Teching It Easy: Windows Vista & 7: Office Productivity

Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 14:48:35 GMT

Quote:

Overview
Users of the Microsoft Office XP and 2003 programs Word, Excel, or PowerPoint—please install all High-Priority updates from Microsoft Update before downloading the Compatibility Pack.
By installing the Compatibility Pack in addition to Microsoft Office 2000, Office XP, or Office 2003, you will be able open, edit, and save files using the file formats new to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007. The Compatibility Pack can also be used in conjunction with the Microsoft Office Word Viewer 2003, Excel Viewer 2003, and PowerPoint Viewer 2003 to view files saved in these new formats. For more information about the Compatibility Pack, see Knowledge Base article 924074.
Note: If you use Microsoft Word 2000 or Microsoft Word 2002 to read or write documents containing complex scripts, please see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925451 for information to enable Word 2007 documents to be displayed correctly in your version of Word.
Administrators: The administrative template for the Word, Excel, and PowerPoint converters contained within the Compatibility Pack is available for download.

Download here

Technorati tags: Microsoft Office Online, Office, Office 2007, Office 2000, Office XP, Office 2003, Office System, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Compatibility Pack, File Format, Microsoft Update, Productivity Tools

Outlook Connector: Learn how to sync your Email accounts

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 02:56:14 GMT

From Windows Live

With Microsoft® Office Outlook® Connector, you can use Outlook to receive your Windows Live™ Hotmail® messages—free of charge. Plus, use all the same formatting and organizational features you already use in Hotmail! With quick, easy access to your information on and offline, Outlook Connector helps you keep track of all your e-mail and contact information and automatically synchronize your Hotmail account.

Learn more here

UPDATE: Brandon Leblanc over at the Windows Experience Blog gives us a tutorial and some background information on the new Outlook Connector. Some interesting features include the Delta Sync technology which replaces WebDAV protocol formerly used for downloading Hotmail email in Outlook.

"The Microsoft Office Outlook Connector is designed to let you access your Windows Live Hotmail account through Outlook 2003 or Outlook 2007. You will be able to download and install the Connector to sync up your email and contacts in Windows Live Hotmail for free. However, if you are a paid subscriber of MSN Premium, Office Live Essentials, or Office Live Premium you will get the added functionality of being able to sync up your calendar, tasks and notes from Outlook to Windows Live Hotmail."

Read the rest here

Technorati tags: Windows Live, Outlook 2007, Office 2007, Outlook 2003, Outlook Connector, Windows Live Mail, Hotmail, Email, Tips and Tricks, Windows Experience Blog, Brandon Leblanc, Delta Sync, WebDAV

Office 2007 BETA 2 Bites The Dust

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 06:33:27 GMT

Well, just learned this morning after launching Excel 2007 that the Office 2007 BETA 2 suite has finally expired. I have been running the suite on one of my desktop systems since beta 2 was released last year and I guess you could say this is just another proof of how stable the suite has been. I guess its time to upgrade. :)

Resources:

ActiveWin: Office 2007 RTM Review

Technorati tags: Office 2007, Office 2007 BETA 2, ActiveWin, Office 2007 Review, Office 12, Microsoft, Windows Vista, Office Productivity Suite, Office Professional Plus 2007, Software Expire

New Office Online website - Now Out of Beta

Wed, 01 Nov 2006 23:16:42 GMT

New Office Online Website

Citrix Terminal software allows you to test a virtual version of Office 2007.

The new Office 2007 Online Portal is now out of beta, featuring a radical departure from its predecessor. Reflecting a similar look and feel to the core Office 2007 applications using the new Ribbon interface, Office Online features quick access to Help and How to (tips and tricks) on getting the most out of Office 2007 along with a online try out of the new version of the venerable Office suite. Its really cool. :)

Check it out here

Technorati tags: Microsoft Office 2007, Office Online Website, Vista, RTM.

Windows Desktop Search 3.0 Final for Windows XP and Server 2003 Now Available.

Tue, 24 Oct 2006 18:47:14 GMT

From Microsoft Downloads

Overview
Windows Desktop Search 3.0 is the technology which enables instant search on your computer. It helps you to find, preview, and use your documents, e-mail, music, photos, and other items. The search engine in Windows Desktop Search 3.0 is a Windows service that is also used by applications such as Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 and OneNote 2007 to index application content and deliver instant results when searching within that application. Windows Desktop Search 3.0 provides fast indexing, improved performance, and improved file type support.

Download WDS XP x86 HERE
Download WDS XP x64 HERE
Download WDS Server 2003 x86 HERE
Download WDS Server 2003 x64 HERE

Technorati tags: Desktop Search, Windows, XP, x64, x86, Server 2003

Office 2007 RTM Nears

Fri, 06 Oct 2006 17:16:43 GMT

From ActiveWin

Quote:
"We are thrilled with the incredible excitement around the upcoming 2007 Microsoft Office system as is evident by over 3 million people installing the Beta 2 and later Beta2TR builds. With your help, we have far exceeded our technical participation goals. At this time, we are pleased to announce that the 2007 Office system will be released to manufacturing (RTM) in the next few weeks. We thank you for your participation in the planning, development, and testing of this new release. As we approach the end of the beta testing phase of Office 2007, we would like to make you aware of several upcoming events that will affect you."

Read the rest here

This beta went by so fast, I don't know if its because of the Vista Beta Program, but I hardly got the chance to fully submit feedback on this version. I think a lot of users will be pleased with this release, its stable, responsive, innovative and makes the suite a lot easier to use with the new Ribbon interface, which exposes tools which were once hidden under drop down menus. Users will welcome the changes that have been added to Outlook such as support for Really Simple Syndication (RSS), To Do Bar, Task, and improved search capabilities and better management of data stores. Hopefully I will finish my Office 2007 final review in time which I have been working on for the past month. Not a lot has changed, but I have corrected and adjusted the review according to the changes that took place since BETA 1 was released in November of last year. Good job Office Team.

Resources:
ActiveWin Microsoft Office 12 BETA 1 Preview
Jensen Harris: An Office User Interface Blog
Office Zealot

Technorati tags: Office 2007, RTM, Microsoft, Reviews

Microsoft, You Promised!

Sat, 26 Aug 2006 19:47:27 GMT

Microsoft, you said this is suppose to be a thing of the past starting with Office XP. So why am I seeing it here in Office 2007? Come on????

Reboot? Get a life!

The Office 2007 icons, which one is which one?

Tue, 18 Jul 2006 15:16:31 GMT

Just a quick note about the new Office 2007 icons, persons have been experiencing a little problem telling which icon is which application. So here are the names:

Top: Office Word, Office InfoPath, Office Outlook, Office Project, Office Publisher, Office PowerPoint

Bottom: Office Visio, Office Access, Office Excel, Office OneNote, Office Groove, Office Communicator

Office 14: You Want Roles With That?

Thu, 13 Jul 2006 19:07:08 GMT

From CRN

Quote:

"Microsoft has talked vaguely about how Office 14--the one after Office 2007--will borrow from the "role model" in the new Microsoft Business Solutions' ERP and CRM apps.

Following up comments he made at Software 2006 a few months ago, Microsoft Enterprise & Partner VP Simon Witts told CRN recently that there is a "clear desire" is to go to a more role-based version of Office. So there might be an Office 14 version for sales people, for example, he said."

Read the rest here

Just yesterday we were talking about Office 2007 icons, and now we are already dicussing whats expected in the version of Office after.

The Office 2007 Icons

Wed, 12 Jul 2006 14:41:46 GMT

From Microsoft Design via The Insider by Sidebar Geek

Just got a chance to look at the new Office Icons, how would I describe my reaction? Stunning and about time. The last radical departure for Office icons was with Office 2000 released in 1999, which introduced a standard set of colourful, easy to understand pictorial representations. Office XP didn't change anything much with executables except for a stronger color tone, while Office 2003 introduced a softer, Windows XP Style set of icons.

The new Office 2007 Icons.

With the Office 2007 set, it takes a bit getting accustomed to, but over time, you will file right at home launching them. The icons have a background box for each, its kinda similar to the Office 95/97 icons. Overall, they look cool, can't wait to check them out in the next available test release for Office 2007.

Word 97 icon

Microsoft Office 2007 Technical Refresh Screenshots!

Thu, 09 Mar 2006 16:44:29 GMT

From Microsoft PressPass

Microsoft released screenshots of the upcoming Technical Refresh of the Company's next generation Office productivity software, expected next week.

Click here to check out these new screenshots which has a familar Netscape 8 look.

Office 2007 Blogs Update

Thu, 16 Feb 2006 15:05:08 GMT

Here are list of available Office 2007 Blogs so far, I don't see Office Groove yet.

Microsoft® Office Access

What's New in Access “12” (Eric Rucker)

Microsoft® Office Excel®

What's New in Excel “12” (David Gainer)

Microsoft® Office FrontPage

What's New in FrontPage “12” (Rob Mauceri)

Microsoft® Office OneNote®

A User-oriented View of OneNote “12” (Chris Pratley)

OneNote General (Owen Braun)

Microsoft® Office Outlook®

Outlook General (Will Kennedy, GM)

Outlook Tasks and Time Management (Melissa MacBeth)

RSS/Search/Sharing (Michael Affronti)

Outlook Programmability (Ryan Gregg)

Microsoft® Office Project

What's New in Project “12” (Dieter Zirkler)

Microsoft® Office Publisher

Publisher “12”, XPS and more (Jeff Bell)

What's New in Publisher “12”

Microsoft® Office Visio

Visio “12” (Eric Rockey)

Microsoft® Office Word

What's New in Word “12” (Joe Friend)

Microsoft® Windows SharePoint Services

Windows SharePoint Services (PJ Hough)

Document Management, Workflow, & Records Management (Rob Lefferts)

Office “12” New User Interface

Office “12” New User Interface (Jensen Harris)

Office “12” New XML File Format

Office “12” New XML File Format (Brian Jones)

Publishing XPS Documents

Publishing XPS Documents (Andy Simonds)

Publisher “12”, XPS and more (Jeff Bell)

PDF Support in Office “12”

PDF Support in Office “12” (Cyndy Wessling)

TechTalk with Steven Sinofsky

TechTalk with Steven Sinofsky

Office 2007 is in, Office 2003 is out!

Thu, 16 Feb 2006 14:44:47 GMT

Well, not yet, we have until the end of the year to decide if we should continue using Office 2003, XP, 2000 or 97, but in the mean time, check out the line up for the next version.

Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007 (Available through Volume Licensing, no price announced)
Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007 (Available through Volume Licensing, no price announced)
Microsoft Office Professional 2007 (Retail $499, Upgrade $329)
Microsoft Office Small Business 2007 (Retail $449, Upgrade $279)
Microsoft Office Standard 2007 (Retail $399, Upgrade $239)
Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 (Retail $149, no upgrade available)
Microsoft Office Basic 2007 (Available through OEMs, no price announced)

Individuals programs have also been priced:

Microsoft Office Access 2007 (Retail $229, Upgrade $109)
Microsoft Office Communicator (Available through Volume Licensing, no price announced)
Microsoft Office Excel 2007 (Retail $229, Upgrade $109)
Microsoft Office Groove 2007 (Available through Volume Licensing, no price announced)
Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007 (Retail $199, no upgrade available)
Microsoft Office OneNote 2007 (Retail $99, no upgrade available)
Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 (Retail $109, no upgrade available)
Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 (Retail $229, Upgrade $109)
Microsoft Office Project Standard 2007 (Retail $599, Upgrade $349)
Microsoft Office Project Professional 2007 (Retail $999, Upgrade $599)
Microsoft Office Publisher 2007 (Retail $169, Upgrade $99)
Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 (Retail $299, no upgrade available)
Microsoft Office Visio Standard 2007 (Retail $259, Upgrade $129)
Microsoft Office Visio Professional 2007 (Retail $559, Upgrade $349)
Microsoft Office Word 2007

Check out the Microsoft PressPass release about Office 2007 HERE

Resources:

Office 12 BETA 1 Pre-view for ActiveWin

Office 12 NDA Lifted - Check out my Preview on ActiveWin

Mon, 06 Feb 2006 18:48:56 GMT

Ed Bott and Robert Scoble have confirmed that the NDA on Office 12 has been lifted.

Quote:

"Yes, the Office 12 NDA has been lifted

An update on the earlier confusion about the Office NDA.

Robert Scoble has the definitive answer. Robert has left several comments in response to my earlier post, and he wrote this summary on his own site:"

Read the rest here

So, check out my recent preview of Office 12 I did for ActiveWin, here's a snippet:

"Releases of Microsoft Office over the past 6 years have been considered evolutionary upgrades, delivering new features with each new version making life a bit easier for authors of Office documents. The release of Office 2000 in 1999 introduced tighter integration with the Web, giving users the ability to flawlessly save documents in HTML format and distribute over the Internet or Intranet, adding stronger ways of accessing information."

Read the rest here

Microsoft Office Live is just around the corner.

Tue, 31 Jan 2006 18:01:30 GMT

From Microsoft

Whether you asked to be part of our beta late last year, or just last week, we want to thank you for your patience. We've been working hard to build these exciting new services. We trust you'll find them worth the wait.

What is Microsoft Office Live?
Microsoft® Office Live consists of three different packages of online services, each designed with the small business owner in mind, that deliver remarkable new ways to grow and run your business online.* The best part - it's all FREE during beta.**

Domain name, Web hosting, company e-mail and more
With Microsoft Office Live Basics you can start by claiming your own domain name (for example, www.northwindtraders.com) and, using our easy Site Designer tool, get a professional Web site up and running in minutes. Web traffic reports let you manage your own business Web site without being a Web expert. Company-branded e-mail accounts that match your business domain (for example, jsmith@northwindtraders.com) helps give your company the professional image it deserves.

Shared Sites and online business applications
Microsoft Office Live Collaboration is ideal for any business where ongoing information sharing and collaboration are essential. Create your own Shared Sites to access and share information - even when you're on the go - using your company's own password-protected Web site.^ We also include a variety of online business applications so you can easily manage your customer, project, sales and company information, all in one place.

Web hosting, company e-mail, Shared Sites and more.
With Microsoft Office Live Essentials, you get all the benefits of Office Live Basics and Office Live Collaboration, and more. Additional company e-mail accounts with enhanced access features, advanced Web traffic reports, and Microsoft Office FrontPage® software support provide an all-in-one, comprehensive solution for growing and managing your business online.

I hope I get in. :)

Office 12 Technical Beta Invites

Thu, 10 Nov 2005 23:44:24 GMT

From NeoWin

Qoute:

Microsoft has just sent out the first wave of "Office 12" technical beta program invitations. In the e-mail received by many of our members here at Neowin, Microsoft revealed that Office 12 Beta 1 is scheduled for release within the next 2-3 weeks.

"Thank you for completing our nomination survey sometime within the past several weeks, and letting us know about your interest in participating in the Microsoft® Office "12" Technical Beta program. We are pleased to announce that your request for participation in the Office "12" Technical Beta has been approved. You will be provided with access to the Office "12" Beta software, documentation, and support within the next 2-3 weeks. But we wanted to let you know now that you have been accepted, so that you can make any preparations that you need."

Read the rest here

Exciting Christmas ahead for BETA Testers.

Office 12 Pre-Beta Screenshot Galleries

Thu, 03 Nov 2005 23:49:04 GMT

From WinSupersite

Qoute:

"Credit the Office team at Microsoft for becoming the surprise hit of PDC (Professional Developer Conference 2005 (see my exhaustive coverage): Despite being billed as a coming out party for Windows Vista (see my activity center), PDC 2005 was instead a showcase for Office 12, Microsoft's late-2006 rendition of its classic office productivity suite. In an era of increased competition from OpenOffice.org and StarOffice 8, critics had charged that there was very little anyone could do with an office productivity suite. After all, they argued, word processing is word processing. And with OpenOffice.org taking on the Office 2003 look and feel, that argument seemed correct. Microsoft, the story went, was doomed to watching its competitors slowly catch up."

Read the rest and check out the screenshots here

Even Paul Thurrott is running the leaked copy.

Microsoft Office Publisher 12 Blog - Now Up!

Sat, 29 Oct 2005 16:05:38 GMT

Well from the 24th of October actually.

From Jeff_Bell

Introduction

What about Publisher? A few blogs have started wondering when we were going to speak up on our plans. That’s my job (among other hats I wear) and it’s time to start. We do have an exciting Publisher release in the pipeline as part of Office “12".

Read the rest here

Other Office Blogs to check out:

Steven Sinofsky's Microsoft TechTalk. Steven is the Senior Vice President of Office and his blog is primarily focused on issues relating to helping college grads make an informed decision about what it's like to work at Microsoft and the kind of impact new hires and interns have around Office. Yet, Steven also finds time to write about some of the current decisions we've made in Office 12, always flavored with historical information about what Office has learned from past successes and mistakes. His September 12 entry talks in-depth about some of the history behind the Office Assistant ("Clippy") as well as the Office 12 new UI.

Brian Jones: Office XML Formats: I guess Brian's blog is kind of the ying to this blog's yang. One of the other big advances in Office 12 is the new XML-based file format, and Brian's blog is a great starting point to learn both the "why" and the "what" of the change.

Chris Pratley: A OneNote WebLog: Chris is an accomplished and experienced product designer who runs the program management team that oversees Word and OneNote. Chris has been posting since midway through the OneNote 2003 product cycle and has just started posting information about the next version, OneNote 12.

David Gainer: Microsoft Excel 12 Blog: David leads the Excel program management team, and he has started a blog in which his team will let you know what's coming in Excel 12. First announcement: more rows and columns!

Owen Braun: Another OneNote Blog: Owen was instrumental in shaping the first two versions of OneNote; I'm sure his blog will be interesting!

PJ Hough: Windows SharePoint Services: PJ's SharePoint blog is just getting started and includes some nice information about the upcoming WSS "v.3", especially its support of blogs, wikis, and RSS.

Office FrontPage 12 Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/rmauceri/

Welcome! Let me introduce myself, my name is Rob Mauceri and I’m the Group Program Manager for FrontPage. I’m going to use this blog to talk about what is coming in the next release of FrontPage – code named “FrontPage 12”. This version of FrontPage will ship sometime next year, on the same timeline as the rest of the Office family of products.

Just a couple notes about me. I’ve worked on FrontPage for a long time (over 10 years, yikes!) and I contributed to every release of FrontPage including Vermeer FrontPage 1.0. I worked as a software developer on FrontPage 1.0 through FrontPage 2002, and as a program manager on FrontPage 2003 and FrontPage 12. I’m passionate about personal publishing, web site design, building web applications, and SharePoint.

Office Project 12 Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/dieterz/default.aspx

Who am I? Why should you care?

I am the Group Program Manager (aka GPM) for Microsoft Project. I have been working on the Proj team since early 2000. I led the team that designed the Project EPM Solution for Project 2002. I then moved up to managing the overall program management team for Proj with the Project 2003 release.

Office 12 PDF Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/cyndy_wessling/default.aspx

Okay, first post. I’m Cyndy Wessling, and I’ve been at Microsoft for eight years and have been a program manager in Office for the past four years, with the last year or so spent working on the Save As PDF feature among other things. This topic has already gotten off to a great start on Brian Jones’ blog, and I’m looking forward to addressing some of the questions and comments I’ve seen posted there.

Read the rest here

I think the blogs that are left to join are PowerPoint, Outlook, InfoPath and Visio

ActiveWin.com: Microsoft Office 12 Screenshots

Thu, 13 Oct 2005 17:10:45 GMT

From ActiveWin

Qoute:

"We have posted 16 brand new Office 12 screenshots of the latest build available. Screenshots are of Word, Excel, Outlook, Publisher, Access, Infopath and Powerpoint. In Word, you can now see Word referred to as "Word 2006." Check them out!

Check out the screenshots here

Great screenshots, still early in development, but you can see where the Office Team is heading in terms of the user experience in this release.

Office 12 PDF Blog - Now Up!

Mon, 10 Oct 2005 21:32:18 GMT

Cyndy_Wessling via Random Elements

For me and many of the people on my team (all of the Office teams, actually), this has been a long-standing customer request that we’ve been wanting to satisfy, and we are excited to hear your thoughts about Save as PDF, so please let us know.

Read the rest here

Check out the other Office 12 Blogs HERE

Office 12: Introducing the Mini-Bar

Thu, 06 Oct 2005 20:12:41 GMT

From Jensen Harris

When you select text in Office 12, the MiniBar appears "ghosted" above the text you selected. If you move closer to the MiniBar, it fades in and becomes a miniature toolbar you can use to apply Bold, Italic, Font Size, Color, etc. As you move the pointer away from the edge of the MiniBar, it fades away to nothing. So, if you don't want to use the MiniBar on selection, just move your cursor a few pixels away and it dismisses.

Read the rest here

There is also a short movie showing the Mini-Bar in action, worth checking it out. Office 12 is looking like the best release of the suite to date.

Microsoft Office Access 12 Blog - Now Up!

Thu, 06 Oct 2005 15:07:47 GMT

From Access

Introducing Access 12

Hello! I’m Erik Rucker, and I’m the Group Program Manager for Microsoft Access. I’ll be using this blog to share details about the upcoming version of Access, which we’re currently referring to as “Access 12”. I’ll be working with other folks on the Access team on these posts, and so in addition to the product you’ll get a chance to meet some of the people who are building it.

Read the rest here

Other Office Blogs to check out:

Owen Braun: Another OneNote Blog: Owen was instrumental in shaping the first two versions of OneNote; I'm sure his blog will be interesting!

PJ Hough: Windows SharePoint Services: PJ's SharePoint blog is just getting started and includes some nice information about the upcoming WSS "v.3", especially its support of blogs, wikis, and RSS.

Office FrontPage 12 Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/rmauceri/

Office Project 12 Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/dieterz/default.aspx

Who am I? Why should you care?

I think the blogs that are left to join are PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher, InfoPath and Visio

Native PDF support in Office "12"

Sat, 01 Oct 2005 22:47:08 GMT

From Brian Jones

Qoute:

"Today's another exciting day as we move closer to Beta 1. We are just wrapping up the MVP summit here in Redmond and we've finally announced another piece of functionality I've wanted to talk about for a long time now. This afternoon Steven Sinofsky announced to our MVPs that we will build in native support for the PDF format in Office "12". I constantly get asked by customers if we can build in this support for publishing documents as PDF files, and now I can thankfully say "yes!" It's something we've been hearing about for years, and earlier in this project we decided that while there were already existing third party tools for doing this, we should do the work to build the functionality natively into the product.

The PDF support will be built into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Publisher, OneNote, Visio, and InfoPath! I love how well this new functionality will work in combination with the new Open XML formats in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. We've really heard the feedback that sharing documents across multiple platforms and long term archiving are really important. People now have a couple options here, with the existing support for HTML and RTF, and now the new support for Open XML formats and PDF!"

Read the rest here

Well, this is exciting news, I guess a lot of folks can out their copy of Adobe Acrobat Professional for sale on e-bay and uninstall those thirdparty PDF creation utilities such as CutePDF. :)

Office Project and FrontPage 12 Blogs

Wed, 28 Sep 2005 23:31:41 GMT

It seems like almost all of the Office Product Teams are blogging, I just found two more:

Office FrontPage 12 Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/rmauceri/

Office Project 12 Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/dieterz/default.aspx

Who am I? Why should you care?

I think the blogs that are left to join are PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, Publisher, InfoPath and Visio

Office 12: It's Not Just UI - Jensen Harris

Wed, 28 Sep 2005 18:57:23 GMT

From Jensen Harris

Qoute:

"There are a number of other Microsoft Office employee blogs you can check out if you're interested in learning more about Office 12.

Here are a few of them to get you started:

Steven Sinofsky's Microsoft TechTalk. Steven is the Senior Vice President of Office and his blog is primarily focused on issues relating to helping college grads make an informed decision about what it's like to work at Microsoft and the kind of impact new hires and interns have around Office. Yet, Steven also finds time to write about some of the current decisions we've made in Office 12, always flavored with historical information about what Office has learned from past successes and mistakes. His September 12 entry talks in-depth about some of the history behind the Office Assistant ("Clippy") as well as the Office 12 new UI.
Brian Jones: Office XML Formats: I guess Brian's blog is kind of the ying to this blog's yang. One of the other big advances in Office 12 is the new XML-based file format, and Brian's blog is a great starting point to learn both the "why" and the "what" of the change.
Chris Pratley: A OneNote WebLog: Chris is an accomplished and experienced product designer who runs the program management team that oversees Word and OneNote. Chris has been posting since midway through the OneNote 2003 product cycle and has just started posting information about the next version, OneNote 12.
David Gainer: Microsoft Excel 12 Blog: David leads the Excel program management team, and he has started a blog in which his team will let you know what's coming in Excel 12. First announcement: more rows and columns!
Owen Braun: Another OneNote Blog: Owen was instrumental in shaping the first two versions of OneNote; I'm sure his blog will be interesting!
PJ Hough: Windows SharePoint Services: PJ's SharePoint blog is just getting started and includes some nice information about the upcoming WSS "v.3", especially its support of blogs, wikis, and RSS.

As more Office blogs come online, I'll keep you updated.

Could Office 12 be "Office Mondo"?

Wed, 28 Sep 2005 00:34:00 GMT

From Rafael

Qoute:

One of the things I noticed was that Office 12 being shown to the public appeared older than what was installed on the machines in the Hands-On-Labs (HOL) area. The HOL area, of course, was tightly guarded/secured (e.g. lab manuals tied to the desk) and had no internet access.

Here is the interesting part, the Microsoft Office Word 12 Help About:

Read more about it and check out the screenies here

Very unique name I must say, couldn't find the meaning in the Encarta dictionary, so I googled. The name means either "World" or "Enormous". This could mean Office 12 is giving you a bigger view of your information to make sense of with new ways to manipulate, share it while at the same time have more control over it.

Microsoft Office System Updates

Tue, 27 Sep 2005 19:10:33 GMT

From Microsoft Downloads

Microsoft has released Service Pack 2 for certain modules in the Microsoft Office System 2003, here is a link to them:

Microsoft Office 2003 Service Pack 2 (includes Service Pack 2 for Office FrontPage 2003)

Microsoft Office Project 2003 Service Pack 2

Microsoft Office Visio 2003 Service Pack 2

Microsoft Office OneNote 2003 Service Pack 2

Microsoft Office 2003 Service Pack 2 for Proofing Tools

Microsoft Office Project Server 2003 Service Pack 2

Windows SharePoint Team Services with Service Pack 2

Whats up with Office OneNote 12?

Mon, 26 Sep 2005 15:12:07 GMT

From Chris_Pratley

Qoute:

"I thought I would discuss a few new capabilities of "OneNote 12" that I think many current users are dying to see appear. Certainly each of these has appeared many times in our newsgroups and in our suggestion lists in the OneNote community site. Remember that "OneNote 12" is a codename, and we use 12 because we share code with Office and Office is on version "12". Of course this is by no means an exhaustive list - there's plenty more to come!

Tables
Tables are a no-brainer feature for OneNote 12. We support creating them the typical ways (like Word). You can also paste tables from the web, Word, Excel, etc into OneNote and they will remain tables (yay!). Our tables are not super-fancy though, so too much cell merging or fancy gradient backgrounds will get you in trouble - we don’t support that stuff.

Read the rest here

Also check out Owen Braun's blog for more on OneNote 12

Jensen Harris: An Office User Interface Blog

Thu, 22 Sep 2005 16:48:30 GMT

From Jensen Harris

Qoute:

"My name is Jensen Harris and I work on the Microsoft Office "user experience" team. Our team is responsible for the overall interaction and visual design of the programs that ship in Office. Although we work very closely with the individual application teams (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, etc.) to help solve difficult usability issues specific to those programs, our key responsibility is to design and develop the UI framework that people use to interact with all of Office. Some of the innovations that came from this team before my time working on it included red-squiggle spell checking in Office 95, command bars in Office 97, and Task Panes in Office XP.

In short, the team's mission is to help make sure that you can find and use the functionality in Office as seamlessly as possible.

Read the rest here and check out the entire blog here

A wonderful blog I discovered via Kunal Kundaje blog that focuses on the next version of Microsoft Office, code named Office 12. Lots interesting information and screenshots of the new ui.

12 Tips for Creating Better Presentations

Mon, 05 Sep 2005 00:19:06 GMT

From Microsoft At Work

Qoute:

"You have a presentation to create. It's important. But, formatting diagrams can take forever and the text on your slides seems to have a mind of its own. Then, there's the sad fact that everybody's PowerPoint presentations look the same.

Sound about right? If so, I've got good news for you! Creating professional, unique presentations can be much easier than you might think.

This article will help you find the right tools to get exactly the presentation you want. We'll look at three components of creating effective presentations, and provide timesaving tips to help send your presentation off in style."

Read the rest here

Office 12 Gets New Look

Mon, 11 Jul 2005 17:57:19 GMT

From CRN

Quote:
"When Office 12 comes down the pike in a year or so, it will have a new look and feel aimed at exposing a user's favorite features.

Specifically, Microsoft is working on a "ribbon" concept in which the user would get a different strip or ribbon of icons depending on the task at hand—whether it's a simple note, a fancy document, a graphical presentation, multimedia or a spreadsheet, said a source familiar with the plans. That ribbon would expose only the tools relevant to the current job."

Read the rest here

Lets hope its customizable themes in Office, I very much preferred the flat professional look of Office XP, I just hope they add that as an option. I also want vector based toolbar icons that can scaled to larger sizes without getting jaggy pixelated. Overall, I'm excited!

XML File Formats, Office 12 and Office for Mac 12

Thu, 02 Jun 2005 18:12:16 GMT

From CNET
Microsoft said Thursday that it will introduce new XML-based file formats for its Excel, PowerPoint and Word applications when the company launches its Office 12 software package next year.

Company officials said the move to replace Microsoft's traditional binary file formats with XML-based versions as the default in Office 12 will let people more easily share information.

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From Microsoft-Watch

Microsoft is making XML-based file formats the default in its next-generation Office suite. Will users bite or take flight?

Microsoft continues to slowly trickle out bits of information about its Office 12 suite. On Thursday the company will announce that it plans to make XML-based file formats the default in the version of Office due to ship in the latter half of 2006.

Microsoft is introducing the new formats as part of Office 12, officials said, and will share more details about them at next week's Tech Ed 2005 conference in Orlando, Fla.

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From Rick Schaut
Scoble dropped the hint, and Mary Jo Foley spilled the beans. C|New has also jumped the gun on this. There's a piece on Channel 9 over here, and it won't be long before the official press release is here. (I waited more than 10 minutes past the deadline, folks.) Lastly, Brian Jones, PM in the Win Office team, has a post here.

Just in case you're wondering about the story with Mac Office 12, Mac Office 12 will support the new file formats as well. Also, as with Win Office, we'll be producing converters for Office X and Office 2004. Some details have yet to be fully finalized, but we expect to ship converters that will provide full round-trip support for the new file formats in Office X and Office 2004.

For us in Mac BU, this represents an enormous undertaking on two fronts. Win Office is already well ahead of Mac Office in terms of support for XML, and the state of XML parsing on Panther is, well, less than desirable (among other things, the version of libXML that ships on Panther doesn't support SAX 2.0's namespace changes).

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The new file formats for the three core apps, Word, Excel and PowerPoint will be renamed .docx, .xlsx and .pptx. It is strange that Microsoft Office Access and Publisher are not mentioned in this. There will be a converter for folder versions of Office, versions 2000, XP and 2003, which I say will just give users more reasons to stay with those older versions.

Resources:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview
Brian Jones - New Office File Formats announced

My Articles:
Microsoft Office, stand by your man, Windows that is.

Facing 'new world of work,' Microsoft locks up Office

Tue, 24 May 2005 16:13:24 GMT

REDMOND, Wash.--For most of their 20 years, Word and Excel documents have had free rein within corporate walls.

In the early days, workers used an array of floppy disks to shuttle documents created with the programs from department to department. E-mail let the files become even more far-flung, easily moving them among branch offices around the globe.

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Read my article about: Microsoft Office, stand by your man, Windows that is.