PCMag’s Office 12 Extreme Makeover

This article on PC Magazine’s website gives a great overview of the major changs that will be available in the new Microsoft Office 12. Microsoft Office 12 Beta 1: Extreme Makeover

The article provides a great collection of the major features available in the new Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Outlook, and OneNote applications that are part of the Office suite of products. Also included is a slideshow with screenshots highlighting the user interface and described changes.

According to the article, Microsoft had four major goals in the development of Office 12:

1. Create a user interface that’s intuitive for beginners and experts, unlike the often incomprehensible tangle of earlier versions.
2. Improve collaboration for workers who need to share their documents with others or follow company-wide guidelines.
3. Tighten corporate control, including easily managed review workflows, easier tracking of document content from centralized management software, and more ways of removing embarrassing or confidential information from files before they’re made public.
4. Offer simpler and more extensive development tools and a more transparent XML document format that gives developers and managers greater control over what goes into their files.