It’s worth checking out!

1. Reuse styles from an existing Word document, just click the Office button- ->New- ->New from existing format. Choose your word document and click ‘Create new’. This essentially makes a copy of the original document that you can modify to your hearts content without affecting the original.

    

2. Save a Style Set in Word. Style sets are things like font styles, font sizes, font colours, page layouts all together in one set ready to use. Just select change styles on the ‘home’ tab on the interface in Microsoft word. Click ‘Style Set’ –> ‘Save As Quick Style Set’. Then just simply name it and click ‘Save’.
3. Use Word 2007′s Pre-styled Text Box’s. Office has made some of the formatting easier for you with a selection of pre-styled text boxes. To use a pre-styled text box click insert on the fluent menu interface, click ‘Text Box’ and then choose your desired style.
4. Give your Word documents an Office Theme. All you need to do is click the ‘Page Layout’ tab on the fluent interface in your Word 2007 and click ‘Themes’. Then select your desired theme by clicking on it. Some examples are, ‘Flow’ and ‘Aspect’.
5. Change the Zoom on Excel, PowerPoint and Word with a Slide. Its now ultra easy to adjust the zoom on you Word, Excel or PowerPoint 2007 documents, all you do is slide the Zoom Bar from the bottom right hand corner of your screen.
6. Excel 2007 Page Layout View. Click the ‘View tab’ then Page LayoutView’. It is a very easy way to check what you can fit on each page when it comes to printing and also to add a header/footer.
7. Make you Excel 2007 Data into a Table. Just choose the data you wish to be made into a table. Click ‘Format As Table’ from the ‘Styles’ group of the’Home’ tab. Pick the table style you want and then Excel automatically creates and formats the table for you.
8. Create PowerPoint slides from Word 2007!? It sounds quite surreal doesn’t it! In PowerPoint 2007, select the ‘Home Tab. Click ‘New Slide’ –> and then ‘Slides from Outline’. Double-click on the Word file that you want to copy. Then select the ‘Outline tab’ on the left hand side of the screen in PowerPoint to get rid of any unwanted text.
9. Create your very own custom PowerPoint 2007 slide layout! Select the ‘View’ tab in PowerPoint 2007, then click ‘Slide Master’. Scroll down and click just below the last layout. Click ‘Insert Layout’ in the ‘Edit Master’ group which is in the ‘Slide Master’ tab. Delete any unwanted placeholders and then select ‘Insert Placeholder’. Click the ‘Office Button’ –> Save As then choose a ‘PowerPoint Template’ from the ‘Save As’ Type field.
10. Re-use slides from a SharePoint slide library. On the home tab click on the arrow beneath ‘New Slide’. Then click ‘Reuse Slides’ followed by ‘Open A Slide Library’ which is in the reuse slides area. Now double-click the SharePoint site where you saved the slides.

Not sure why, but Microsoft in their infinite wisdom haven’t included it as standard so you need to download it from the Microsoft Site for free. Then run the download and you’re away! Quick and Easy

Q: Is it possible to open Office 2007 documents in different versions of Office?
A: Yes, there is a free Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel and PowerPoint 2007 file formats which enable other users to view, save edit etc documents in Office 200, XP or 2003. For more on how to install the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack click here and for more information on how to use earlier versions of Excel, PowerPoint and Word to open and save files from 2007 Office click here.

Q: Can I save my documents in older Microsoft Office formats?
A: Yes you can. Simply click the office button on the top left and choose Save as, then just pick the earlier version of your 2007 Office system application e.g. Excel 97-2003. You can lose some information by doing this though. So to check if anything, what will get lost, select Prepare–>Run Compatibility Checker.

Q: How do I check if I have any problems in my Office 2007 system?
A: Office 2007 comes with its very own built-in diagnostics tool, which you’ll find by following these simple instructions: Start–>All Programs–>Microsoft Office–>Microsoft Office Tools–>Microsoft Office Diagnostics. Then just follow the on screen instructions which will give Office a check to make sure everything is running healthily.

Q: How can I change a program’s options?
A: You can change with all of the 2007 Office system applications by selecting the Office button from the top left hand corner of the screen when the program is open. Then just select the Options you wish to change from the button at the bottom of the window. Spending the time to go over the sections carefully is recommended as it will save you a hell of a lot of time and effort in the long run.

Q: Is it possible to back up my Office 2007 system settings?
A: Windows Vista includes the Microsoft Office system settings with in the back-up tools. If you wish to transfer them to a PC instead you can use ‘Windows Easy Transfer’. You can find both by doing the following: Start–>All Programs–>Accessories–>System Tools.

Anymore post ‘em ‘ere and we will see what can be done.

Why the extra ‘x’?

For years documents on Office programs have been saved as in the same format e.g. Word’s format used to be .doc and Excel’s format used to be .xls. However, Microsoft have decided that now is the time for big change! All Office 2007 documents will be saved with an ‘x’ on the end, for example, Word is now .docx and Excel is not .xlsx. Why the extra ‘x’ I hear you say? Well basically the ‘x’ stands for a technology called XML which now helps run all office documents. The main differences between the two are that having the ‘xml’ technology makes the document smaller so that your software can handle with them faster, and also all of the Office 2007 software will ‘speak’ to each other so the software is more efficient. The documents are also more robust so are therefore less susceptible to becoming corrupted etc.

PDF and XPS

In the past if you emailed a document to somebody and they didn’t have the same version of Microsoft Office as you they wouldn’t be able to open the document without a compatibility software from a third-party company, which could potentially have cost hundreds of pounds! However, now Microsoft Office 2007 have provided a free download so that you can save your documents in .pdf format without having to use any thrid-party software. PDF is a format developed by Adobe, they offer a free reader to open files. PDF is ‘Portable Document Format’, this means that it can be opened on many types of computers or operating systems, e.g. different versions of Windows and Apple Mac’s. XPS stands for ‘XML Paper Specification’, and it is very similar to .pdf however it isn’t used quite as much over the world as it hasn’t been as round for as long. To download the software which allows you to save your documents in Office 2007 as ‘.pdf and .xps’ click here.

Blogging from Word

Word 2003 could produce simple codes for websites but not as detailed as you would expect from a specialised web layout tool. If you were to cut and paste the text from Word to your blogging tool you would have to ensure that the text format had been converted, as if it hadn’t been converted the post would be messed up! Therefore it was very stressful and not always worthwhile. However, now Microsoft Office Word 2007 has been given a dedicated blogging mode. Which can hook directly to a number of popular blogging tools, such as; WordPress, Blogger and MSN Spaces. Therefore it is even simpler to get yourself on the Internet! A huge majority of Blogs talk with both Microsoft Word 07 and Microsoft OneNote 07.

Fluent Ribbon

On Office 2003 it was often hard or long winded to find the feature you wanted as they seemed almost hidden within the ridiculous amounts of menus. Therefore we just assumed they weren’t there, when they most likely were, just in a less obvious place. However, the Office 2007 system has a new fluent interface! It is used for most of the applications in the suite and splits up the commands on offer to an easy to used structure and obvious grouping. Its a great time saver and your guaranteed to find some features that you ever knew existed!

For more on the new Microsoft Office Suite keep an eye out over the coming weeks