/whatever in my old job. EVERYONE would bitch about "its different.... I don't like it"
Really? Thats your analytical complaint? "It's different"?

 

[gorcorps]

Originally posted by: JLee

Originally posted by: gorcorps

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: JLee
I've heard that Office 07 is a significant improvement over previous versions..is that wrong?

It works fine for what it's designed for. People complain about the stupidest crap... just like Vista doesn't work worth shit... :roll:

Excel is a huge step backwards in chart construction. It was never good but at least I knew how to do the things I needed to. Now I can't even do that.

Someone just told me this morning that they liked Excel 07 better than the old version.

Then they must not make charts, or at least not need them to do anything useful.

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: Farang
It is difficult to give a tutorial here but I can say I never have the issue with not being able to change text. Are you dealing with documents which have permissions?

Nope. It is just a random Word bug that has been pestering me for over a year.

I don't really understand the styles list question because you say you're usually working with the full list but want to delete some? If you want a manageable number of styles you should not be using the full list. Check out the other options for what you can show and play around with those.

I use the full list because I am in charge of getting the documents to look good. I often work with a half dozen or so people at a time. Most of them are not good with computers but still like to create their own styles. For example, one often takes the black text and makes random words or even letters within the word be black but 15% lighter. Sure, you can't see it on the screen, but as soon as it prints with random letters printed completely differently it looks like crap. I need to see the full list of all styles in use and bring them down to ~10 consistent styles throughout the document, so that the whole document looks good. I want it looking like ONE person wrote it, not having a half dozen styles copied and pasted around.

I can't count the number of times someone would lower a paragraph by 3 pts because they liked the look and I had to move it back to normal. But 10% of the time, Word 07 won't do it no matter how many methods I use. I have to save it as an 03 format, change the style to normal, then open it back up in Word 07. Either that, or retype the damn paragraph.

I can't really be of much help because I don't have Word 07 in front of me. But everything you said seems like a user problem rather than a software problem, I'm sure there are some good tutorials on the web that can help you out.

Could be user problems, but Word should be made such that user problems are unlikely. Oh well, I realize that my problems are nearly impossible to fix online. Thanks for reading though.

 

[nerp]

I like the new office interface.

And as far as color schemes, I'm too busy WORKING in office, creating documents, etc, to worry about frivolous things like what color my borders are and whether my software looks hip and snazzy as I'm writing.

 

[Linflas]

Originally posted by: JLee

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: JLee
I've heard that Office 07 is a significant improvement over previous versions..is that wrong?

It works fine for what it's designed for. People complain about the stupidest crap... just like Vista doesn't work worth shit... :roll:

I bought a laptop with Vista *(two days ago)..it BSOD'd about a day into its career with me.

I built a workstation 2 years ago and installed Vista Ultimate 64 on it and to date have not had a BSOD.

 

[Farang]

Dullard I forget what its called but what you're talking about is an easy fix. There is a popup window that tells you what style is on the text and what modifcations are there in addition to the style (usually none). You then use that to get rid of any adjustments your coworkers make.

And then you need to fix the user problem of your coworkers messing up documents.

edit: actually maybe your problem is different. anyway same solution, your coworkers need better organization skills

 

[JulesMaximus]

We're rolling that out next quarter to the Accounting department here where I work.

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: Farang
Dullard I forget what its called but what you're talking about is an easy fix. There is a popup window that tells you what style is on the text and what modifcations are there in addition to the style (usually none). You then use that to get rid of any adjustments your coworkers make.

That is the popup window that fails 10% of the time.

And then you need to fix the user problem of your coworkers messing up documents.

I've tried. I've tried endlessly. Even if I convince one person to not touch the styles any more, he still opens old documents with a billion different styles and will copy sentences from it. Then as those sentences get edited and moved around, the old styles proliferate into the new pristine document. I've had this trouble at two different jobs now.

I also need to become less anal and let the documents look like crap.

 

[ra990]

Originally posted by: JLee
I bought a laptop with Vista *(two days ago)..it BSOD'd about a day into its career with me.

You have to understand that the build your laptop came with is crap. That is not vista's fault, but the manufacturer of the laptop who loaded it with crap software and drivers that bsod your OS.

Do a clean install of Vista and get the latest good drivers for all your hardware and you'll be fine.

 

[destrekor]

Originally posted by: Linflas

Originally posted by: JLee

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: JLee
I've heard that Office 07 is a significant improvement over previous versions..is that wrong?

It works fine for what it's designed for. People complain about the stupidest crap... just like Vista doesn't work worth shit... :roll:

I bought a laptop with Vista *(two days ago)..it BSOD'd about a day into its career with me.

I built a workstation 2 years ago and installed Vista Ultimate 64 on it and to date have not had a BSOD.

Vista still has the BSOD? whaaaa?

I too have Vista Ultimate 64bit, and have had zero BSODs. It's all about good drivers.

 

[Crusty]

Originally posted by: dullard

Originally posted by: JLee
I've heard that Office 07 is a significant improvement over previous versions..is that wrong?

With Word, it isn't too different. The SmartArt is vastly improved, but still dreadfully limited (what I mean is that it looks really good, but if you want to customize it, you are likely screwed). The equation editor is improved, but it screws up your old equations from old versions and you can't load the 07 equations into older versions. The styles selection was completely revamped, but a bit more powerful and a lot more buggy. Native PDF use is a good thing, although there were add-ins for older versions that worked just fine. Other than that, I don't see much change other than the screen-wasting ribbon.

With Excel, you get no real benefits that I can see other than slightly more attractive graphs. However, that ribbon gives you major headaches. Instead of clicking on a graph and getting one tabbed window with everything you need, you now must alternate between two ribbon tabs and a dozen of difficult, confusing, and slow to use icons to attempt to change things. For example, suppose you want to put in axes titles:
[*]In old versions you click on the graph and type in the titles in one window.
[*]Now, you click on the graph, click layout, click axes, click primary horizontal axis, click show, click axes title (if the ribbon reset to home, then first click layout AGAIN), click primary horizontal title, click title below axes, the graph doesn't update, so move it to make room, click on the title, type the horizontal title, click axes, click primary vertical axis, click show, click axes title (if the ribbon reset to home, then first click layout AGAIN), click primary vertical title, click title below axes, the graph doesn't update, so move it to make room, click on the title, type the vertical title, repeat with all other axes (if the ribbon reset to home, then first click layout AGAIN and AGAIN).

Originally posted by: SunnyD
It works fine for what it's designed for. People complain about the stupidest crap... just like Vista doesn't work worth shit... :roll:

See above Excel example. THAT is why people hate the ribbon. Taking a 30 second task and making it a 5 minute task is worthy of complaining. Do that dozens of times a day and you realize that it isn't stupid crap.


Edit: I forgot stupid placements in my rant. In older versions, to add a row or column, you clicked insert then the appropriate row or column menu option. Now, you click insert on the ribbon and nothing is there. You have to click HOME to insert a row. Why the fuc& didn't they put the insert row or insert column in the INSERT ribbon?

Completely wrong. Up until 07 Excel has always been single threaded, now it will make use of multi-cpus when running automatic calculations. If you have lots of independent calculations in Excel then using 07 will give you a huge boost in performance.

 

[DnetMHZ]

My favorite feature in Excel '07 is when you are quickly highlighting a bunch of cells that scroll off the screen, it slows you down when you hit the end of the data so you don't go flying past it.

 

[Aikouka]

I have no qualms with Office 2007.

 

[Barfo]

Originally posted by: Aikouka
I have no qualms with Office 2007.

Neither do I, took me a little bit to get used to the new interface but that's it.

 

[mb]

1) repost

2) no it's not

3) noob

 

[BoomerD]

Bah...I LIKE Office 2007. For me, it's much faster and easier to use than previous editions, will do many more things that previous editions, and once you get the hang of the ribbon bar, you'll wonder how the hell you ever functioned with the menu bar in previous editions.

 

[Leros]

Originally posted by: destrekor

Originally posted by: Linflas

Originally posted by: JLee

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: JLee
I've heard that Office 07 is a significant improvement over previous versions..is that wrong?

It works fine for what it's designed for. People complain about the stupidest crap... just like Vista doesn't work worth shit... :roll:

I bought a laptop with Vista *(two days ago)..it BSOD'd about a day into its career with me.

I built a workstation 2 years ago and installed Vista Ultimate 64 on it and to date have not had a BSOD.

Vista still has the BSOD? whaaaa?

I too have Vista Ultimate 64bit, and have had zero BSODs. It's all about good drivers.

I get BSOD's every now and then. Its this crappy Dell graphics driver.