Actually, this is a pretty nice addition. I know of several accounting teams often within just one workplace who are constantly using a separate IM service to keep in contact. For Word, it may not be so important, but for Excel it will be huge in these circles.
Like they say, for collaboration. Just about every student has co-authored projects that they work on together, and anyone will tell you that getting every group member to meet face to face is damn near impossible. If everyone has O365 (as students get it free) then everyone can do a virtual meeting without having everyone need the same chat software and the same collaboration tools. If you're making your project with a Microsoft product, then you can collaborate, no additional setup required.
Of course this isn't limited to just students, and many others collaborate on projects together in the workplace and having a virtual meeting tool built-in will help with that. And having co-authoring built-in as well obviously piggy backs on this. So basically its a tool for people who are working on projects that they are working on with others. If you don't do that, then the feature isn't for you.
Collaboration is so important that I'd rather take the feature hit and use Google Docs because it's just so damn good at collaboration. Good collaboration features are invaluable when working in groups.
If it's in the app itself, no window switching is necessary. Also it's probably easier to set up than using a separate app. This is even more useful on tablets.
For collaboration, as stated in the article. It's likely similar to Quickbooks Messenger in the Enterprise versions of Quickbooks.
It would be nice to see something more fully featured like Slack, however there's only so much you can do in a program like Word without making it even more bloated than it already is.
I mean, I use excel like a fiend and I would get all hot & bothered over some new tweaks & features for power users. And let me tell you, there are definitely still some things that excel could do better. It's pretty ducking magnificent, but it's not yet perfect.
What else are you going to do with something like Word? They've got to sell new versions somehow, and there's not many other features lacking.
Personally, I'd like it if Word supported semantic markup languages like Markdown in some shape or form, with live visual preview and the ability to have centralised styles (think CSS). Every document in your organisation could be linked to a centrally defined set of styles. You could essentially rebrand every document in your organisation instantly.
well they already support styles, but they aren't applied through markup languages because people who are advanced enough for that stuff use LaTeX, while the others need a graphical interface because they're maybe not even familiar with forum tags. Being able to enforce the styles on all documents in an organization sounds pretty cool. But then you get the limitations that are avoided with latex (e.g. if 2 lines end up on the second page in word because the title is now bigger it just looks sloppy).
I look forward to Office 2020, when hindsight arrives and people realize it's often a lot easier and faster to get stuff done doing it by yourself without distractions and "collaboration" slowing everything down.
Lol dude, learn the ribbon, it is actually faster, and takes LESS CLICKS to do the same thing. However, if you are going to be stubborn, and refuse to learn something new, well then that's only hurting you.
I do run newer versions also, so I have learnt how to get by with them, but in 2003 you can get things done more efficiently with keyboard shortcuts and F4.
To quote Jon Peltier: "One gets the idea that the designers and programmers of the Office applications are not themselves heavy users of their applications, do not understand how users use their applications, are unaware of many existing but not widely documented features, and do not understand usability." (http://peltiertech.com/changes-to-charting-in-exce...
Part of good usability is the idea of consistency.
By far, the biggest problem of the pre-ribbon interface was that there were thousands of possible toolbar configurations. That's a recipe for an inconsistent experience.
The ribbon is an excellent compromise. By default, it's one, single tabbed toolbar configuration that will reliably be there for users to consistently expect. However, as an excellent compromise to power users, you can build a custom toolbar across the top of the screen with the particular buttons that you use the most.
There are A LOT to pick from. I wouldn't be surprised if there are more possible custom buttons than in all of excel 2003's toolbars. Anecdotally, my custom toolbar has paste values on it. It's just a nice clean button that will paste values - nothing fancy. I doubt that there was an excel 2003 toolbar for that and I know that I sure as hell wouldn't want the clutter of an entire toolbar for just one button.
A button for pasting values? Not worth leaving the keyboard for that, but if you want to you can create custom toolbars in Excel 2003 with functions mapped to Visual Basic routines.
A problem with 2007 onwards was that many modal dialogs were made modeless, and so you lost the ability to peform certain multi-step actions that you could then apply in batches to further range selections with the F4 (repeat) key.
I've never heard of using a "repeat" function, but I have heard of people forgetting where toolbar buttons are - it happens constantly. It's only worse when the toolbars can change when your machine gets reimaged or you need to use someone else's machine. The bottom line is that not everyone that uses excel is some ms mvp. Some people are constantly struggling and a sea of toolbars doesn't help them.
And I don't know if any keyboard shortcut for paste values. I suppose that since I put it on my quickbar, I can hit alt and then a number key, but I would love to know a proper shortcut.
In 2003, paste values is Alt-E-S-V, in 2007 I think it is Alt-H-V-V, in 2010 it is Alt-H-V-A or Alt-H-V-E depending on what formatting option you want.
I have no objection to MS layering a different interface onto things, but they broke functionality for heavy users. This isn't much fun when you are trying to get a lot of work done.
I'm pretty sure it's still alt-h-v-v in 2010 and 2013. alt-e-s-v still works
I would say for most the ribbon interface is better for keyboard shortcuts, as they're discoverable by pressing the alt key. But I was not a heavy Excel user in the 2003 era
Extide, did you think at ALL when saying the ribbon is less clicks for Excel? One of the most useful and most basic thing of all to do in Excel is to create a graph. Before Excel 2003, you highlighted the data to graph, click the graph button, and then click on the graph to start updating it as needed. Basically 3 clicks and you have a basic graph before the ribbon.
With the ribbon it is a MINIMUM of 13 clicks: 1) Highlight data, 2) Click Insert, 3) Click Scatter (assuming you are doing anything scientific, if not you can click other graph types), 4) Click the correct form of the graph, 5) Click Layout, 6) Click Chart Title, 7) Click the title's location, 8) Click Axis Titles, 9) Click Primary Horizontal Axis Title, 10) Click Title Below Axis (because why would you choose the default no horizontal tile just after steps 8 and 9) 11) Click Axis Titles, 12) Click Primary Vertical Axis Title, 13) Click a vertical type (because why would you choose the default no vertical tile just after steps 11 and 12)
Opps, that should have been TITLE, not TILE in my post above.
And don't get me started on why the default ribbon has the Insert commands (like Insert rows and columns on the Home ribbon tab, and not the Insert ribbon tab). Or other added button presses (like when you have a narrow Excel window, all buttons like the cell color button require one more button press than when you have a wide Excel window - try it).
What's weird is I actually like the ribbon in Windows 8's Explorer interface. Like there's more options, and they look better/are orgainized better than in 7...yet I've still not really adjusted to Office's Ribbon. I mean I'm used to it now, but...
Anyway I'm semi-tempted to buy 2016, even though I don't think it really does anything new I need. I could do with some note features for Word, a split panel WYSIWYG HTML editor for Word, but baring that...
There for a while I was doing OpenOffice (I guess LibreOffice is still better supported?) but I don't know, I'm back on MS Office for now.
Try out SoftMaker Office 2016. If you don't know it yet: it's an excellent office suite made in Germany that uses the good old menus as in MS Office 2003 but with several modern extensions. TextMaker (word processor), PlanMaker (spreadsheet) and Presentations (presentation software) open and save all lkind of Microsoft Office formats generally without flaws, and the schope of features is impressing - on the same level as Microsoft Office and under several aspects even beyond. Price is reasonable, about $80 for three licenses (compare that with Microsoft Office 2016). SoftMaker offers free technical supportm, and t5hey release regular updates with improvements and new features. I can strongly recommend it.
ribbon was the single thing that changed my experience the most. It's much faster to use, and you don't have to look for stuff through menus and activate buttons, it comes up with the right context.
Actually, just installed Office 2013 on my home machine, and I'm still having to use 2010 at work. Not sure if anyone else noticed a similar effect, but it seems that 2013 is actually slower at opening than 2010? Boy, there's a productivity increase, eh?
[from the article] "Overall, there are a lot of changes to Office 2016. Likely more than you would think considering Office has been around for so long, and is certainly a mature toolset. "
This is because software engineers feel the compulsion to constantly "improve" on their product. Even if there's nothing wrong with it. Even if it doesn't actually improve said product. Even if, as I have noticed, it slows down the product!
WHY?? The only reason I can come up with is that it helps them prove that their jobs are necessary, because they're "improving" the product, which will bring more sales of the product. So long as the profit made off of those sales exceeds the cost of keeping the software monkeys, the bean counters will go along with it.
True dat... Office2003 was the only release that ever mattered. Everything since then is only trying to guess what could be improved but really there is nothing that you couldn't do before. A nicer look maybe, a controversial ribbon, etc.... just more money for them and more work for you to re-learn how to do the same sh1t all over again.
Office 2013 loading slower than Office 2010 is the reverse of what I saw then I just recently upgraded to 2013. I think there is an issue with your setup.
I still see a lot of people using Office 2003 or LibreOffice
I remember back in the Word/Office 1997 days they did a survey and 85% of the users , use 25% of the functions off the office suitheck a lot of users I see use Word and Excel and never touch powerpoint
Any real point doing the yearly software application cycle if the current one WORKS and has everything youll need and is supported on the OS ?
Yeah, a major update every year with minor compatibility problems is certainly too often. And Microsoft even miscounts the year numbers: 2003 - 2007 - 2010 - 2013 - 2016. Misleads one to think they'd be on a 3-year cadence.
We’ve updated our terms. By continuing to use the site and/or by logging into your account, you agree to the Site’s updated Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
35 Comments
Back to Article
Gigaplex - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
Why would you want the chat client integrated into Word itself?Terry Suave - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
Actually, this is a pretty nice addition. I know of several accounting teams often within just one workplace who are constantly using a separate IM service to keep in contact. For Word, it may not be so important, but for Excel it will be huge in these circles.Freakie - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
Like they say, for collaboration. Just about every student has co-authored projects that they work on together, and anyone will tell you that getting every group member to meet face to face is damn near impossible. If everyone has O365 (as students get it free) then everyone can do a virtual meeting without having everyone need the same chat software and the same collaboration tools. If you're making your project with a Microsoft product, then you can collaborate, no additional setup required.Of course this isn't limited to just students, and many others collaborate on projects together in the workplace and having a virtual meeting tool built-in will help with that. And having co-authoring built-in as well obviously piggy backs on this. So basically its a tool for people who are working on projects that they are working on with others. If you don't do that, then the feature isn't for you.
ImSpartacus - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
Collaboration is so important that I'd rather take the feature hit and use Google Docs because it's just so damn good at collaboration. Good collaboration features are invaluable when working in groups.Murloc - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
If it's in the app itself, no window switching is necessary. Also it's probably easier to set up than using a separate app. This is even more useful on tablets.kaidenshi - Monday, September 28, 2015 - link
For collaboration, as stated in the article. It's likely similar to Quickbooks Messenger in the Enterprise versions of Quickbooks.It would be nice to see something more fully featured like Slack, however there's only so much you can do in a program like Word without making it even more bloated than it already is.
ImSpartacus - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
Collaboration is pretty cool, but is that it?I mean, I use excel like a fiend and I would get all hot & bothered over some new tweaks & features for power users. And let me tell you, there are definitely still some things that excel could do better. It's pretty ducking magnificent, but it's not yet perfect.
Wardrop - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
What else are you going to do with something like Word? They've got to sell new versions somehow, and there's not many other features lacking.Personally, I'd like it if Word supported semantic markup languages like Markdown in some shape or form, with live visual preview and the ability to have centralised styles (think CSS). Every document in your organisation could be linked to a centrally defined set of styles. You could essentially rebrand every document in your organisation instantly.
Murloc - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
well they already support styles, but they aren't applied through markup languages because people who are advanced enough for that stuff use LaTeX, while the others need a graphical interface because they're maybe not even familiar with forum tags.Being able to enforce the styles on all documents in an organization sounds pretty cool. But then you get the limitations that are avoided with latex (e.g. if 2 lines end up on the second page in word because the title is now bigger it just looks sloppy).
jay401 - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
I look forward to Office 2020, when hindsight arrives and people realize it's often a lot easier and faster to get stuff done doing it by yourself without distractions and "collaboration" slowing everything down.extide - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
LOL!Shadow7037932 - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
Lol. Good luck.Klug4Pres - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
Microsoft destroyed Excel with the absurd Ribbon interface, a productivity crime for which they seem completely unrepentant. Still running 2003.extide - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
Lol dude, learn the ribbon, it is actually faster, and takes LESS CLICKS to do the same thing. However, if you are going to be stubborn, and refuse to learn something new, well then that's only hurting you.Klug4Pres - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
I do run newer versions also, so I have learnt how to get by with them, but in 2003 you can get things done more efficiently with keyboard shortcuts and F4.Klug4Pres - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
To quote Jon Peltier: "One gets the idea that the designers and programmers of the Office applications are not themselves heavy users of their applications, do not understand how users use their applications, are unaware of many existing but not widely documented features, and do not understand usability." (http://peltiertech.com/changes-to-charting-in-exce...ImSpartacus - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
Part of good usability is the idea of consistency.By far, the biggest problem of the pre-ribbon interface was that there were thousands of possible toolbar configurations. That's a recipe for an inconsistent experience.
The ribbon is an excellent compromise. By default, it's one, single tabbed toolbar configuration that will reliably be there for users to consistently expect. However, as an excellent compromise to power users, you can build a custom toolbar across the top of the screen with the particular buttons that you use the most.
There are A LOT to pick from. I wouldn't be surprised if there are more possible custom buttons than in all of excel 2003's toolbars. Anecdotally, my custom toolbar has paste values on it. It's just a nice clean button that will paste values - nothing fancy. I doubt that there was an excel 2003 toolbar for that and I know that I sure as hell wouldn't want the clutter of an entire toolbar for just one button.
The ribbon makes sense and was implemented well.
Klug4Pres - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
A button for pasting values? Not worth leaving the keyboard for that, but if you want to you can create custom toolbars in Excel 2003 with functions mapped to Visual Basic routines.A problem with 2007 onwards was that many modal dialogs were made modeless, and so you lost the ability to peform certain multi-step actions that you could then apply in batches to further range selections with the F4 (repeat) key.
ImSpartacus - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
I've never heard of using a "repeat" function, but I have heard of people forgetting where toolbar buttons are - it happens constantly. It's only worse when the toolbars can change when your machine gets reimaged or you need to use someone else's machine. The bottom line is that not everyone that uses excel is some ms mvp. Some people are constantly struggling and a sea of toolbars doesn't help them.And I don't know if any keyboard shortcut for paste values. I suppose that since I put it on my quickbar, I can hit alt and then a number key, but I would love to know a proper shortcut.
Klug4Pres - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
In 2003, paste values is Alt-E-S-V, in 2007 I think it is Alt-H-V-V, in 2010 it is Alt-H-V-A or Alt-H-V-E depending on what formatting option you want.I have no objection to MS layering a different interface onto things, but they broke functionality for heavy users. This isn't much fun when you are trying to get a lot of work done.
eisa01 - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
I'm pretty sure it's still alt-h-v-v in 2010 and 2013. alt-e-s-v still worksI would say for most the ribbon interface is better for keyboard shortcuts, as they're discoverable by pressing the alt key. But I was not a heavy Excel user in the 2003 era
dullard - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
Extide, did you think at ALL when saying the ribbon is less clicks for Excel? One of the most useful and most basic thing of all to do in Excel is to create a graph. Before Excel 2003, you highlighted the data to graph, click the graph button, and then click on the graph to start updating it as needed. Basically 3 clicks and you have a basic graph before the ribbon.With the ribbon it is a MINIMUM of 13 clicks:
1) Highlight data,
2) Click Insert,
3) Click Scatter (assuming you are doing anything scientific, if not you can click other graph types),
4) Click the correct form of the graph,
5) Click Layout,
6) Click Chart Title,
7) Click the title's location,
8) Click Axis Titles,
9) Click Primary Horizontal Axis Title,
10) Click Title Below Axis (because why would you choose the default no horizontal tile just after steps 8 and 9)
11) Click Axis Titles,
12) Click Primary Vertical Axis Title,
13) Click a vertical type (because why would you choose the default no vertical tile just after steps 11 and 12)
dullard - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
Opps, that should have been TITLE, not TILE in my post above.And don't get me started on why the default ribbon has the Insert commands (like Insert rows and columns on the Home ribbon tab, and not the Insert ribbon tab). Or other added button presses (like when you have a narrow Excel window, all buttons like the cell color button require one more button press than when you have a wide Excel window - try it).
Wolfpup - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
What's weird is I actually like the ribbon in Windows 8's Explorer interface. Like there's more options, and they look better/are orgainized better than in 7...yet I've still not really adjusted to Office's Ribbon. I mean I'm used to it now, but...Anyway I'm semi-tempted to buy 2016, even though I don't think it really does anything new I need. I could do with some note features for Word, a split panel WYSIWYG HTML editor for Word, but baring that...
There for a while I was doing OpenOffice (I guess LibreOffice is still better supported?) but I don't know, I'm back on MS Office for now.
Paul Klier - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
Try out SoftMaker Office 2016. If you don't know it yet: it's an excellent office suite made in Germany that uses the good old menus as in MS Office 2003 but with several modern extensions. TextMaker (word processor), PlanMaker (spreadsheet) and Presentations (presentation software) open and save all lkind of Microsoft Office formats generally without flaws, and the schope of features is impressing - on the same level as Microsoft Office and under several aspects even beyond. Price is reasonable, about $80 for three licenses (compare that with Microsoft Office 2016). SoftMaker offers free technical supportm, and t5hey release regular updates with improvements and new features. I can strongly recommend it.joex4444 - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
12 year old software is best software, am I right?Murloc - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
ribbon was the single thing that changed my experience the most. It's much faster to use, and you don't have to look for stuff through menus and activate buttons, it comes up with the right context.marvdmartian - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
Actually, just installed Office 2013 on my home machine, and I'm still having to use 2010 at work. Not sure if anyone else noticed a similar effect, but it seems that 2013 is actually slower at opening than 2010? Boy, there's a productivity increase, eh?[from the article] "Overall, there are a lot of changes to Office 2016. Likely more than you would think considering Office has been around for so long, and is certainly a mature toolset. "
This is because software engineers feel the compulsion to constantly "improve" on their product. Even if there's nothing wrong with it. Even if it doesn't actually improve said product. Even if, as I have noticed, it slows down the product!
WHY?? The only reason I can come up with is that it helps them prove that their jobs are necessary, because they're "improving" the product, which will bring more sales of the product. So long as the profit made off of those sales exceeds the cost of keeping the software monkeys, the bean counters will go along with it.
SteelRing - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
True dat... Office2003 was the only release that ever mattered. Everything since then is only trying to guess what could be improved but really there is nothing that you couldn't do before. A nicer look maybe, a controversial ribbon, etc.... just more money for them and more work for you to re-learn how to do the same sh1t all over again.Makaveli - Saturday, September 26, 2015 - link
Office 2013 loading slower than Office 2010 is the reverse of what I saw then I just recently upgraded to 2013. I think there is an issue with your setup.charliebrownau - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
I still see a lot of people using Office 2003 or LibreOfficeI remember back in the Word/Office 1997 days they did
a survey and 85% of the users , use 25% of the functions
off the office suitheck a lot of users I see use Word and Excel
and never touch powerpoint
Any real point doing the yearly software application cycle if the
current one WORKS and has everything youll need and is supported
on the OS ?
MrSpadge - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
Yeah, a major update every year with minor compatibility problems is certainly too often. And Microsoft even miscounts the year numbers: 2003 - 2007 - 2010 - 2013 - 2016. Misleads one to think they'd be on a 3-year cadence.Marlin1975 - Thursday, September 24, 2015 - link
Well Libre Office version 5 also just came out, but its free.http://www.libreoffice.org/download/
Michael Bay - Friday, September 25, 2015 - link
They should pay for ME using this piece of horror.BoyBawang - Tuesday, September 29, 2015 - link
I was already overwhelmed by OFFICE 1997 and I considered it Bloated at that time.