Microsoft Office 2007

Up until the launch of Microsoft Office 2007 there had been a continuous progression in the development of the Office suite of programmes. Office 2007 did away with toolbars and introduced the concept of the 'ribbon'.

Office 2007 uses XML and Visual Studio where the previous versions of Office have all used VB and VBA coding.

There are benefits with the new format. Many of the options are more accessible but often at the expense of the straightforward functionality - for example the 'Save as' command is 'hidden' behind the Microsoft symbol.

We tend to develop a client specific tab in the ribbon which encompasses all the client template functions and commands, together with their preferred set of standard items such as Save. That way they have all their important commands available in one tab.

The implication of the change in the underlying programming language and use of XML for our clients is that the step to Office 2007 requires a fundamental rebuild, rather than development of the existing templates. So for many clients neither the financial or usability arguments have yet justified the transition to Office 2007.