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Using Office 2007
You may have heard about Office 2007, the latest and most dramatically different in the line of Microsoft office suite products to date. At first glance it appears to be a completely different animal than the familiar Word, Excel and PowerPoint 2003 programs we are used to. If you are like most of us, you will look for File, Edit, View and find that they disappeared! It may feel daunting or even frustrating to have to adjust to the changes, but we think that with a few pointers in the right direction, it won’t be long before you are flying through your Office files as you did before.
What‘s changed?
When you open Word, Excel or PowerPoint, instead of the familiar Menu/Toolbar setup, you see what’s called the Ribbon, which is a wide band that is intended to bring the most popular commands to the forefront.
The ribbon consists of three basic components.
- Tabs are found at the top of the ribbon and represent a core activity that you do in a given program.
- Groups are sets of related tasks found on activity tabs.
- Commands are contained in groups and can be a button, menu or box.
Above the ribbon you find the new Office Button, which allows you to access the New, Open, Save and
Print commands, among others. To the
right of the Office Button is the Quick
Access toolbar, which also contains commonly accessed commands such as Save
and Undo.
Some groups have a small diagonal arrow in the lower-right corner called a Dialog Box Launcher (1) Clicking that opens a dialog box (2) you may recognize from previous Office versions that contains even more commands.
But I like it the way it was!
We recognize that there are times when expediency dictates that we go with what we know, so we have a solution for those folks who prefer to work with Office’s 2003 menu and toolbar structure. We installed the Office Classic Menu so that you will not have to search the Ribbon to find the command you are looking for. Clicking the Menu tab at the far right of the ribbon will give you access to the familiar menus and toolbars you remember from previous versions of Office.
What do I need to know about file formats?
Microsoft decided to change the Office 2007 file formats to increase security of your files, to reduce file corruption, make the files smaller and to be able to include new features. You will know you are working with a 2007 file when you see an “x” at the end of a file (e.g. a Word document is saved with the extension .docx rather than .doc). The new Access file format is .accdb, rather than the earlier .mdb file type.
Here are some important things to note about file format:
- You can open files created in Office 95 through 2003 in Office 2007.
- A file created in an earlier version of 2007 defaults to the same type when it is saved.
- If you save the file in the 2007 version:
- When you try to open it in 2003 or earlier, you will be prompted to download a converter that you must install and use to convert the file.
- Opening the file in an earlier version means you may not have some of the enhanced 2007 features available to you.
- To make it easier for staff, students and faculty to move between University computers and home, we have configured Office 2007 to default to the Office 2003 file formats.
- Be careful with Access!
Online Self-Help
Microsoft has a number of free online tutorials that will help you jump start your Office 2007 experience. These tutorials include practice sessions that you can do if you have the new version of Office installed on your computer.
- Up to speed with the 2007 Office system - everything you need to get started.
- The new Office: Made for you - covers the Ribbon and how to find and organize commands.
- Answers to critical questions - covers the file menu, shortcuts, file formats, how you share documents between different Office systems and understanding the new Access file format.
- Reference Card - lists more tutorials and reference sheets that will help you get up to speed with Microsoft Office 2007.
ITS Technical Support
Our technicians are available Monday through Friday from 7am to 10pm to assist you with this transition from Office 2003 to Office 2007.
- Phone (1-800-696-4357)
- Email techsupport@maine.edu