For many people, Office 2007 is a radical departure from the interface they have grown to love. Office 2007 has the “ribbon” for navigation. People upgrading to Office 2007 from any other Microsoft Office will find it the biggest change ever in Microsoft Office. I tell my clients it is similar to what they faced when they changed from WordPerfect in the 90s to Microsoft Office – a bit uncomfortable with a learning curve, but eventually a very good choice.

My two favorite things about Office 2007: 1 – Real-time formatting - as you start to make changes, the formatting will be shown in the background. This makes it very easy to get the right look on your documents. 2 – The use of large styling buttons on the ribbon makes it easier to get formatting to work well and provide a professional look.

Quick Fix: If you plan to communicate with anyone else on the planet that does NOT have Office 2007, you will want to use compatibility mode. Otherwise they will get your document with a DOCX extension that they can’t open. To configure compatibility mode, do the following: Click the Office Button in Word 2007 (circle in top left corner), click Word Options, and click “Save” on the left. Where the screen says “Save files in this format:”, click the dropdown arrow and then select “Word 97-2003 Document (*.doc)” and then click OK. You use a similar approach in Excel and PowerPoint.