Office 2007 Beta 2 has been out for awhile, and I must say, I’m impressed. I really like the new layout in instead of the old file, edit, view, etc menu. It took awhile to get used to, but I think I’ve found where everything is now. I’m also digging the new, and probably temporary, default font, Calibri. Granted, any one using Office 2003 and earlier can’t see the font. The built in RSS feeds in Outlook and the To-Do bar is a nice addition too. Oh, and don’t forget the preview on the fly for things like color, font, and style changes. Very slick.
However, there are a few things I don’t like. I really don’t like how Outlook doesn’t use the same layout as word, excel, etc. If they’re going to change it one place, they really need to change it everywhere. It’s not like Outlook’s toolbars are that much radically different than Word’s either. Also, while the RSS feeds in outlook are nice, there are some serious downsides. The biggest of which is the inability to edit anything about the feeds, particularly the refresh time after you’ve added it. Plus, by default, when you add a feed, the update limit is taken from the publisher’s recommendation. Most sites, however, don’t publish this data so the feed will never update. So, when you add a feed, be sure to click the advanced button and uncheck the ‘Update Limit’ checkbox unless the provider has actually set the limit.
Speaking of which, I should probably look into how to do that with my RSS feed.
I agree about the Outlook not matching the rest of the office suite. Even Outlook is a little conflicted because when you open a message, the ribbon is visible. But I suspect that may have to do with using Word as the editor.