I’m finding it more and more common as people update their PC’s and laptops, they get the new edition of Office (2007), and just don’t realise that the file formats have changed and their files can’t be seen by others user. That, and when you do point it out to people, it’s real easy to forget to save files to an older format. Is there a default file type setting in Office 2007? How are people dealing with this problem? I can only see it getting worst over the next few years, as 2007(+) becomes more widely used.
Today I took my first look at Excel 2007 tables. I’ve hardly use Excel 2007, for obvious reasons, so I’ve not really played with many of the “new” features.
I did a bit of research and basically there are already a few good spots out there for table related stuff:
This chart shows my feeling towards tables in Excel 2007 over the last 3 hours:
In summary, I think tables have been done really well, there are easy to use and makes sense. I think that the new reference system (table name[column]) is good, but just like named ranges, can cause as many issues as it might solved, especially when used by relatively low skilled Excel users. Most of the stuff that I can see in tables was already there, and has “just” been made much easier to get at, I like the auto-update-y nature of tables, but that always worries me a bit too.
Just for completeness I have done a quick video to add to the tables database!
The second thing that caught my eye in this weeks micro mart was a review of word processors. There where a few I’ve not seen before, which was interesting in itself. One I found really interesting, for two reasons was iWrite Pro. The first is the description of the UI:
It’s all very reminiscent of word 2007, but is that a good idea? Word is confusing for people not used to it because it is hard to find the function you want and some people prefer the old style of menus used in previous versions. Iwrite Pro’s ribbon is a different kettle of fish though and it’s not nearly as irritating. This is because it is a simpler program with fewer functions and it’s easier to find the one you need on the tabs.
here’s a picture:
Well, what can you say? Fail?
But perhaps the more surprising aspect is that iWrite Pro can actually implement the ribbon UI, – OK perhaps the most surprising thing is that anyone would want to, but regardless doesn’t this contravene the ridiculous ribbon Licensing agreement, and if they’ve rolled there own (which it looks like) and not signed with MS, then how long before MS come knocking?
When Simon recently stole my post idea [:-)] with his “Best/Favourite Excel version” it got me thinking what spread sheet offered the best value. I quickly came to the conclusion answering that particular question would be, well a bit rubbish really, and that nobody else would care anyway. But I still wanted to make a post that somehow allowed me to highlight Murphy’s theft(iry).
With this goal firmly establish I got to thinking about the cost of developing Office solutions, which in turn lead me to the cost of owing Office period. After a bit of research (which was much harder than I thought it was going to be), I present the following (and look forward to Simon reposting this in a few months :)))))))))))))))!
So as you can see, the cost of Office is coming down!!! Good news. Office XP (office 2002) seems to be a bit out of line. The only costs I could find for XP where in GBP, so even when I converted to $ and took of 20% they still look a bit keen.
However thats not the whole story is it! Because as you will no doubt be saying to yourselves (well done you clever thing you), a 100 quid in 97 is not the same as 100 quid today, here’s the normalised data, and the news looks even better!
So in conclusion Office is now cheaper to own than ever before and the cost difference between Standard and Professional is smaller than ever before. Oh and Simon Murphy is a massive content theft*”¦
