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Microsoft Office 2007 Microsoft-office-2007-service-pack-2-100x100 (codenamed Office 12[3]) is a version of Microsoft Office, a family of office suites and productivity software for Microsoft Windows, developed and published by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on November 3, 2006,[4] made available for volume licensing customers on November 30, 2006,[5] and released for retail on January 30, 2007 (the same release date as Windows Vista).[1] It was preceded by Office 2003 and succeeded by Office 2010. An equivalent for Mac OS X, Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac, was released.

Office 2007 introduced a new graphical user interface called the Fluent User Interface, which uses ribbons and an Office menu instead of menu bars and toolbars.[6] Office 2007 also introduced Office Open XML file formats as the default file formats in Excel, PowerPoint, and Word. The new formats are intended to facilitate the sharing of information between programs, improve security, reduce the size of documents, and enable new recovery scenarios.[7]

Office 2007 is compatible with Windows XP SP2 and Windows Server 2003 SP1 and later. It is the last version of Microsoft Office to support Windows XP SP2, Windows Server 2003 SP1, and Windows Vista RTM.

Office 2007 also includes new applications and server-side tools. Chief among these is Microsoft Office Groove, a collaboration and communication suite for smaller businesses that was originally developed by Groove Networks before being acquired by Microsoft in 2005. Also included is Office SharePoint Server 2007, a major revision to the server platform for Office applications. It supports "Excel Services", a client-server architecture for supporting Excel workbooks that are shared in real time between multiple machines and are also viewable and editable through a web page.

While Office 2007 includes many new features, Microsoft FrontPage has been removed from the Office suite entirely. It has been replaced by Microsoft SharePoint Designer, which is aimed towards the development of SharePoint portals. Another Microsoft program, Microsoft Expression Web, is targeted for general web development. However, neither application is included in the Office 2007 suites.

Speech recognition functionality has been removed from the individual programs in the Office 2007 suite. Users must install a previous version of Office to use speech recognition features.

Support for Office 2007 ended on October 10, 2017. On August 27, 2021, Microsoft announced that Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010 would be cut off from connecting to Microsoft 365 Exchange servers on November 1, 2021.

Development

The first beta of Microsoft Office 2007, referred to as Beta-1 in emails sent to a limited number of testers, was released on November 16, 2005. The Beta-1 Technical Refresh was released to testers on March 13, 2006. The Technical Refresh fixed issues in installing with Windows Vista build 5308. Office 2007 Beta 2 was announced by Bill Gates at WinHEC 2006, and was initially released to the public at no cost from Microsoft's website. However, because of an unprecedented number of downloads, a fee of $1.50 (£0.79) was introduced for each product downloaded after August 2, 2006.

The beta was updated on September 14, 2006, in Beta 2 Technical Refresh (Beta2TR). It included an updated user interface, better accessibility support, improvements in the robustness of the platform, and greater functionality. The beta versions continued to function in a reduced functionality mode after February 1, 2007. If users downloaded the Technical Refresh to update Beta 2, then users could use its full functionality until March 31, 2007, for client products and May 15, 2007, for server products.

The Beta program ended on November 8, 2006, when Microsoft declared the product "Released to Manufacturing" (RTM) and started manufacturing the final product. After the RTM, the availability of the beta download ended. Office 2007 was released to enterprise users on November 30, 2006, and to end users on January 30, 2007.[1] The last security updates were released on April 10, 2018.

Service packs

Since the initial release of Microsoft Office 2007, three service packs containing updates as well as additional features have been released. Microsoft Office 2007 Service Packs are cumulative, so previous Service Packs are not a prerequisite for installation.[8]

Service Pack 1 was released on December 11, 2007.[9] Official documentation claims that SP1 is not simply a rollup of publicly released patches, but that it also contains fixes for a total of 481 issues throughout the entire Office suite.[10] Service Pack 2 was released on April 28, 2009, which improved support for ODF, XPS, and PDF standards and fixed several bugs.[11][12] Service Pack 3 was released on October 25, 2011.[2]

Editions

Office 2007 is distributed in eight editions (Feature Comparison (archived 2008-01-06)):

Microsoft Office 2007 System Editions
Edition Availability Retail box
Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 Retail Office2007 Ultimate
Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007 Volume License only Picture not available
Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007 Volume License only Picture not available
Microsoft Office Professional 2007 Retail Office2007 Professional
Microsoft Office Small Business 2007 Retail Office2007 Small Business
Microsoft Office Standard 2007 Retail Office2007 Standard
Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 Retail / OEM Office2007 home and student
Microsoft Office Basic 2007 OEM only
Basic 2007

Notes:

  1. Additional tools include: Enterprise Content Management, Electronic Forms, and Windows Rights Management Services capabilities
  2. As noted on the packaging, below the comparison grid on the back, the OEM and Retail Home and Student 2007 edition is not licensed for commercial, non-profit, or any revenue-generating use. This is displayed in the actual programs themselves with a line of text after the program name.

New features

User interface

The new result-oriented user interface (UI), officially known as Fluent User Interface, is featured in the core applications of Microsoft Office 2007: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and the item inspector used to create or edit individual items in Outlook. These applications were selected for the UI overhaul, because they center around document authoring and present a multitude of options to the same regard. The rest of the applications in the suite were upgraded to the new UI in subsequent versions. According to Microsoft, the new UI centers on the principle of helping people focus on what they want to do, rather than bothering with the details of how to do it. The default font used in this version is Calibri.

Office Button

Office Button

Office Button

The Office 2007 button, located on the top-left of the window, replaces the File menu and provides access to functionality common across all Office applications, including Opening, Saving, Printing, and Sharing a file, among other options. Users can also choose color schemes for the interface.

Ribbon

Non-commercial banner in Microsoft Word 2007

Non-commercial banner in Microsoft Word 2007

The Ribbon, a panel that houses the command buttons and icons, organizes commands as a set of tabs, with each grouping relevant commands. Each application has a different set of tabs which expose the functionality that application offers. For example, while Excel has a tab for the Graphing capabilities, Word instead has tabs to control the formatting of the document. Within each tab, various related options may be grouped together. The Ribbon is designed to make the features of the application more discoverable and accessible with fewer mouse clicks as compared to the menu-based UI used in prior versions of Microsoft Office.

Since January 23, Microsoft has used the name Microsoft Office Fluent to describe the Ribbon interface, as well as other interface additions, in Microsoft Office 2007.

Ribbon in Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007
Ribbon in Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007

Contextual Tabs

Some tabs, called Contextual Tabs, appear only when certain objects are selected. Contextual Tabs expose functionality specific only to the object with focus. For example, selecting a picture brings up the Pictures tab, which presents options for dealing with the picture. Similarly, focusing on a table exposes table-related options in a specific tab. Contextual tabs remain hidden when the object it works on are not selected.

Live Preview

Microsoft Office 2007 also introduces a feature called "Live Preview", which temporarily applies formatting on the focused text or object, when any formatting button is moused-over. The temporary formatting is removed when the mouse pointer is moved from the button. This allows users to have a preview of how the option would affect the appearance of the object, without actually applying it.

Mini Toolbar

The new "Mini Toolbar" is a type of context menu that is automatically shown (by default) when text is selected. The purpose of this feature is to provide easy access to the most-used formatting commands without requiring a right-mouse-button click as was necessary in older versions of the software. Since the Mini Toolbar is automatically shown, it remains semi-transparent until the mouse pointer is situated on the control, in order to allow an almost-unobstructed view of what is beneath it. It also appears above the right-click menu when a user right-clicks on a selection of words.

Other UI features

File formats

Microsoft Office uses a new file format, called Office OpenXML, as the default file format. It is based on XML and uses the ZIP file container. According to Microsoft, documents created in this format are up to 75% smaller than the same documents saved with previous Microsoft Office file formats, owing to data compression.

Word documents without macro extensions are now saved using a .docx extension rather than the traditional .doc extension. Files containing macros are saved with the extension .docm. Users can save 2007 Word documents in the old format so that they will still be usable in previous versions of Word. For documents already saved in the new format, users must download a free document format converter program from Microsoft to allow older versions of Word to open them.

Microsoft had initially announced that it will support export to Portable Document Format (PDF) in Office 2007. However, due to legal objections from Adobe Systems, Office 2007 did not have PDF support built-in, but rather as a separate free download. Office 2007 documents can also be exported as XPS documents, via another free plug-in that is also a separate download.

Microsoft backs an open-source effort to support OpenDocument in Office 2007, as well as earlier versions, and also through a converter add-in for other programs, which works by having third-party programs call a command-line utility. The project only supports conversions between OpenDocument Text and Office Open XML Word documents.

User Assistance System

In Microsoft Office 2007, the Office Assistants have been completely removed. A new help system was created to assist users in creating documents. One feature of the new help system is the extensive use of Super Tooltips, which briefly explains what each function performs. Some Tooltips also use diagrams or pictures. These appear and disappear like normal tooltips, and replace normal tooltips in many areas.

Collaboration features

Microsoft Office Groove 2007

Microsoft Office Groove 2007

Microsoft Office 2007 includes features geared towards collaboration and data sharing. As such, Microsoft Office 2007 features server components for applications such as Excel, which work in conjunction with SharePoint Services, to provide a collaboration platform. SharePoint works with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, which is used to host a SharePoint site, and uses IIS and ASP.NET 2.0.

SharePoint can also be used to host Word documents for collaborative editing, by sharing a document. SharePoint can also be used to hold PowerPoint slides in a Slide Library, from which the slides can be used as a formatting template. It will also notify users of a slide automatically in case the source slide is modified. Also by using SharePoint, Powerpoint can manage shared review of presentations. Any SharePoint hosted document can be accessed from the application which created the document or from other applications such as a browser or Microsoft Office Outlook.

Excel server exposes Excel Services, which allows any worksheet to be created, edited and maintained via web browsers. It features Excel Web Access, the client-side component which is used to render the worksheet on a browser, Excel Calculation Service which is the server side component which populates the worksheet with data and perform calculations, and Excel Web Service that exposes Excel functionalities as individual web services.

Microsoft Office 2007 also includes Groove, which brings collaborative features to a peer-to-peer paradigm. Groove can host documents, including presentations, workbooks and others, created in Microsoft Office 2007 application in a shared workspace, which can then be used in collaborative editing of documents. Groove can also be used in managing workspace sessions, including access control of the workspace. To collaborate on one or more documents, a Workspace has to be created, and then those who are to work on it have to be invited. Any file shared on the workspace are automatically shared among all participants.

Microsoft Office Groove also provides real-time messaging, including one-to-one as well as group messaging, and presence features, as well as monitoring workspace activities with alerts, which are raised when pre-defined set of activities are detected. Groove also provides features for conflict resolution for conflicting edits. Schedules for a collaboration can also be decided by using a built-in shared calendar, which can also be used to keep track of the progress of a project. However, the calendar is not compatible with Microsoft Outlook.

Themes and Quick Styles

Microsoft Office 2007 places a huge emphasis on Document Themes and Quick Styles. The Document Theme defines the colors, fonts and graphic effects for a document. The new Office Theme file format (.THMX) is shared between Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook email messages. Almost everything that can be inserted into a document is automatically styled to match the overall document theme creating a consistent document design. Similar themes are also available for data reports in Access and Project or shapes in Visio.

Quick Styles are galleries with a range of styles based on the current theme. There are quick styles galleries for text, tables, charts, SmartArt, WordArt and other elements. The style range goes from simple/light to more graphically/darker.

Application-specific changes

Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word 2007

Microsoft Word 2007

Microsoft Outlook

Microsoft Outlook 2007

Microsoft Outlook 2007

Microsoft Outlook can also include an optional Business Contact Manager which allows management of business contacts and their sales and marketing activities. Phone calls, e-mails, appointments, notes and other business metrics can be managed for each contact. It can also keep a track of billable time for each contact on the Outlook Calendar. Based on these data, a consolidated report view can be generated by Microsoft Outlook with Business Contact Manager. The data can be further analyzed using Microsoft Excel. This data can also be shared using SharePoint services.

Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Excel 2007

Microsoft Excel 2007

Color Scales and Data Bars in Excel 2007

Color Scales and Data Bars in Excel 2007

Microsoft PowerPoint

Microsoft PowerPoint 2007

Microsoft PowerPoint 2007

Microsoft OneNote

Microsoft OneNote 2007

Microsoft OneNote 2007

Microsoft Access

Microsoft Access 2007

Microsoft Access 2007

Microsoft Publisher

Microsoft Publisher 2007

Microsoft Publisher 2007

Microsoft InfoPath

Microsoft InfoPath 2007

Microsoft InfoPath 2007

Microsoft Visio

Microsoft Visio 2007

Microsoft Visio 2007

Microsoft Project

Microsoft Project 2007

Microsoft Project 2007

Microsoft SharePoint Designer

Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007

Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007

Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 is a new addition to the Office suite replacing discontinued FrontPage for users of SharePoint. People who don't use SharePoint can use Microsoft Expression Web.

Server Components

SharePoint Server 2007

Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 allows sharing and collaborative editing of Office 2007 documents. It allows central storage of documents and management of Office documents, throughout the enterprise. These documents can be accessed either by the applications which created them, Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, or a web browser. Documents can also be managed through pre-defined policies that let users create and publish shared content, through a SharePoint site.

SharePoint Server allows searching of all Office documents which are being managed by it, centrally, thereby making data more accessible. It also provides access control for documents. Specialized server components can plug into the SharePoint server to extend the functionality of the server, such as Excel Services exposing data analysis services for Excel services. Data from other data sources can also be merged with Office data.

SharePoint also lets users personalize the SharePoint sites, filtering content they are interested in. SharePoint documents can also be locally cached by clients for offline editing; the changes are later merged.

Forms Server 2007

Microsoft Forms Server 2007 allows InfoPath forms to be accessed and filled out using any browser, including mobile phone browsers. Forms Server 2007 also supports using a database or other data source as the back-end for the form. Additionally, it allows centralized deployment and management of forms. Forms Server 2007 hosted forms also support data validation and conditional formatting, as does their InfoPath counterpart. It also supports advanced controls like Repeating section and Repeating table. However, some InfoPath controls cannot be used if it has to be hosted on a Forms server.

Groove Server 2007

Microsoft Office Groove Server 2007 is for centrally managing all deployments of Microsoft Office Groove 2007 in the enterprise. It enables using Active Directory for Groove user accounts, and create Groove Domains, with individual policy settings.

Project Server 2007

Microsoft Project Server 2007 allows one to centrally manage and coordinate projects. It allows budget and resource tracking, and activity plan management. The project data and reports can also be further analyzed using Cube Building Service. The project management data can be accessed from a browser as well.

Project Portfolio Server 2007

Microsoft Project Portfolio Server 2007 allows creation of a project portfolio, including workflows, hosted centrally, so that the information is available throughout the enterprise, even from a browser. It also aids in centralized data aggregation regarding the project planning and execution, and in visualizing and analyzing the data to optimize the project plan. It can also support multiple portfolios per project, to track different aspects of it. It also includes reporting tools to create consolidated reports out of the project data.

PerformancePoint Server 2007

Microsoft Performance Management allows users to monitor, analyze, and plan their business as well as drive alignment, accountability, and actionable insight across the entire organization. It includes features for scorecards, dashboards, reporting, analytics, budgeting and forecasting, among others.

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 "Microsoft Launchs Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 to Consumers Worldwide". News Center. Microsoft. January 29, 2007. Archived from the original on September 24, 2017. 
  2. 2.0 2.1 Keizer, Gregg (October 26, 2011). "Microsoft ships final Office 2007 service pack". Computerworld. IDG. Archived from the original on September 15, 2017. 
  3. Montalbano, Elizabeth (February 15, 2006). "It's Official: Office '12' to Become Office 2007". PC World. IDG. Archived from the original on September 24, 2015. 
  4. Harris, Jensen (November 6, 2006). "Office 2007 Released to Manufacturing". MSDN. Microsoft. Archived from the original on November 10, 2016. 
  5. Montalbano, Elizabeth (November 30, 2006). "Microsoft Windows Vista, Office 2007 Released to Businesses". CIO Magazine. IDG. Archived from the original on November 10, 2016. 
  6. "The Microsoft Office Fluent user interface overview". Microsoft. Archived from the original on March 5, 2010. 
  7. Rice, Frank (May 2006). "Introducing the Office (2007) Open XML File Formats". MSDN. Microsoft. Archived from the original on November 10, 2016. 
  8. "Description of the 2007 Office suite SP3 and of Office Language Pack 2007 SP3". Microsoft Support. Microsoft. Archived from the original on March 10, 2015. 
  9. "Description of the 2007 Microsoft Office suite Service Pack 1". Microsoft Support. Microsoft. Archived from the original on January 7, 2017. 
  10. "Office 2007 Service Pack 1 - Changes" (XLS format). Microsoft. 2007.
  11. "Office Service Pack 2 A Significant Stability, Performance and Interoperability Upgrade". Microsoft News Center. Microsoft. April 28, 2009. 
  12. "Microsoft Expands List of Formats Supported in Microsoft Office". Microsoft News Center. Microsoft. May 21, 2008. Archived from the original on August 5, 2016. 
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