wait wait...2k3 users can download a patch to read 2k7 files w/o a problem? Fuck that, burdens on them now. No more saving for compatibility for me.
Yep. I don't recall - you might lose some fancy formatting, and the new rendered graphs and shit might drop down into the old style graphs and shit, but other than that, it's virtually seamless. I'm not sure, but I think it might even allow you to save to the new format as well. Over at SA, whenever someone even thinks about bitching about file compatibility, someone smacks them upside the face with the compatibility pack. Frankly, I wish they'd push the thing as an update to Office 2003/XP so that at least people running updates won't whine about it.
We use the compatibility pack at school. It pretty much preserves everything except for some of the more exotic formatting.
Not a fan of 2k7, but I think except in PowerPoint, I haven't used more than one or 2 features in any newer versions that weren't in 97, as far as I know (which is to say, I never used Outlook prior to 2k3, so I don't know about that). Of course considering that about 75-90% of my word processing demands are met by TextEdit (the built-in word processor on OS X), I may not be the best person to ask here.
So there is a compatibility upgrade for 2k3? This will work for home, but my office computer is ruled by IT nerds. I have to wait for them to figure it out.
Tab or menu, one click is still one click. If this were competing with my Bookmarks menu , then there might be a great advantage, sure, but . . . That's very special, I'm sure. What if I want to define the appearance of the buttons, hmm? As opposed to the menu-based versions of Office applications, wherein the functionality of the controls is implemented when . . . the, uh, control is activated. Still not seeing anything different in what any of them can accomplish. Just like the 2k3-ish Pictures toolbar that popped up whenever selecting a picture. Live Preview sounds nice, at least in theory. I hope there's a way to disable it. That mini-toolbar thing can be nice, but again there's that potential for it to come off as overzealous a la The Paperclip. Nice to have Word Count right there if you want it. Don't understand why previous versions never seemed to have a default keyboard shortcut for that. GOOD. Maybe somebody's getting a clue somewhere . . . Ooo, now that sounds useful (doesn't look it so much) . . . The icon sets also sound useful, especially if they can be applied automatically the way one wants. Extend to what? Composing music in Word? IM'ing in Powerpoint? Walking the dog? What? ( IM'ing by way of Powerpoint could actually be nice. YIM's Doodle is terrible for conveying diagrams and such . . . ) I shall have to take your word for it for now. Oh, wait, I bet I know what you mean. I was in the college computer lab the other day and the person next to me was trying to figure out where a function was. I had no idea. She called the attendant over and she didn't have much of an idea either. They poked around and finally found a nondescript little graphic squeezed in next to the Translate... button that did what she wanted. So, yeah, tooltips are good for discovering what on Earth a confusing graphic is supposed to represent. Don't know who needs "big, descriptive" tooltips to understand what "Bold" or "Left-align" are meant to do, though. For mere mortals, yes Saw that in the Wiki article, I suspect. It didn't appear to determine anything, but that was probably because of the pointlessly alternating background interfering visually. The nice thing about toolbars is if you don't have any use for them you can right-click and get them off the screen while cackling viciously. ("WHAT THE SPLUCK IS AN ACROBAT TOOLBAR/MENU DOING, AUTOMATICALLY APPEARING IN WORD?!??! GET THAT WASTE OF SPACE OFF MY SCREEN NOW!!", etc.) None of the tabs in this Ribbon thing, as best I can tell, are optional. Nor is the Ribbon display optional--or if it is, Help should say so. Ahem: "Updates"? They have those for non-AV programs?
Tabs aren't optional, but what is displayed on them can be added and removed, I believe. At least this way, the Adobe shit isn't going to be too fucking intrusive.
