Office 2007 Sucks

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: Citrix

Originally posted by: MrChad
It's tough to teach an old dog new tricks. If you're used to the old interface (i.e. "experienced"), the new interface is going to require some re-training.

kinda goes against the theory of "intuitive" doenst it?

I suppose. People are always resistant to changes in processes they are familiar with, even if those changes make their jobs easier.

When she was in college, my wife worked with a guy that spent a week performing some complex calculations by hand using a worksheet he had developed. The same work could be done in minutes using an Excel spreadsheet, but the guy was much more comfortable doing it his way. Does that mean the spreadsheet was not intuitive? Or that the old way was superior? For someone new to the process, the spreadsheet would clearly be the better choice. If the guy was re-trained a bit, he would probably recognize the benefits of the newer method.

Learnability is a key component of user interfaces. So is consistency. Sometimes the consistent approach (keeping the same interface) works at odds with the more learnable approach. It's a trade-off, but don't mistake familiarity with intuitiveness.

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: Bateluer
Do the elitism is strong in this thread.

Office 2007 and Vista are very solid products and far ahead of what Office2003 and XP were at launch.

Some people just like to complain every time MS releases new software. When the next versions of Office and Windows are released, people will be bitching about how well Office2007/Vista work for them and how theirs no reason to upgrade.

that may be true but you cant say possibily think that excel 2007 is better then 2003

i mean shit it takes it 10 min to do what excel 2003 does in 2

that is not an improvement

 

[Turin39789]

My new lappy came with vista/office07. I'm trying very hard to leave them on so I can get some experience, but a month later and they just piss me off. Vista I might be able to deal with, but office is a PITA.

 

[Xavier434]

Changes which produce the best results are not always intuitive initially. I'm not saying Office 2007 falls into that category. Only time will tell with that one, but the general point is there.

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: Anubis

that may be true but you cant say possibily think that excel 2007 is better then 2003

i mean shit it takes it 10 min to do what excel 2003 does in 2

that is not an improvement

I have yet to experience this kind of issue yet but keep this in mind:

Just because something takes longer doesn't mean it is less powerful. It just might be that you do not need everything that it is doing when you click that shiny button. Office is not open source so we really do not know what is going on in the background for either 2003 or 2007. Now, one might call that bloat, but then again that same person would cry if they needed whatever it was doing later and then they come to find out it wasn't available. The way I always look at this kind of problem is that hardware almost always exceeds the requirements of software tools thanks to the gaming industry and its ability to push that hardware. We are currently looking at a rare case where some office tool software is giving today's hardware a run for its money. In due time, that won't be an issue. Most office environments do not need to run really large time sensitive tasks on a regular basis where this would be a problem anyways. Those that do can opt to stick with 2003 for now until they get better computers.

 

[teclis1023]

I agree with MrChad for the most part. I actually think that a lot of people don't understand how powerful Office software is because they have never been exposed to its higher-level functions because they're buried under menus and sub-menus.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

I like the new office, call me weird but its more intuitive.

Its a little harder to find things you knew where they were, but if you dont know where something is, its now easier to find

 

[Mojoed]

I disliked the Office 2007 UI for the first few days. I gotta say though, after sitting down and learning it, I find it a worthwhile successor to Office 2003.

 

[MegaVovaN]

I learn whole office 2007 suite in college (required class) - and I must say, when I first saw it I was frustrated. However, after training it is excellent tool, very easy to use and productive. Better than 2003 ever was. Taking notes with Word is now great.

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: Xavier434

Originally posted by: Anubis

that may be true but you cant say possibily think that excel 2007 is better then 2003

i mean shit it takes it 10 min to do what excel 2003 does in 2

that is not an improvement

Those that do can opt to stick with 2003 for now until they get better computers.

we tested it, better comps dont help our issue, we have spread sheets that are nearly maxed out, the extra cells that 2007 provide would be a benefit to us but the preformance hit we take with the same data and same calcs isnt worth the upgrade, granted we are prob a more specialized case but there are many others that work with huge data tables who also have this issue, its pretty well agreed upon that 2007 is really slow when working with alot of data, especially graphs, i can paste 200K+ cells at once and have a graph instantly refresh in 2003, that same operation took 8 min in 2007,

 

[Gunslinger08]

Like most new software with significant UI changes, it takes time to learn. Once you know it, you'll save time with the new layout. I'm sure similar things were said when people switched from older word processing apps to Microsoft Word. "Why are features so hard to find?" They're not hard to find. They just aren't in the location you expected them to be based on your previous experience.

 

[ViviTheMage]

all about the $$ easier GUI'S can provoke less computer savvy people to purchase and use the product.

 

[techs]

Notwithstanding the rest of the debate, what moron thought that leaving off the Quick Print button was good idea?
I literally have had to tell 10 people how to add it.

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: Anubis

we tested it, better comps dont help our issue, we have spread sheets that are nearly maxed out, the extra cells that 2007 provide would be a benefit to us but the preformance hit we take with the same data and same calcs isnt worth the upgrade, granted we are prob a more specialized case but there are many others that work with huge data tables who also have this issue, its pretty well agreed upon that 2007 is really slow when working with alot of data, especially graphs, i can paste 200K+ cells at once and have a graph instantly refresh in 2003, that same operation took 8 min in 2007,

Well, in your case, I don't think the problem is 2007. Rather it is your company's choice in how they store that huge amount of data. When you are dealing with that much data you really should use a database instead of a spreadsheet since performance is an issue. From there, you can do many things with the data to produce reports, graphs, etc.

 

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: Xavier434

Originally posted by: Anubis

we tested it, better comps dont help our issue, we have spread sheets that are nearly maxed out, the extra cells that 2007 provide would be a benefit to us but the preformance hit we take with the same data and same calcs isnt worth the upgrade, granted we are prob a more specialized case but there are many others that work with huge data tables who also have this issue, its pretty well agreed upon that 2007 is really slow when working with alot of data, especially graphs, i can paste 200K+ cells at once and have a graph instantly refresh in 2003, that same operation took 8 min in 2007,

Well, in your case, I don't think the problem is 2007. Rather it is your company's choice in how they store that huge amount of data. When you are dealing with that much data you really should use a database instead of a spreadsheet since performance is an issue. From there, you can do many things with the data to produce reports, graphs, etc.

Well, that point aside, if 2007 takes significantly longer to perform the exact same task as 2003 I'd say there's something wrong. Perhaps there's a bug they've hit that will be corrected in a future patch.

EDIT: Anubis, Microsoft has a few performance tweaks that might help you.

 

[Nocturnal]

I got in on the beta and have been hooked ever since. It's a great piece of software. No qualms regarding the software from me. Outlook could use an overhaul but that's about it.

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: ViviTheMage
all about the $$ easier GUI'S can provoke less computer savvy people to purchase and use the product.

Yup. The whole purpose of a GUI is to allow these people to use the computers as easily as the experts anyways. For every task to be performed by a program, you will always find many choices out there. In the end, it's always the same. The programs that sell most are always the ones with the easiest interfaces with the most eye candy. We've all witnessed that quality is not the #1 driving factor of sales for programs or just about any other product for that matter.


"Perception is reality."

 

[Nocturnal]

Originally posted by: techs
Notwithstanding the rest of the debate, what moron thought that leaving off the Quick Print button was good idea?
I literally have had to tell 10 people how to add it.

I know this is a minor annoyance but you can put it up there with the rest of the quick buttons if you go into the customize menu.

 

[techs]

Originally posted by: Nocturnal

Originally posted by: techs
Notwithstanding the rest of the debate, what moron thought that leaving off the Quick Print button was good idea?
I literally have had to tell 10 people how to add it.

I know this is a minor annoyance but you can put it up there with the rest of the quick buttons if you go into the customize menu.

Its not such a minor annoyance when you own a computer shop and the calls keep coming in....

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: MrChad
Well, that point aside, if 2007 takes significantly longer to perform the exact same task as 2003 I'd say there's something wrong. Perhaps there's a bug they've hit that will be corrected in a future patch.

Absolutely. Microsoft's big releases like this usually never see the major improvements until they are distributed more in the business world. The problems become more of a priority and get fixed at that point. I think the phrase here is, "The squeaky wheel gets the oil first." Of course by squeaky, I mean rich...not just loud lol.

 

[Xavier434]

One thing that I will definitely agree with here are the default settings in 2007. They need improvements. One example are the short cut buttons being absent from default ribbon bars as an issue and I totally agree. I don't understand why they didn't do some of that stuff.

 

[w3stfa11]

People like to complain because it's something new. I love it and I know other companies love it too and many are wanting to build their apps with the ribbon format.

 

[Gunslinger08]

Originally posted by: w3stfa11
People like to complain because it's something new. I love it and I know other companies love it too and many are wanting to build their apps with the ribbon format.

It's amazing how easy it is to develop and deploy new ribbons and new buttons to your entire enterprise. Very handy for big companies with document standards for inserting snippets, taglines, copyrights, etc.

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: MrChad

Originally posted by: Xavier434

Originally posted by: Anubis

we tested it, better comps dont help our issue, we have spread sheets that are nearly maxed out, the extra cells that 2007 provide would be a benefit to us but the preformance hit we take with the same data and same calcs isnt worth the upgrade, granted we are prob a more specialized case but there are many others that work with huge data tables who also have this issue, its pretty well agreed upon that 2007 is really slow when working with alot of data, especially graphs, i can paste 200K+ cells at once and have a graph instantly refresh in 2003, that same operation took 8 min in 2007,

Well, in your case, I don't think the problem is 2007. Rather it is your company's choice in how they store that huge amount of data. When you are dealing with that much data you really should use a database instead of a spreadsheet since performance is an issue. From there, you can do many things with the data to produce reports, graphs, etc.

Well, that point aside, if 2007 takes significantly longer to perform the exact same task as 2003 I'd say there's something wrong. Perhaps there's a bug they've hit that will be corrected in a future patch.

EDIT: Anubis, Microsoft has a few performance tweaks that might help you.

we do use a database to store things, Access and a few others, prob is we need to do calcs and such on really large ammnts of data at once, which we cant do in access, 2003 works fine for this, but 2007 is slow, google up about it others expirence it also, hopefully they will patch it in the future, however seeing as we just went to 2003 in the past 6 months i dont see 2007 being implemented any time soon

 

[Shawn]

Originally posted by: ElFenix
i don't like it, but people are already sending me docx files.

Microsoft already has a free add-on for Office 2003 that will automatically convert docx files to 2003 format upon open.