Office 2007 – has its uses?

I've come across a lot of derision for Office 2007. Why have Microsoft completely changed the menu; what do the XML formats offer; isn't this just showing that Office has nowhere useful to go and you may as well use Open Office?

I've been using Office 2007 since the end of 2007 as our IT dept very quickly moved to Office 2007 (even though the rest of the business is using 2003 still, due to corporate requirements). It took a good while before I got used to the menu ribbons, and each of my team spent time staring at their screen wondering how to do what with 2003 was a trivial task. (Editing footer elements in a PowerPoint master page, for example.)

Over two years on since I began using it, I recently went back to Office 2003, and you know what – I couldn't find anything. Changing page orientation, which is two clicks with 2007 is a nightmare to get to with 2003.

Those suggesting using OpenOffice because it looks like Office 2003 are really missing the point. Whether you can immediately use it or not, Office 2007 has made usability improvements. It's just a matter of getting used to them. In a way Microsoft did take a big risk in making the change, but suggesting users use OpenOffice just because it's similar to Office 2003 really isn't the solution.

And another thing – Word 2007 supports common blogging platforms – including Blogger used for this post. Nice touch.