My Word For Dummies book update is one of those updates that computer book authors love: minor.
Just like Office 2007, the new version of Microsoft Office uses the Ribbon interface. Gone are the menus and toolbars that festooned earlier versions of Office.
Bottom line: If you’re updating from an earlier version of Office, you’re going to hate things. But only for a while: I actually like the new Office interface and enjoy using it.
As expected, of course, they changed a few things between Word 2007 and 2010, so it’s not an unnoticeable update.
As with Word 2007, and the latest Word on the Macintosh, Word 2010 uses the DOCX file format. It can still open, edit, and save older DOC files in “Compatibility Mode.” Eventually the world should switch over to DOCX. I’m seeing that filetype more and more.
Biggest change: That dumb Office button is gone, gone, gone. I hated it. It made no sense. They replaced it at the most recent Word 2010 beta with the File tab, which better fits into the interface.
Print Preview is gone. What you have instead is the Print command on the File tab menu. Choosing that command displays a Print window (actually the Word window overlaid), and the print preview on the right side of the window. It’s a handy improvement, but I’ll bet that lots of folks go wandering around Word 2010 looking for the Print Preview command.
Many of the lesser-used command buttons are gone or have been replaced. I can’t think of any specific ones off the top of my head. It’s one of those “Where the heck” moments, and you’ll have a lot of them should you upgrade to Word 2010. And, as expected, they changed the names of commands, such as Document Map, which is now the Navigation pane.
There is a snazzy new Find command, which instantly highlights all instances of the text you’re searching for. The Find command’s Ctrl+F summons the Navigation pane, which is handy, but not the Find dialog box. Getting to the Find dialog box is now awkward; you have to go to the Find & Replace dialog box, then backtrack to the Find dialog box. I wish there were a better way to do that.
They’ve changed mail merge again. It’s only a few minor name changes. The “address list” is now the “recipient list.” And the main document is no longer the “main document,” but has no name. Mail merge is still a nightmare on Word (and I beefed up that part of my book), but it’s better than in the older versions.
There is now a Macro button on the View tab, which is handy for creating quick-and-dirty macros.
You can customize the Ribbon in this version of Word. While you cannot change Word’s tabs and groups, you can add your own custom group to any of Word’s tabs, or create your own tab, and place your favorite commands into those groups. I expect a lot of Word 2007 users may upgrade for that feature alone.
All-in-all, I’m satisfied with the update. As I said in my last blog post, it’s more of a minor update, a 3.1 as opposed to a 4.0. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Word 2010, though if you have Word 2007 there’s no serious need to update.
Someday the bulk of humanity who are still using older versions of Word will need to catchup. When that happens, Word 2010 is a good choice.
