Chapter 2: The 2007 Office System User Interface-Whats Changed, Whats the Same

Overview

If you’ve heard anything about the 2007 Microsoft Office system in advance, chances are that what you’ve heard about is the Microsoft Office system’s new user interface. The changes in the 2007 Office release will surprise many personal computer users who are familiar with the look and feel of the menus, toolbars, dialog boxes, and other controls that have defined the Microsoft Office user interface in previous releases. In the 2007 Office release, you’ll work with the Ribbon and tabs instead of menus. Instead of having to select multiple options in a dialog box to combine formatting for text, a background color, and line styles, you can work with new features, such as galleries and Live Preview, to select a set of formats all at once and see how your choice will appear in your document.

Why did Microsoft change the organization and appearance of the user interface that literally millions of people use to work with its software? Research and interviews that Microsoft conducted revealed that many people, including frequent users of Microsoft Office, often had to pause in their work because a menu command or a set of options weren’t easy to find or follow. The changes to the user interface are designed in part so that users can find commands they need more quickly. Commands are more visible, more of them are labeled, and their function is often represented more graphically. The second purpose behind the changes was to let users view more easily the results of their actions. You no longer have to open and close a dialog box several times to apply and modify a series of formatting changes. You can now browse through the items displayed in a gallery of styles and see more or less instantly how a particular item will affect your document’s appearance.

Note 

Lovers of dialog boxes-and the level of detail and control they provide-should not lose heart. You can still get to the dialog boxes you need. For more information about how dialog boxes are used in the 2007 Microsoft Office system, see “Are You Missing Your Favorite Old Dialog Box?” on page 41.

In this chapter, you’ll take a look at the 2007 Office release user interface. You’ll see examples of the new elements, including the Ribbon, galleries, and the Quick Access Toolbar. And you’ll learn more about the 2007 Office online Help, which is integrated into the user interface more thoroughly than in previous releases. We’ll start with a quick tour, some descriptions, and a comparison of the new elements with those that may be more familiar. Keep in mind that this chapter is a general orientation to the new user interface. You’ll learn more about how to perform specific tasks in the sections of this book that cover individual applications. Later parts of this book also often include more information about how the new user interface is represented in a specific application. For example, the user interface for Microsoft Office Access 2007 will be covered in detail in Chapter 26, “Exploring the New Look of Access 2007.”

Note 

In the 2007 Office release, the user interface changes affect Microsoft Office Access, Microsoft Office Excel, Microsoft Office Outlook, Microsoft Office PowerPoint, and Microsoft Office Word (the “big five”). (In Office Outlook, only item windows-the windows used for items such as an e-mail message or an appointment-include the user interface that is based on the Ribbon; the Outlook application window displays menus and toolbars.) Programs such as Microsoft Office InfoPath, Microsoft Office OneNote, Microsoft Office Publisher, Microsoft Office Visio, and Microsoft Office Project do not include the new user interface.