Office 2007 Bible

The “Results-Oriented” User Interface

If you’re like most users, when you begin a letter or a report, the first thing you do is check whether you’ve ever written a letter or report like the one you are about to write. If you have written something similar, then you very likely will open it and use it as a starting point.

When my daughter needs a written excuse for school, rather than write a brand-new letter each time, I search my stock of documents for whatever I have that is closest to the current need.

If you don’t have a document to use as a starting point, then you check whether there’s an existing template in the Office application’s repertoire. Failing there, you might search online. Indeed, it’s not uncommon to come across questions in online communities or newsgroups asking if anyone has a particular type of template, e.g., “Does anyone have a template for a resignation letter?” I just love replying to that kind of request: Dear Meat for Brains Boss . . . but, I digress.

Knowing that most people don’t prefer to begin documents with a clean slate, so to speak, Microsoft has redesigned Office to give users what they want. The goal is to offer users a collection of results they are probably seeking, to save time and guesswork.

They have done this in a variety of ways. One of the most prominent ways is the expanded use of galleries of already formatted options. Coupled with this is something called Live Preview, which instantly shows the user the effect of a given option in ...