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This page is devoted to Microsoft Office 2007.  Love them or hate them, Microsoft is the ultimate office suite developer.  Their 2007 version of Microsoft Office suite of products has been modified to not only give it a more polished interface but improve its functionality.  Although there are users who are not happy with the changes, we find it does provide a more intuitive and uncluttered product.  We provide links to other sites that agree or not.You be the judge. This About page has tips to help save time when using Microsoft Office 2007.

The tabs on the left feature the suites available  in Microsoft Office 2007.  Please click on the appropriate tab or the links below for further information about that product. This page is a work in progress and links will be developed on that basis. 

So what is the bone of contention when it comes to this version of Office?  Quite simply put it is the Ribbon, which is the GUI based toolbar incorporated into all the Office products.  It was developed after extensive research and by questioning users and compiling the results to produce a "most used features" toolbar. This MSDN blog by one of the developers, Jensen Harris explains how the Ribbon came to be. His site provides many other interesting articles, downloads and tips and tricks to use the Office suite. (They are now working on the development of Office 2010). This link explains why they redesigned the user interface (UI) for Office 2007. It is the first of an eight part series. Interestingly, it was their desire to produce programs for the Macintosh that started them on the path those many years ago. The roots of the early Microsoft Office programs were rooted in the Mac and of course, the user interface reflected that.

We admit that when we first started using Office 2007 the first thing we did was add what we were familiar with to the Quick Access Toolbar.We had an old Toshiba laptop on which we first loaded the Ultimate version of Office 2007  and proceeded to customise the QAT.  Admittedly, while we thought this was more convenient, it clearly defeated the purpose of the Ribbon, i.e. to make the UI less cluttered and by extension, more productive.  When we loaded it on another laptop recently, we decided to go with the concept of the Ribbon and have not looked back.  It just makes more sense and although there is a learning curve, it is well worth the effort. While there are a few commands that we use more than others, the QAT has been pared down considerably from its first incarnation.  If you would like to learn more about customising QAT, this link on Microsoft is a WMV demo download. The illustration above shows the Ribbon and its concept, numbered to indicate:

 Tabs are designed to be task-oriented.

 Groups within each tab break a task into subtasks.

 Command buttons in each group carry out a command or display a menu of commands