Review By BINNY :
Microsoft has releases the new Office 2007 beta 2 publically to all the users of Windows XP SP2, now anyone can download & install it, with the given key from Microsoft itself
This review is not about the features etc, as they are already known from a long time, such as the ribbon UI, & new collaboration features etc, instead this review is about the user experience & usage
The office 2007 install is not quite streamlined, & although the installation of office 2003 was already quite easy, this is easier, just select what u want to install, & it will install
The pro plus version comes with all the components of office 2007 family except the Visio 2007, although a Visio viewer is included
The new file format, which are now xml based are there, but I don’t think using these now is a good idea, as many users all over still use .doc instead of .docx. U can set the default file format to save vis word options->Save
All the general & finishing option can b found in that big Office orb on far left size, now MS Office Word, Excel etc support saving as pdf however in current version the quality of images in the saved pdf is quite bad. The Word options or Excel Options can also be checked from this orb menu
U will find the general options to do whatever u want in their corresponding tabs, like u will find the reading view in the “View” Tab. Inserting Pictures can be found in the insert tab, this way the user actually uses features which were previously in Office but under many menus, now it’s very easy to work on Word & Excel
Outlook 2007, the Mail client of Office suite, resembled outlook 2003 on first glance, but now it has instant search in it, if u have Windows desktop search installed, however it will bug u every time, to install it, unless u disable this notification
Tools ->Options->Others->Advanced option -> Disable WDS notification
Contacts are now shown in a cool card like structure, which is lot better than before, u can double click on it to get the detailed look
I haven’t worked on other applications yet, except for PowerPoint
The default installation of Office 2007 takes about 1.6 GB space, this installs everything, however in my case, I only installed Word & Outlook 2007, so it occupied only 190 MB here, 40 MB more then Office 2003
Here are a few pics of word & outlook on my PC; I blurred the private information
There are still many issues with Office, specially with WindowsBlind, the UI is painted very slow with WB. Also the ribbon UI is very fat, I also cannot disable the text written on it, this has decresed the viewport area, unlike previous versions
I will post more things, as i work on it more. U can download Office 2007 beta 2 directly from here. This is the Pro Plus version, 440 MB, however U will need to signup at Office beta signup page, to get your legal key. This also requirs activation so in case U are unable to activate, due to "Internet connection not found" Error, don't worry, it's just that the MS servers are chocked right now. In that case u can use a corporate key, which doesn't require activation at all
