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Some learning curves are steeper than others. It takes most folks a while after upgrading to Office 2007 to get used to the new user interface (UI) introduced in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access, (also known as “the ribbon”), so I've pulled together a little help. These items aren’t new, but they're worth a look if you haven't already used them.
First, each program has two guides that show you where your favorite old commands are in the new UI. One guide is interactive, and the other is a master list of where to find Office 2003 commands and toolbars in Office 2007.
Second, if you have PowerPoint 2007, you can download any of these presentations on how to use the Office 2007 products. The "Get up to speed" presentations in particular, like this one for PowerPoint itself, quickly help you get your bearings.
Third, for demos of the new UI in action, check out the demos for the Office 2007 products. Select Office 2007, and then the product you're interested in. If it's one of the ribbon apps, it'll have a "Get up to speed" demo that gives a quick overview of how things are set up and why.
Finally, my favorite tool for learning my way around Office 2007 when it was new to me was the Search Commands add-in, affectionately dubbed "Scout," which Microsoft Labs developed. It's a guide that builds itself right into the UI, where it's handy. Word to the wise from the folks who built it: Check the system requirements before you install it.
These are just a tiny fraction of the resources available on Office Online, but I hope they’ll help.
What else would make the transition to Office 2007 easier? And where you are on that learning curve — Frustrated? Triumphant? Stretched somewhere in between?
-- Holly
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At our school, we have both office 2003 and 2007 installed on all the library computers, where a lot of work gets done. That makes it easy to have a slow introduction to the Ribbon and the new UI, while still having access to the old feature-creepy (but familiar and thus, useful) interface of Office 2003. Though there have been a few problems with people saving documents in Office 2007 formats and trying to open them in Office 2003 on the professors' computers. Perhaps when someone first tries to save something in a 2007-exclusive format such as .docx, there should be a dialog box explaining that the old Office 2003 won't be able to open it. Clear and effective user interfacing is like clear and effective writing: it isn't designed so people can understand, but so that people cannot misunderstand.
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