Microsoft
Office 2007 Ultimate
Microsoft
Office 2007 Ultimate
 By
Dale Farris, Reviews CoordinatorGolden Triangle PC Club March 2007 Once again, Microsoft updates their flagship Office suite software. With this latest major upgrade, Microsoft now releases Office 2007, and the new features are especially designed to take advantage of the new "Aero," graphical capabilities in the new Windows Vista. In addition, Office 2007 represents one of the more significant upgrades to this long established office suite, mainly due to the many new design features that have been created in order to make using Office more intuitive. While Office 2007 will run on many Windows XP machines, if you install Office 2007 on a Vista machine, especially one that has been configured with high end hardware, you will really see the value of the many new features that have been coded in Office 2007. Note that Office 2007 will show up as number 12 when you open the Help, About function in any of the Office 2007 applications. With this latest edition of Office, Microsoft has once again partnered a new release of Office along with a new release of Windows. With these 2 major revenue streams for Microsoft being upgraded at about the same time, this means hardware sales will definitely increase. In the computer business, any time Microsoft upgrades their operating system is a major new sales opportunity for PC hardware. As many readers know, running a Vista machine may not be as simple as just upgrading an older machine. The new Vista operating system has been redesigned to take advantage of today's newer and more powerful hardware, and in order to experience the full range of design changes and interface flourishes in Vista, many owners of older machines face having to buy a brand new machine, because their legacy machine may not be powerful enough to support Vista. So, when buying a new Vista machine, this usually means you will also be able to realize the benefit of the many new features that have also been developed in the new 2007 version of Office. What's New In Office 2007? When planning the release of the 2007 Microsoft Office system, Microsoft took on the challenge of making the core Microsoft Office applications easier to work with. Taking into account extensive usability data and recent advancements in hardware and software, the Office 2007 development team has delivered the most significant update to the Microsoft Office user interface in more than a decade. The result of these efforts is a user interface that makes it easier for people to get more out of Microsoft Office applications so they can deliver better results faster. Microsoft Office Word 2007, Office Excel 2007, Office PowerPoint 2007, Office Outlook 2007, and Office Access 2007 will feature a streamlined, uncluttered workspace that minimizes distraction and enables people to achieve the results they want more quickly and easily. In previous releases of Microsoft Office applications, people used a system of menus, toolbars, task panes, and dialog boxes to get their work done. This system worked well when the applications had a limited number of commands. Now that the programs do so much more, the menus and toolbars system does not work as well. Too many program features are too hard for many users to find. For this reason, the overriding design goal for the new user interface is to make it easier for people to find and use the full range of features these applications provide. In addition, Microsoft wanted to preserve an uncluttered workspace that reduces distraction for users so they can spend more time and energy focused on their work. With these goals in mind, Microsoft developed a results-oriented approach that makes it much easier to produce great results using the 2007 Microsoft Office applications. While the overall look of the redesigned applications is new, early testing indicated that people quickly feel at home in the new user interface and rapidly become accustomed to the new way these applications work. The ease with which people use the new interface is due to the simplicity of the new interface features: The Ribbon The traditional menus and toolbars have been replaced by the Ribbon — a new device that presents commands organized into a set of tabs. The tabs on the Ribbon display the commands that are most relevant for each of the task areas in the applications. For example, in Office Word 2007, the tabs group commands for activities such as inserting objects like pictures and tables, doing page layout, working with references, doing mailings, and reviewing. The Home tab provides easy access to the most frequently used commands. Office Excel 2007 has a similar set of tabs that make sense for spreadsheet work including tabs for working with formulas, managing data, and reviewing. These tabs simplify accessing application features because they organize the commands in a way that corresponds directly to the tasks people perform in these applications. The Microsoft Office Button Many of the most valuable features in previous versions of Microsoft Office were not about the document authoring experience at all. Instead, they were about all the things you can do with a document: share it, protect it, print it, publish it, and send it. In spite of that, previous releases of the Microsoft Office applications lacked a single central location where a user can see all of these capabilities in one place. File-level features were mixed in with authoring features. The new UI brings together the capabilities of the Microsoft Office system into a single entry point in the UI: the Microsoft Office Button. This offers two major advantages. First, it helps users find these valuable features. Second, it simplifies the core authoring scenarios by allowing the Ribbon to focus on creating great documents. Contextual Tabs Certain sets of commands are only relevant when objects of a particular type are being edited. For example, the commands for editing a chart are not relevant until a chart appears in a spreadsheet and the user is focusing on modifying it. In current versions of Microsoft Office applications, these commands can be difficult to find. In Office Excel 2007, clicking on a chart causes a contextual tab to appear with commands used for chart editing. Contextual tabs only appear when they are needed and make it much easier to find and use the commands needed for the operation at hand. Contextual tabs bring needed functionality to the user's attention at the most appropriate time. Galleries Galleries are at the heart of the redesigned applications. Galleries provide users with a set of clear results to choose from when working on their document, spreadsheet, presentation, or Access database. By presenting a simple set of potential results, rather than a complex dialog box with numerous options, Galleries simplify the process of producing professional looking work. The traditional dialog box interfaces are still available for those wishing a greater degree of control over the result of the operation. Galleries simplify many operations by presenting a set of results that users can simply "pick and click" to achieve the desired results. Live Preview Live Preview is a new technology that shows the results of applying an editing or formatting change as the user moves the pointer over the results presented in a Gallery. This new, dynamic capability streamlines the process of laying out, editing, and formatting so users can create excellent results with less time and effort. These elements are just a few of the new technologies that combine to create the new Microsoft Office user interface. Work More Efficiently with Better Results In developing Office Ultimate 2007, Microsoft chose to focus on helping people who work at home and in small businesses to increase their self-sufficiency and effectiveness. By delivering a streamlined user interface and powerful new capabilities that help you work with information more efficiently, Office Ultimate 2007 helps you get better results faster. Redesigned user interface across the Microsoft Office system simplifies the way you work, reducing the need for training and making it easier for you to quickly deliver great results. Diagramming and charting capabilities help you easily produce high-impact documents, spreadsheets, and presentations without spending hours on formatting. Innovative tools—including Office Word 2007 Building Blocks, the Office Outlook 2007 To-Do Bar, Office Excel 2007 data visualization tools, and Office Access 2007 tracking templates—give you powerful new ways to work with information. Organizational tools in Office Outlook 2007, such as the To-Do Bar and task integration with the Outlook calendar, help you better manage your time and daily priorities. Information management tools in Office OneNote 2007 make it easy to find, gather, and organize your notes and information. Document Inspector helps protect your private information by automatically removing personal “invisible” information such as comments, hidden text, and properties from your Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations. Collaborate with Others Across Boundaries Office Ultimate 2007 streamlines communication, collaboration, and information sharing, keeping you in sync with coworkers, customers, and partners. Document comparison features in Office Word 2007 make it easier to review and incorporate document revisions. Collaboration software in Office Groove 2007 helps small teams work together more effectively across geographical and organizational boundaries. Collaborative tools in Office Groove 2007 help you share, modify, and discuss files; chat; hold threaded discussions; manage recurring project meetings; create custom tools to track tasks; and more. Calendar sharing capabilities in Office Outlook 2007 help you more efficiently schedule meetings with others, including those outside your organization. Notebook sharing capabilities in Office OneNote 2007 enable you to easily maintain your OneNote notebooks on multiple computers, such as your desktop and laptop computers. Make Better Use of Information Through a broad array of advanced information search, management, and analysis technologies, Office Ultimate 2007 helps you more efficiently and effectively find, use, and manage information. Instant Search in Office Outlook 2007 enables you to search through your e-mail, e-mail attachments, calendar, contacts, and tasks simultaneously, helping you find the information you need much faster. RSS subscriptions integration in Office Outlook 2007 enables Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds to be delivered directly to your inbox (fee-based subscriptions sold separately). Instant Search in Office OneNote 2007 quickly locates the information you seek on any page in any section within any open notebook. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) Search in OneNote 2007 enables you to search text in scanned documents or pictures that are inserted into OneNote notebooks. Conditional formatting tools in Office Excel 2007, including data bars, three-color gradients, and performance indicator icons, give you powerful new ways to analyze and visualize data. Database solution templates in Office Access 2007 help you easily build and use database solutions for managing complicated sets of information. Microsoft Office Open XML Formats provide compact, robust file formats that facilitate better data integration between documents and back-end systems and can be easily shared with others. Data Connection Library in Office Excel 2007 and Data Binding in Office Word 2007 give you the ability to easily connect your spreadsheets and documents to corporate data sources, helping to ensure that they reflect the most current and accurate information. Streamline Processes and Control Content Office Ultimate 2007 helps you better control content and more efficiently execute business processes. Through advanced electronic forms technologies, Office Ultimate 2007 provides enhanced features that help automate processes to save time and simplify content management. Tools and templates in Office InfoPath 2007 help you easily create electronic forms to collect information in a structured way. InfoPath E-Mail Forms give you a faster way to collect information from coworkers by embedding an InfoPath form within an Outlook e-mail message. Improved! Information rights management capabilities enables you to assign permissions that prevent others from copying, printing, or editing your document. Improved! Information management policies in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 consistently enforce the labeling, auditing, and expiration of documents. Work More Efficiently with Better Results Inefficient processes can negatively affect every aspect of your business—from sales performance to customer service, manufacturing, and profitability. According to research from the Information Work Productivity Council, the volume of e-mail messages alone has increased so much that the average information worker now spends 20 percent of his or her work time using e-mail each day. This makes it more difficult for workers to process and act on information, which reduces their effectiveness. Office Ultimate 2007 comes with a newly redesigned, streamlined user interface that makes it easier for you to get more out of the applications you use every day. The new user interface presents the appropriate tools at the right time so you can produce your best work more quickly. All important features are organized and presented in context. In addition, powerful new capabilities within the Microsoft Office system help you work with information more efficiently, so you can deliver better results faster. Redesigned User Interface Office Ultimate 2007 features a redesigned user interface that is focused less on commands and more on results. The new user interface makes program features easier to find and use, simplifying the way the Microsoft Office system works. The richer, redesigned user interface reflects an overall effort by Microsoft to deliver a more user-driven product. Rather than rethinking the product from a feature-oriented viewpoint, Microsoft focused Office Ultimate 2007 on the user’s results-oriented perspective. The end product delivers one of the most significant makeovers in the history of the Microsoft Office system. The new interface is more intuitive and offers more easily accessible features. Specialized features are presented when they are needed and stay out of the way when you do not need them. Although the look is very new, the evolution of Office Ultimate 2007 from previous releases of the Microsoft Office system will make it feel extremely familiar. The new user interface significantly simplifies how you author documents by: • Making the experience more predictable with less-complicated features and less guesswork. • Maximizing your workspace and being less intrusive by not popping up images and dialog boxes on top of your work. • Putting a majority of the most commonly used commands on the first tab so you don’t have to dig for commands in lengthy drop-down menus. New Command Tabs Most people use only a small percentage of the commands available in Microsoft Office system applications. With the new results-oriented user interface in Office Ultimate 2007, a set of command tabs replaces the previous drop-down menus. As a result, you learn more about the capabilities of the Microsoft Office system. Commonly used commands that were buried in previous releases are now at your fingertips. You get access to the right tools when you need them, so you can learn more and get the results you want. Contextual Command Tabs Certain sets of commands are relevant only when you are editing a particular type of object. For instance, commands for editing a chart in Office Excel 2007 are not relevant unless you are modifying a chart. In Office Ultimate 2007, contextual command tabs appear when needed to help you perform additional commands related to the task at hand. If you do not need them, these contextual command tabs are hidden. Live Preview and Galleries Everyone wants to create the highest-quality documents possible in the shortest amount of time. Accomplishing this often requires experimenting with different styles and formats. Office Ultimate 2007 enables you to quickly preview proposed changes to your document. With Live Preview or when in one of the galleries, you can actually view formatting choices right inside your document while you’re working on it, without having to repeatedly search through drop-down menus. By test-driving your proposed formatting, you can save time and experiment more easily. The end result is a quickly created document that looks the way you want it to look. These galleries can be found in Office Word 2007, Office Excel 2007, and Office PowerPoint 2007. Enhanced ScreenTips Office Ultimate 2007 offers larger, more informative ScreenTips than previous releases of the Microsoft Office system. Enhanced ScreenTips provide quick access to information about a command directly from the command’s location. A ScreenTip pops up when you rest your mouse pointer on any command, and it often gives you enough information about a feature to enable you to use it immediately without further assistance. This capability gives you easy access to all of the functionality of the Microsoft Office system. As a result, you can save time and become more productive. Enhanced ScreenTips also provide links to auxiliary information, such as training or Help topics, directly from the command. You no longer have to discover the name of a command, open the Help window, and type in the command name—the link is built into the user interface. This in-context information helps you learn unfamiliar functionality quickly. SmartArt Diagramming and Enhanced Charting Capabilities The new SmartArt diagramming and enhanced charting capabilities in Office Ultimate 2007 applications make it easy to create great-looking diagrams and charts. Just choose the chart type, the layout, and the format from visual galleries of predefined options. Or take a bulleted list and convert it to a compelling diagram with just a couple of clicks. You can also reuse content by saving your favorite charts as chart templates. In addition, the SmartArt graphics capabilities of the Microsoft Office system have been enhanced so you can easily use professional effects such as shading, reflections, glow, transparency, and other 3-D effects. Because the diagramming and charting tools are shared among Office Word 2007, Office Excel 2007, and Office PowerPoint 2007, you can produce consistent, professional-quality results across the Microsoft Office system. New Building Blocks Some information in your documents always remains the same, no matter what type of document you are creating. With the new Building Blocks feature in Office Word 2007, you can save time and reduce errors by creating Building Blocks of frequently used information that can be easily updated. To insert this standard information, simply select the content you want from the Building Blocks menu and insert it into your document. Manage Your Time and Information Effectively Office Outlook 2007 provides tools that help people who work at home and in small businesses better organize their time and communications. Using flexible search capabilities and Color Categories, you can easily locate the information you want and need. Through new calendar viewing, publishing, and sharing capabilities, you can share calendars stored in Office Outlook 2007 with coworkers, friends, and family, no matter where they are located. A new To-Do Bar makes it easier for you to prioritize and control your time, so you can focus on the most important matters. Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager also integrates new tracking and reporting capabilities with Office Outlook 2007 to help businesses more easily manage sales leads and opportunities throughout the sales process, and service their customers after a sale. To-Do Bar in Office Outlook 2007 Tracking your tasks can be time-consuming. The new To-Do Bar in Office Outlook 2007 brings together tasks, calendar information, and flagged e-mail messages in one place. You get a consolidated view of your priorities for the day, so you do not have to waste time checking multiple locations to plan your schedule. The To-Do Bar also includes tasks from the Office OneNote 2007 note-taking program, Microsoft Office Project 2007, and Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services Web sites. Tasks completed on a particular day “stick” to that day and appear as part of a record of what you did on that day. Tasks not completed roll over to the next day and accumulate until you complete them. Better Organize and Manage Contacts Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager makes organizing and accessing contacts simple. All contact information is stored in a single location within the familiar Outlook user interface. Improved functionality enables you to separate personal and business contacts in different address books and identify each customer as an Account or Business Contact. You can also create your own categories as you need them. Link Communications to Your Customer Records Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager automatically links incoming and outgoing e-mail messages, notes, appointments, and tasks to the appropriate contact record. For instance, if someone sends you an e-mail message, that e-mail message automatically links to that person’s contact record. You can also associate phone call logs, Microsoft Office files, scanned documents, and faxed materials with your contact records. When you are working on a Word document or Excel spreadsheet, you can automatically associate it with a Business Contact or Account so that it appears in your communications history. Organize Your Information and Notes in One Place From notes taken on meetings and phone calls to Web research, you interact with and process more information every day. Office OneNote 2007, part of Office Ultimate 2007, gives you the flexibility to gather virtually any type of information—from typed text, audio, and video to digitally handwritten notes and drawings, technical graphics, and research from the Web and other applications—all in one place: your OneNote notebook. Powerful search features help you easily find information, including spoken words in audio and video recordings and text in scanned documents or pictures. Shared notebooks give teams a place to collaboratively gather their notes and information, and automatically merge each member’s contribution, even if they made the changes while offline. Gathering Notes and Information Most people have no single place where they can capture all the different pieces of information that they use in the course of their work. Information can be in e-mail messages, on Web sites, in a video presentation, on a pad of paper, or other places. Office OneNote 2007 gives you the ability to gather, organize, and integrate all the information that your work requires in one virtual notebook. Typing Text When you take notes using a pen and paper, you can place your pen anywhere you want on the page and start writing. With Office OneNote 2007, you get the same flexibility. Just click anywhere on the OneNote page surface to start capturing your ideas. Simplified Grouping With Office OneNote 2007, you can easily group related matters. For example, before a meeting you might create a container for notes titled Agenda, a second container for notes titled Attendees, and a third container for notes titled To Do with a table to capture action items. During the meeting, you can quickly add relevant information to any of those three areas—or click somewhere else on the page to start a completely new thought. Content Lasso Tool A new feature in Office OneNote 2007 is the Content Lasso tool, which you can use to select one or more containers and images by drawing an outline of any shape around them with your cursor. You can then move, cut, paste, or copy these items as you see fit. Print Driver Office OneNote 2007 comes with a print driver that enables you to print any document to Office OneNote 2007 just as you would to a printer. This feature also enables you to save any document as an image that you can annotate. Sending Information from Other Microsoft Office Programs Using the standard cut-and-paste features of the Microsoft Windows operating system, you can paste virtually anything that can be captured into Office OneNote 2007. For example, Office Outlook 2007 has a Send to OneNote button for calendar items and contacts. You can also paste hyperlinks to other files and Web sites into a OneNote notebook. Embedding Office Files and E-Mail Messages In addition to the ability to cut and paste between Microsoft Office system applications, you can also use Office OneNote 2007 to embed files into a OneNote notebook. Just drag any file from a Windows application onto a OneNote page. You can also insert a file into a page using the File option on the Insert menu. If you are using different types of documents to track pieces of a large project, you can keep these documents in Office OneNote 2007 together with everything else. Gathering Web Research With Office OneNote 2007, you can conduct research more efficiently by capturing all of the Web-based information you need in one place. For example, the Side Note feature helps you drag research into a OneNote notebook as you’re working in a browser. The Screen Clippings feature enables you to select portions of Web pages or other content on your screen and automatically paste them into OneNote. The Send to OneNote button in Microsoft Internet Explorer enables you to send Web pages with a mouse click. You can also just copy and paste. The source URL is automatically inserted with the information, so you can click the link and quickly return to the source of the information. Capturing Information on Your Windows Mobile–Powered Device Office OneNote 2007 makes it easier than ever to integrate your Microsoft Windows Mobile–based Smartphone or Pocket PC into your information-gathering toolset. You can copy portions of your Office OneNote 2007 notebook onto your device, or you can capture new information on your Smartphone or Pocket PC that easily integrates into your OneNote notebook. You can even use the camera on your Smartphone to capture images and store them in your OneNote information repository. Any text in the picture becomes part of your searchable index (provided that the resolution is of sufficient quality). You can also use the microphone on your device to record voice notes and integrate them into your OneNote notebook. Inserting Images into Your Notebook With Office OneNote 2007, any printable document can be inserted as a color image into your OneNote notebook. For example, you can insert a PowerPoint presentation prior to a meeting. By inserting the file into your notebook, you can annotate it and save both types of information in the same place. Handwriting If you have a Tablet PC or a pen input device, you can use your digital pen to take handwritten notes or draw pictures in Office OneNote 2007. Because the OneNote search engine treats handwriting entered on a Tablet PC the same as text, you can find information entered as handwriting or text. Office OneNote 2007 also takes advantage of the new Tablet PC ink parser, giving you a better inking experience in Office OneNote 2007 than with previous releases. Creating a Drawing in Office OneNote 2007 New drawing tools and enhanced support for tables make it easier than ever to manage information in Office OneNote 2007. You can use the new suite of drawing tools to add basic shapes and lines, so you can express and capture your ideas visually. Because Office OneNote 2007 treats shapes as ink, you can easily use the eraser tool to remove a shape. Recording Audio and Video By enabling you to record linked audio and video notes, Office OneNote 2007 takes information gathering beyond the traditional boundaries of text and graphics. Audio and video notes are particularly valuable when you do not want to miss anything that someone says or does. You can also use the Search feature to quickly find specific words or phrases in the words recorded audio or video notes. Support for Multiple Computers With Office OneNote 2007, you can edit the same notebook on multiple computers. This is useful in situations such as when you have a desktop computer and a laptop or several computers at home connected to the same home network. Office OneNote 2007 can automatically synchronize the changes between your computers when you are online, even if you made the changes while you were offline. To open a notebook on multiple computers, all you need to do is put it in a location that each computer can access. When you create a new notebook, choose the “I will use it on multiple computers” option in the New Notebook Wizard, and Office OneNote 2007 will guide you through the process. To see whether your notebook is up to date, you can click the button on the toolbar or File/Sync for each individual notebook. Shared Notebooks Office OneNote 2007 extends the concept of sharing beyond the real-time sharing sessions delivered in OneNote 2003. Using Office OneNote 2007 and a Windows SharePoint Services site or a standard file server, you can create workbooks that multiple users can work in at the same time or at different times. A shared OneNote notebook can contain a wide variety of content to help you work more efficiently, including: • Meeting or project notes • Project brainstorming ideas • Any supporting materials collected by team members • Lists of action items • Drafts of project reports that team members can annotate • Project plans • Web research and more Shared notebooks are easy to use and enable you to collaborate with other people in the same notebook at the same time. Checking the notebook in or out is not required. Office OneNote 2007 smoothly merges everyone’s changes. On the rare occasions when two people make changes to the same text container at the same time, Office OneNote 2007 displays an alert that synchronization failed and produces both versions for you to view. Offline Access and Synchronization With Office OneNote 2007, team members can work on a shared notebook whether they are online or offline. If they choose offline, then as soon as they regain network access, Office OneNote 2007 reconciles the local copies of the notebook with the master copy saved on the server. As a result, any changes made are merged into each copy of the shared notebook. This helps ensure that every member of the team has a current copy of the notebook—regardless of where they are or when the new content was added. Everyone remains on the same page, even when the page gets updated! Document Inspector Feature The Document Inspector provides an easy and efficient way for home and small business users to help protect information. The Document Inspector automatically searches documents for comments, revisions, and tracked changes; headers and footers; and hidden text. You can delete your choice of personal information in a matter of seconds. When you distribute your documents, you can be more confident that no unwanted personally identifiable or other information is accidentally included. Collaborate with Others Across Boundaries Office Ultimate 2007 offers new tools that enhance your ability to work with others across organizational boundaries. These tools make sharing information and working together easier, safer, and more productive—no matter where team members are located. With tight integration with Microsoft collaboration and infrastructure technologies, Office Ultimate 2007 helps teams work together more efficiently, right out of the box. Document Comparison in Office Word 2007 People often need to compare two versions of a document to see what changes have been made to their work. This step can be critical when seeking out changes in documents that might radically alter their overall meaning. With the new Document Comparison feature in Office Word 2007, you can easily see the difference between two different documents by comparing them side by side. You can also use the new tri-pane review panel to view the two different documents, in addition to a document that combines the changes from each. Simultaneous scrolling for all three views makes it easy to systematically follow the changes. Because Office Word 2007 tracks moved text and changes within tables, you can conduct more thorough reviews. As a result, you can more easily see which portions of a document have changed. Simplified Team Collaboration with Office Groove 2007 Today’s workplaces and work teams span departments, offices, organizations, time zones, and cultures. Office Groove 2007 helps your team work together more efficiently by bringing all team members, tools, and information together in one place—right on your computer. Create a Collaborative Workspace In Office Groove 2007, a workspace is a virtual place where teams collaboratively share, modify, and discuss files; chat; hold threaded discussions; manage recurring project meetings; create custom tools to track tasks, opportunities, and issues; and more. Any user who has Office Groove 2007 installed on his or her computer can create a workspace. It does not require any special privileges on the network or extensive IT support. In fact, the process is so simple that you can create and customize a Groove workspace for your team with just a few clicks. Each Groove workspace is an individual window that is opened and closed from the Launchbar as needed. Office Groove 2007 users typically have many workspaces—one for each project they are working on. Depending on your needs, a workspace can last a day, a week, or several months. Office Groove 2007 includes three types of workspaces: • Standard: Offers a Files tool and a Discussion tool. Additional tools can be added to meet changing project needs • File Sharing: Enables you to synchronize a selected Windows file folder and its files across team members’ computers. This type of workspace can be particularly useful for individuals who want to keep files synchronized across their own computers. • Templates: Enables you to choose from a list of pre-customized workspace templates designed for a specific type of project need. Invite Team Members to Join Your Workspace With Office Groove 2007, you manually invite team members—one by one through e-mail or directly in a Groove message—into your workspace. You can invite anybody to join your workspace, even if they are not on the same network as you. You can even share a workspace across offices with remote colleagues and organizations with your partners, suppliers, and customers—all without servers or IT assistance. Only you can control who has access to the workspace and the data contained within it. Only those invited can access the information contained within the workspace. There is no “master copy” on a server. For each team member you invite, you assign a role (Manager, Participant, or Guest) to help control what he or she can and cannot do within the workspace. Roles and their associated permissions can be changed at any time. When invitees accept your invitation, they download an exact copy of the workspace onto their desktops, including all files and content. If you are not online when they accept, Office Groove 2007 sends the workspace to the new members’ computers the next time you connect. After the invitees are in the workspace, you can begin to work together in context. It is that simple. Powerful Encryption Office Groove 2007 provides powerful, built-in encryption to help protect all workspace data as it travels across unsecured wired or wireless networks. Furthermore, Office Groove 2007 encrypts standard and template-based workspaces directly on your computer, providing an additional layer of protection in case your portable computer is lost or stolen. Customize Your Workspace Office Groove 2007 offers powerful flexibility, so you can create a workspace tailored to the specific needs of each of your teams. You can customize the workspace at any time by adding or removing tools from it. Tools define the type of work your team does in the workspace. Files Tool Office Groove 2007 comes with a Groove Files tool that enables you to work together collaboratively with your teammates on almost any type of computer file. When you add a file to the Groove Files tool, any person you have invited to the workspace can open that file. Depending on the role they are assigned in the workspace, they can also make and save changes to it. After a person modifies a file, they can save it back to the workspace and choose to overwrite the existing file or save it as a new file. If two members happen to update a file at the same time, Office Groove 2007 creates two copies of the file for the users to resolve or merge. SharePoint Files Tool The SharePoint Files tool in Office Groove 2007 offers all the capabilities of the Groove Files tool with the added benefit of integration with SharePoint Document Libraries. Tightly integrated with both Windows SharePoint Services (version 3) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, the SharePoint Files tool enables you and your team to easily check out documents from a SharePoint Document Library into your Groove workspace and collaborate on and iterate those documents among your project team. When you’re done, you can then check the documents back into the SharePoint Document Library, create an approval workflow among a larger group, or store the documents for others to access. Discussion Tool Office Groove 2007 provides you with a Groove Discussion tool that makes it possible for teams to engage in a detailed exchange of ideas. The conversational thread is tracked in a chronological, topic/response structure. Anybody in the workspace can contribute to the discussion or review the entire thread. Roles determine who can delete Discussion entries. Meetings Tool With the Groove Meetings tool in Office Groove 2007, you can quickly and easily plan, conduct, and record recurring team project meetings. Because all workspace members can add information to a new meeting, agendas can be developed collaboratively rather than having one person collect input from the team. After the meeting, action items can be recorded and assigned to team members. Agenda items, minutes, and action items from prior meetings can also be copied into future meetings. Calendar Tool Office Groove 2007 also comes with a Calendar tool to help you build a shared project schedule and track important project dates and milestones. When you add a Calendar event, everybody on your team can see it. Others can add their own events and edit existing events if they have the appropriate permissions. Stay in Sync Automatically and Efficiently Office Groove 2007 helps keep teams aligned. Rather than forcing each team member to send or upload their individual updates, Office Groove 2007 synchronizes or pushes changes to ongoing work—automatically and efficiently. This helps ensure that each person’s copy stays up to date—even if no two members are online at the same time. Because teams spend less time coordinating with each other, they have more time to spend on their team work. Work Effortlessly Anywhere—Online or Offline Because your workspace is not contained on a central server, you can access and update the information in your workspaces whether you are connected to the network or not. Each time you make a change—update a file, respond to a discussion, or post some text in the workspace chat area—Office Groove 2007 pushes your change—and just the change—to all the members of your workspace. If you or your team members are not online when you make the change, Office Groove 2007 sends it the next time you connect. Adjust Download Settings Because files are among the largest types of data shared among a team, you can adjust the Download Settings in your Office Groove Files tools, SharePoint Files tools, and File Sharing Workspaces. Download Settings enable you to determine which files are automatically synchronized and which ones you want to download manually from your team members. Stay in Sync Like many information workers, you might use more than one computer (such as a home computer and a work computer) in your day-to-day work. In addition to helping teams stay in sync, Office Groove 2007 synchronization can also help you keep important files and workspaces up to date across the computers you use on a daily basis. When you configure your Groove account to run on multiple computers—a desktop and laptop, for example—Office Groove 2007 automatically synchronizes your workspaces folders on each computer you use. Your computers never have to be online at the same time to stay in sync, as long as each one is running Office Groove 2007. Additionally, you can use the Groove Folder Sync feature to synchronize specific Windows folders across your computers. Monitor Team Activity and Communicate in Real Time Office Groove 2007 includes a number of features to help you and your team members monitor team activity, so you can spend less time coordinating and more time working. In addition, Office Groove 2007 provides a robust set of real-time communication tools and options to support both the spontaneous and deliberate team interactions that are so critical to project success. Presence Awareness and Alerts Office Groove 2007 includes built-in presence awareness that tells you which members are currently active in a workspace, are online but not actively working in a workspace, and are offline. Just by viewing your Launchbar or opening a specific workspace, you can scan your contacts’ presence and gain awareness of work activity, without having to ask. Alerts such as text pop-ups and audible sounds proactively let you know when activity occurs in Office Groove 2007 such as the following: • To notify you of new information in a workspace • To notify you of new information in a particular workspace tool • To notify you of changes to a specific file folder or file • To notify you when contacts come online or enter workspaces • To notify you about new instant messages or invitations • To track the status of workspace invitations and messages you have sent or received. You do not have to do anything to receive basic workspace alerts—Office Groove 2007 automatically determines the workspaces you use most and alerts you accordingly. However, you can “tune” your alerts according to which contacts, workspaces, tools, and files are most important at any given time. Unread Marks While alerts notify you when changes are made inside your workspaces, unread marks help you find the specific content in a workspace that you have not yet seen. Workspaces with unread content are marked in your Launchbar with unread marks of varying levels of boldness, indicating how recently the changes were made. As soon as you read the new content, the unread marks are removed automatically. You can also manually remove all unread marks in a tool or workspace. Build Workspace Tools Office Groove 2007 was designed to help people quickly and effectively work together. For some teams, that just means having a workspace where they can share files or engage in team discussions. Other teams, however, may require more business process–specific tools for collaboration. Power users can use the Groove Forms tool and Groove InfoPath Forms tool to build custom workspace tools that meet their unique needs. Custom Forms Groove Forms tools bring your structured data and business processes right into the Office Groove 2007 environment. Your team can build custom Forms tools to enter and update data, get detailed information on the status of work items, and represent simple workflows. To build custom forms directly in the Groove interface, use the Office Groove 2007 Forms Tool Designer. This feature enables any workspace member with the necessary permissions to contribute to the design of the application. Like most Web page design tools, the Forms Tool Designer enables you to create and make changes to a form and then preview it before you publish your changes to the workspace. Import an InfoPath Form Office Groove 2007 also includes an option for you to import a preexisting form built with Office InfoPath 2007. When you have built your form in Office InfoPath 2007, you can use the Groove InfoPath Forms tool to import the form into the workspace. After team members import the form, they can fill it out to track issues relevant to the project at hand. Easily Share Calendars and Files with Others Sharing your files and calendars with others used to be difficult, particularly if they worked outside your organization or on other platforms. Office Ultimate 2007 makes sharing and scheduling easier with new tools and capabilities that help you work with confidence. Enhanced Calendar-Sharing Capabilities in Office Outlook 2007 By using the new native support for Internet calendars, you can easily create an Internet calendar from within Office Outlook 2007 and publish it to Microsoft Office Online. Using the enhanced security provided by Windows Live ID credentials, you can then grant others access to this calendar so that everyone has the latest information. Or you can use Calendar Snapshots to send an HTML snapshot of your calendar through e-mail, making it easy to schedule meetings with anyone without having to play phone tag. Office Outlook 2007 also keeps you organized and in sync with team members by giving you easy access to team calendars stored on Windows SharePoint Services sites. You can open SharePoint team calendars from within Office Outlook 2007 and view and edit them just as easily as you would your own calendars—even if you are offline. Any changes that you make to shared calendars in Outlook are reflected in the server versions. Save as PDF or XPS Help ensure broader distribution of your documents and presentations. New support for Portable Document Format (PDF) and XML Paper Specification (XPS) file formats helps ensure broader distribution of your documents with others. Now you can post your documents on the Internet or share them with others, knowing that users can view them regardless of the type of computer or programs they are using. Make Better Use of Information Many workers spend too much time looking for information on their desktops or corporate intranets, affecting their productivity. Increasing your access to data is critical for better decision-making and increased organizational competitiveness. Office Ultimate 2007 offers a broad range of advanced information search, management, and analysis technologies that extend from the inbox to the data center. These technologies connect you to business applications and data, so you can easily find, analyze, and use information. Instant Search in Office Outlook 2007 With new and powerful, integrated Instant Search in Office Outlook 2007, you can quickly locate the information you need, whether it is in your e-mail, calendar, contacts, or tasks. Type in a keyword and Instant Search quickly searches your Outlook data, highlighting the locations where that search term appears. Instant Search does “word-wheeling,” which means that results begin to appear as soon as you start typing your search terms. You can use Instant Search to search broadly across all your Outlook items and folders or to specify a search within a particular folder in a given location. Instant Search even searches within e-mail attachments. You also have the flexibility to create queries with different Outlook criteria such as date, from, Color Categories, mail importance, and more. RSS Feed Integration in Office Outlook 2007 Many Web sites offer Really Simple Syndication (RSS) as a way for home and small business users to have headlines delivered directly to them. RSS aggregation is a new technology that provides you with an easy way to monitor multiple sources of news, blogs, and other Web-based content. Office Ultimate 2007 adds RSS reading and subscriptions directly into Office Outlook 2007. As a result, you can have a “news” folder that captures all of the RSS feeds that you subscribe to. This folder automatically updates periodically, bringing in new posts and information. You can manage your RSS feeds in Office Outlook 2007 just like your e-mail, so you can flag them for follow-up, assign them Color Categories, or automate how they are processed using the rules engine. The integration with your existing e-mail accounts makes managing this information easy from directly within Outlook; bringing RSS items into your existing e-mail workflow has never been simpler than in Office Outlook 2007. If you have never used RSS feeds before, the built-in RSS directory hosted by Office Online provides instructions and sample feeds from around the Web to get you started in a few easy steps. Faster, Better Searching Tools in Office OneNote 2007 With Office OneNote 2007, you can quickly find your notes and information to save time and be more productive. Instant Search Instant Search helps you search through all of the content in your OneNote notebooks to easily find the information you need. Whether it’s text in Web clippings, images, or scanned documents, spoken words in audio recordings, or other information across all of your OneNote notebooks, Instant Search can quickly locate your information. All you need to do is type in a keyword. Instant Search quickly searches your OneNote data and highlights the locations where that search term appears. Instant Search can search broadly across all your OneNote notebooks, or you can specify a search within a particular section, section group, or a particular notebook. Using the Windows Desktop Search engine, Instant Search enables you to have a common search experience across Windows, Office OneNote 2007, and other Microsoft Office system applications such as Office Outlook 2007. Optical Character Recognition Search Instant Search indexes your content automatically in the background, including automatically scanning pictures for text using the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) engine in Office OneNote 2007. If the OCR engine finds text within an image, it associates that text with that image and caches that text in the search index. In this way, the content in inserted images—whether they are CAD files with part names, Web pages pulled from the Internet or any other kind of printout—becomes searchable. If you insert a photograph of a business card and then prompt Office OneNote 2007 to search for the company name appearing on the business card, a link to the image of the business card appears in the search results pane. Audio and Video Search In addition to text in graphic images and scanned documents, Office OneNote 2007 can find spoken words within audio and video files. For example, if you record a phone conversation that includes a discussion of the Astrodome, a search for the term “Astrodome” would deliver a link to the audio file in which the Astrodome was discussed. If you click the link in the search results window, Office OneNote 2007 opens the page with the embedded audio file and begins playing the recording at the point where the Astrodome came into the discussion. Gain Deeper Insight from Data With so much information available to workers today, it is harder than ever to effectively analyze and use data to guide decision-making. Office Ultimate 2007 helps you gain deeper insight from data with new tools that make you more productive. Simplified Conditional Formatting with Rich Data Visualizations You can now discover and illustrate important trends and highlight exceptions in your data by using conditional formatting with rich visualization schemes in Office Excel 2007. You can apply conditional formatting more easily and identify trends by using colored gradients, data bars, and icons. When you apply conditional formatting such as a three-color gradient, you can identify relevant values within the data and get a better idea of where these values lie within the range of data in question. You can then reorganize this data with sorting options like Sort by Smallest to Largest or Cell Color. Database Solution Templates in Office Access 2007 Office Access 2007 provides an improved startup experience that enables you to quickly begin working with database solutions—even if you have no previous experience in database schemas or programming languages. The new Getting Started screen includes a variety of prebuilt database applications. You can use these applications right out of the box—or you can treat them like templates and enhance and refine them to accommodate the kind of information you want to track and the way in which you want to track it. These predefined applications can help you track contacts, events, issues, assets, tasks, and more. Other application templates will be available in the future, and you can then download them directly from Office Online. Many of the packaged applications share a common schema with SharePoint lists, providing a consistent experience when you transfer your application into a SharePoint Web site. Connect to Important Business Information You cannot create and present your documents with confidence if you think that they may contain outdated or inaccurate information. Office Ultimate 2007 helps you connect your documents to the latest corporate data sources. Microsoft Office Open XML Formats Office XML Formats, included in the 2007 releases of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, give you the ability to easily integrate data in your documents with back-end systems. This makes it easier to assemble documents and helps ensure that they include the most up-to-date and accurate information. Because they use ZIP compression technologies, Office XML Formats have the added benefit of dramatically reducing file sizes. This reduces the disk space required to store files and decreases the bandwidth needed to send files by e-mail, over networks, and across the Internet. As a result, you can actively share your documents and collaborate more efficiently. Segmented data storage within the file formats greatly aids the recovery of corrupt documents. This type of storage improves your ability to open files even if one part of the file is damaged, helping to reduce the risk of losing information. Office XML Formats are based on industry-standard XML and ZIP technologies and are available through a royalty-free license to any technology provider. They are designed for easy integration and compatibility—anyone using Microsoft Office XP or 2003 can open, edit, and save documents in one of the Office XML Formats by installing a simple update. Data Binding in Office Word 2007 Office Word 2007 offers the ability to bind parts of a document to external information sources, making it faster and easier to incorporate the right information without having to force people to use clumsy cut-and-paste methods. Too often, people add important business information to documents using the cut-and-paste tools, resulting in documents that contain outdated, unmanaged information. This prevents them from sharing a single version of business information when circulating documents, which can result in expensive misunderstandings. The new Data Binding feature in Office Word 2007 helps alleviate this issue by providing a way to build document templates that have live connections to external information sources. When you “bind” document contents to XML sources, documents stay connected to important business information. When you use Data Binding with the new Word XML Formats, you can easily update the XML data store (stored within the Word file) to help ensure the content of the Word document is updated. XML integration through Data Binding also helps ensure organizations can build and deploy structured document templates that help users get the right information into their documents without troubling them with extensive searches in external applications. Data Connection Library in Office Excel 2007 The Data Connection Library in Office Excel 2007 simplifies how you connect to external data sources. The library centralizes storage of Business Data Catalog connections to external data, making it easy to discover new sources of data. You can use the Data Connection Library to access external data and import information directly into your spreadsheet—without having to provide password authentication. A Data Connection Library also simplifies the maintenance of data connections. If a connection changes, it needs only to be updated in the library instead of in the individual spreadsheets that are linked to the original data source. Streamline Processes and Control Content People who do work at home and small businesses are looking for better ways to control content and streamline their business processes. Office Ultimate 2007 addresses this need by integrating process and approval capabilities into familiar Microsoft Office system programs, making it easier to create and approve content. Advanced electronic forms technologies help organizations lower costs by streamlining everyday business processes. Office Ultimate 2007 also helps you centrally control access rights, making it easier to manage your valuable information assets. Simplify Data Collection Gathering information from coworkers can be cumbersome, particularly if you are using e-mail. Office Ultimate 2007 streamlines data collection with new capabilities in Office InfoPath 2007. Electronic Forms Tools and Templates in Office InfoPath 2007 Unlike forms-only alternatives that lock users into a static document format with the data trapped inside, Office InfoPath 2007 helps people quickly build effective forms solutions that make data available in a wide range of business processes. If you need to build a new form, Office InfoPath 2007 provides the tools to build it quickly and easily. The WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) form development environment and the drag-and-drop placement of form controls make it easy to lay out a form in a manner that is more comfortable and useful to the people who ultimately will complete the form. You can even build new forms by using prebuilt template parts residing in a forms library, making it easier for larger organizations to build forms consistently across the organization. All a form developer has to do is drag prebuilt parts into the new form. E-Mail Forms in Office InfoPath 2007 You can now use Office Outlook 2007 to send forms and collect data. The full integration of Office Outlook 2007 with Office InfoPath 2007 enables you to embed an Office InfoPath form within an e-mail message and send it to others with a request to fill out the needed information. The only action required by the recipient is to reply to your e-mail message and complete the embedded form. After you have collected the respondents’ answers, you can export the data to Office Excel 2007 or Office Access 2007 for analysis or merge the answers from the form you sent into one master form. Streamline Business Processes Managing documents throughout their life cycle used to be time-consuming due to inefficient business processes. With the smooth integration of Office Ultimate 2007 and Office SharePoint Server 2007, you can streamline processes and simplify content creation, reviews, and approvals. Simplified Review and Approval Workflows Managing the review and approval cycle often can be frustrating and time-consuming. First you have to send an e-mail message with an attachment to everyone who needs to review a document. Then you have to track down who has submitted their reviews and who has not responded. Finally, you have to save all the review documents in one place. Office Ultimate 2007 works with Office SharePoint Server 2007 so you can take advantage of the review and approval workflow directly from within the authoring applications. As a result, you can reduce cycle times for important document processes. To initiate a document review workflow, simply load the document into a document library directly from the Office Ultimate 2007 application. Document libraries are preconfigured to initiate and manage the review process. Reviewers are automatically sent an e-mail message notifying them of the review. When they finish reviewing, they post their documents in the document library where they are readily accessible. Streamlined Deployment of Electronic Forms With Office InfoPath 2007 and the InfoPath Forms Services capabilities of Office SharePoint Server 2007, you can administer and deploy your business forms beyond the corporate firewall. InfoPath Forms Services can render InfoPath form templates as browser-based forms that do not require a local installation of Office InfoPath 2007 or any other software. Your external users gain the benefits you have built into your InfoPath forms—including data validation, calculations, and repeating and optional sections—without having to wait for application updates or lengthy downloads. To help ensure the broadest possible reach, your external users can complete Web-enabled InfoPath forms using Internet Explorer, Safari, Netscape Navigator, and Mozilla Firefox browsers. Manage Content with Office SharePoint Server 2007 Companies are increasingly challenged by compliance regulations. Although many businesses have started using electronic business and document management processes, they have still found it difficult to manage and audit electronic business records. When a document has been completed and is ready to be shared, you need to be confident that it is not inadvertently shared with people who should not see it. You should also be confident that your work does not include unintentional content or editing marks. Furthermore, you should be able to restrict access to the content within your documents since it may include potentially sensitive information. You may also need to indicate that your document is the document of record that indicates an official company policy or procedure for a given topic. Using Office Ultimate 2007, Office SharePoint Server 2007, and Windows Rights Management Services, you can take advantage of many different ways to help protect and manage your information. Information Rights Management You need to protect and control access to company information, especially if you are creating documents with confidential information. By using Office Ultimate 2007 with Windows Rights Management Services in Microsoft Windows Server 2003, you can assign permissions that prevent others from copying, printing, or editing your document. Records Management Office SharePoint Server 2007 provides a managed document repository, built on Windows SharePoint Services, to store the document record, or the master document, in a Records Repository. You can upload your work to this repository directly from Office Ultimate 2007. This enables you to publish documents without having to resort to an external tool or Web browser interface. Information Management Policies Office SharePoint Server 2007 supports a set of information management policies for consistently enforcing the labeling, auditing, and expiration of documents. With these resources, you can configure policies for an entire site or a specific list, library, or content type. For example, organizations can help ensure that all documents are stored the same way by setting the expiration dates on common criteria, such as the end of the fiscal year. With Office SharePoint Server 2007, you can also create a policy statement informing users how the content is governed. When working with documents, this policy statement is embedded in the document. For instance, the policy statement might indicate that there’s sensitive information that should not be communicated outside the company. The policy statement can even provide a contact name if the recipient needs more information. Keeping Your Content Safer with Office SharePoint Server 2007 Implementing consistent information management policies across an organization that has a wide range of sites can be extremely challenging. To solve this issue, Office SharePoint Server 2007 enables policy decision-makers—such as IT staff, records managers, or compliance officers—to define site policies that users can apply without worrying about the specific details. Each site policy can include any number of settings, like labeling, expiration. and auditing. As a result, you can add an extra layer of security to your documents by designating access to them. For example, if you only want to allow a certain department access to documents, you can easily set up the document to require the correct credentials. Help and Office Online Services Office Ultimate 2007 offers smooth integration with Microsoft Office Online Web services. More powerful and with a sophisticated online interface, these services are available from within Office Ultimate 2007 programs. The Office Online Web site, also available through a browser at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx, has home pages for each Office Ultimate 2007 program where you can find product information, Help and how-to articles, training courses, templates, and more. Help Help in Office Ultimate 2007 has been extended beyond your computer. If you are connected to the Internet when searching in the program for a Help topic, you see not only information from the local system, but also from the Office Online Web site. This provides you with the most current information on the topic you need help with, and quick access to additional resources online. Assistance on Office Online The Assistance site is your one-stop online resource for Help articles, video demos, columns, and tips for everyday tasks. You can find answers to common questions, learn about features in Office Ultimate 2007, look for specific help in newsgroups, and suggest topics for future articles. Training on Office Online The Training site offers Web-based interactive training courses and self-paced exercises with which you can develop deeper knowledge of tasks and program features, such as creating an outline in Word or using motion paths in PowerPoint slides. Additional courses can help you make the transition to the new user interface in Office Ultimate 2007. All courses include practice sessions in the actual program and short tests to assess comprehension. Improved Tutorials An improved Getting Started experience in Office Ultimate 2007 significantly reduces the learning curve for new home and small business users. Tutorials offer step-by-step instructions for using Microsoft Office system software. Getting Started brings to the surface additional Help options such as Office Online integration. Downloads Web Site The Downloads Web site on Office Online offers a variety of updates, converters, viewers, publications, and other useful downloads for Microsoft Office system programs. On the Downloads home page, you can check for free updates that improve the stability, security, and performance of the 2007 Microsoft Office system. Just click Check for Updates to start the automatic detection tool, which scans your computer and then returns a list of available downloads that are compatible with your release of the Microsoft Office system. Or you can search or browse for other downloads, such as add-ins and stationery, in the Downloads catalog. Templates on Office Online The Templates site helps optimize productivity by providing timesaving document templates for simple and complex tasks. The Templates site offers thousands of templates to choose from—for business use and for fun. Office Ultimate 2007 improves the connections between the Microsoft Office system and the Templates home page on Office Online. As a result Office Ultimate 2007 offers a very simplified process for finding the perfect template for your needs. With an active Internet connection, you can browse online templates as easily as if they were on your computer. The available templates are organized into logical categories for easy browsing. When you select a template to view, you can see the size of the template, approximate download time, and any additional system requirements that are necessary (if applicable). With one click, you can download and open the template in the appropriate Office Ultimate 2007 program. You can provide feedback, make suggestions for new templates, or opt to receive a newsletter on the Templates site. Another great Templates feature is the ability for Microsoft Office system users around the world to publish their own templates on Office Online. These customer-submitted templates are an excellent resource for users and a way to share expertise with the millions of people who use Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. Clip Art and Media Web Site The Clip Art and Media Web site offers more than 150,000 high-quality images and media selections to brighten up documents. All clips and media are arranged in categories for quick and easy browsing. The Featured Collections section of the Web site offers specially selected categories. The Clip of the Day features a new image that has been added to our inventory that day. You can drag the clip of the day directly into a Microsoft Office system document. To use clip art, you can either copy and paste an image from the site or select a file for download by adding it to your Selection Basket. All clip art selections are displayed in the basket, and you can view the total number of clips accumulated, file size, and approximate download time for each clip. You can download all of the clips in the Selection Basket at one time by clicking Download Now. Accessibility Features Office Ultimate 2007 provides new and improved features for accessibility: • Keyboard shortcuts for using the Help Task Pane and Help window • Keyboard shortcuts for using the “Ask a Question” box • Options to change the appearance of a Help topic by altering the background or color Specific to Word are keyboard shortcuts for customization options and tips for working more efficiently. For Access, developers and users who create and edit Microsoft SQL Server queries can control the font size of the text in the SQL Server window. For more information about accessibility, go to http://www.microsoft.com/enable Summary Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 enables you to work at home with the entire Microsoft Office toolset that you’re accustomed to working with at the office. With its streamlined new user interface, Office Ultimate 2007 makes it easy to find the tools you need, so you can work more efficiently and produce your best results. Innovative new tools throughout the Microsoft Office system programs give you powerful new ways to work with information and manage your time more productively. Office Ultimate 2007 programs also help to simplify the way you share information and work with others, even those outside your organization. Office Groove 2007 provides a rich and security-enhanced collaboration environment for teams to work together, regardless of location, with minimal IT support. Office OneNote 2007 provides complete information management capabilities for virtually any type of electronic content so you and your project teams can deliver better results faster. New Office XML Formats make it easier for you by providing a compact, robust format that you can easily share with anyone on any platform. Benefits of Using Office 2007 The goal of the new Microsoft Office user interface is to make it easier for people to use Microsoft Office applications to deliver better results faster. Microsoft has made it easier to find powerful features by replacing menus and toolbars with a Ribbon that organizes and presents capabilities in a way that corresponds more directly to how people work. The streamlined screen layout and dynamic results-oriented Galleries enable users to spend more time focused on their work and less time trying to get the application to do what they want it to do. As a result, with the new Microsoft Office user interface, people will find it much easier and quicker to produce great looking documents, high-impact presentations, effective spreadsheets, and powerful desktop database. Top 10 Benefits Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 provides people at home or work with a comprehensive toolset to gather and consolidate virtually any type of information, which they can easily share with others across geographical or organizational boundaries to deliver better results faster. Here are the top 10 ways Office Ultimate 2007 can help you. Get better results faster with a new streamlined user interface. Office Ultimate 2007 has an improved user interface to help you create documents faster, more easily, and more intuitively. Reduce the time and frustration of learning new software with commands that present the right tools when you need them. Create high-quality documents you can be proud of. Office Ultimate 2007 has improved picture, charting, and graphics tools to help you produce better-looking documents, spreadsheets, and presentations more quickly. A large library of standard charts, quick formatting tools, and SmartArt diagrams make it easy to include rich and stunning visuals and charts. Preview your changes quickly. Office Ultimate 2007 makes it easier to format your Microsoft Office documents with Live Preview. You can quickly preview proposed changes to your document while you’re working on it without having to repeatedly search through layers of menus. By “test-driving” your proposed formatting, you can save time and experiment more easily. Collaborate easily with colleagues, partners, and customers—with one program. No more switching tools when you need to work with people outside your organization. With Microsoft Office Groove 2007, you have a rich, security-enhanced collaboration environment in which teams can work together regardless of location or organization. Work effortlessly anywhere—online or offline. Office Groove 2007 stores all your workspaces, tools, and data right on your computer—there’s no need to connect to the corporate network to access information. You stay productive whether you’re working in the office, at a customer site, on the road, or from home. Visualize key data trends using conditional formatting. Office Ultimate 2007 features highly visual conditional formatting in Microsoft Office Excel 2007 with new data bars, more colorful gradients, and icons so you can format data based on specific rules and easily identify key data trends with visual cues. Organize your tasks and communications in one place. Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 features a new To-Do Bar for organizing tasks, appointments and e-mail messages flagged for follow-up. You can also view tasks on the calendar alongside your appointments. Tasks not completed roll over to the next day and accumulate until completed. Keep your e-mail more secure and reduce electronic junk mail. Office Ultimate 2007 includes an enhanced junk e-mail filter in Office Outlook 2007 to help reduce electronic spam and protect against potentially harmful attachments. Office Outlook 2007 also includes security enhancements to help prevent "phishing," a fraudulent e-mail attempt to trick you into providing financial or personal information. Manage notes and information in one place. Microsoft Office OneNote 2007 is a digital notebook that provides a flexible way to gather notes and information, powerful search capabilities so users can find what they are looking for quickly, and easy-to use-shared notebooks for teams to work together more effectively. Help ensure broader distribution of your documents and presentations. New support for Portable Document Format (PDF) and XML Paper Specification (XPS) file formats helps ensure broader distribution of your documents with others. Convert your files to PDF or XPS for sharing with users on any platform. You can save as a PDF or XPS file from a 2007 Microsoft Office system program only after you install an add-in. What's In Office Ultimate 2007? Access 2007 Accounting Express 2007 Excel 2007 InfoPath 2007 Groove 2007 OneNote 2007 Outlook 2007 With Business Contact Manager PowerPoint 2007 Publisher 2007 Word 2007 Note that the Ultimate edition of Office 2007 includes the Outlook 2007 With Business Contact Manager component, instead of the standard Outlook 2007 component. Office Communicator 2007 The only new Office 2007 component not included in the Ultimate edition of Office 2007 is Microsoft Office Communicator 2007. Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 is a unified communications client that supports a large range of communication methods and makes it easier for information workers to find and connect with their colleagues and coworkers from anywhere. Office Communicator 2007 is for anyone who needs to communicate with other people in real time, using a variety of different communication methods including instant messaging (IM), voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), and video. Office Communicator 2007 will help you communicate with other people in real time, directly from the other programs you are used to using. Use Office Communicator 2007 to: Connect with people inside and outside of your organization Use various methods of communication from one easy-to-use interface Find people, see information about their availability, and communicate with them instantly using the most appropriate method Office Communicator 2007 is included in the Professional Plus edition of Office 2007 and the Enterprise edition of Office 2007. Street Prices $679 - Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate Retail $539 - Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate Upgrade Qualifying Products for Upgrade: Microsoft Works 6.0–10 Microsoft Works suite 2000–2006 or later Any 2000-2007 Microsoft Office program or suite Any Microsoft Office XP suite except Office XP Student and Teacher If you do qualify for and wish to buy the upgrade version of Office 2007 Ultimate, be sure you understand that this means you are not getting the full version of Office 2007. You are getting an upgrade version that is specifically designed to look for the above described Microsoft products already loaded on a PC. This also means that when your machine crashes and you have to reload an OS and all your applications, you cannot just install the upgrade Office 2007 on the repaired machine. You will first have to reinstall whatever prior Microsoft product you selected to qualify for the upgrade version of Office 2007 Ultimate, and then load the upgrade version of Office 2007 Ultimate. I strongly advise all readers considering any version of Office 2007 to go ahead and buy the full retail price product. This way, you will always have what you need in the future when your machine crashes. Other Version Prices Microsoft Office 2007 is available in a variety of versions at a variety of price points. $149 - Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 $399 - Microsoft Office Standard 2007 $449 - Microsoft Small Business 2007 $499 - Microsoft Professional 2007 Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007 and Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007 are available only through volume licensing. Note also that the low-end, "introductory" version of Office, the Microsoft Office Basic 2007, is available able only through OEMs. This is the edition that will show up on many brand new machines with Vista sold directly by computer manufacturers to customers. This is also very likely to be a trial version of Office 2007 that provides limited functionality and limited time for use of Office 2007, in order to "introduce" Office 2007 to the customer and entice them to purchase one of the fully functional editions. These are Microsoft’s official street prices, MSRP Seattle, and if you were to walk into the showroom of most any retail software vendor, you will likely pay these prices. Also, most all mail order catalog prices will not differ much either. Remember, this is one of the most important "mother lode" revenue streams for Microsoft, and there is not much leeway in retail pricing with this suite. Students, universities, or other such organizations that qualify for discounted
pricing are the only ones eligible to take advantage of any Microsoft approved reduction
in these prices, called "academic" pricing, and students would be wise to set up
an account with approved vendors like the Academic Superstore (www.academicsuperstore.com). |