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Microsoft Office 2007

Microsoft has released a new version of their popular office productivity suite called Office 2007. Want to see what Office 2007 looks like without having to load it on your workstation?  Faculty and staff can take a look at Microsoft Office 2007 through a service called Citrix.  To access Citrix, simply point your web browser to http://uncc.edu/citrix and log in with your NinerNET account.

Office 2007 is also available at the 2nd floor service desk in the Library for home use checkout.

Student computer labs and classroom podiums will get the new Office version over the winter break. All campus users will find the Microsoft Office 2007 installation package available on their Novell Application Launcher beginning December 18, 2007.

What's New in Office 2007?

Microsoft Office 2007 aims to provide a comprehensive set of tools to collect and consolidate any type of information, a quick and easy way to share critical information with others. Two of the biggest changes the end-user will experience are the user interface which includes the Ribbon and the Microsoft Button, and the XML file format of Office 2007 documents.

User Interface

The Ribbon

The Ribbon has replace traditional menus and toolbars. The Ribbon presents commands organized into a set of tabs. The tabs on the Ribbon display the commands most relevant for each of the task areas. For example, in Office Word 2007, a user will see the following example of the Ribbon.

The Microsoft Button

The Microsoft Office Button is single entry point offering two major advantages. First, it helps users find file-level features such as New, Open, Save, Save As, Print, etc. Second, it simplifies the end-user experience by allowing the Ribbon's contents to focus on document creation. Place your mouse over the image to see options available for the Microsoft Button.

XML File Format

One key difference is that Office 2007 now uses a XML-based file format for Word 2007, Excel 2007, and PowerPoint 2007. For example, the default file format you will be saving your Word documents is a *.docx file instead of the *.doc file. The XML format allows for better transportability between applications. XML is more of a text file and has better security than older office files and should pass through corporate firewalls and virus checking more efficiently.

Additional technical details about the XML format is available at Microsoft's website:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa338205.aspx