I find that when I’m staring at a blank canvas or a nice and blank “new document” I don’t have a good idea of what direction I could be heading with my thoughts or needs. If you start with a template and see what other people have done with the tool you’re using, it can help get your own gears of creativity spinning and give you an idea of what’s possible with the application you’re getting started using.

If you’re trying to learn what one of the Microsoft Office applications are capable of, starting with a template is a great way to see the power and features of the app.

You can look through templates based on themes, industry or in our case of learning a new program, by “Program Category”. The Microsoft Office Online website has templates available in the following apps:

• Microsoft Office Access
• Microsoft Office Excel
• Microsoft Office InfoPath
• Microsoft Office OneNote
• Microsoft Office Outlook
• Microsoft Office PowerPoint
• Microsoft Office Project
• Microsoft Office Publisher
• Microsoft Office Visio
• Microsoft Office Word

So, whatever the business app you’re more than likely trying to learn, Microsoft probably has a template to help get you started.

Post from: EveryJoe

Use Templates to Help You Learn a New Office Program

1. Course 4697: Introduction to the New Microsoft Office User Interface
2. Course 4622: What’s New in Microsoft Office Access 2007
3. Course 4623: What’s New in Microsoft Office Excel 2007
4. Course 4624: What’s New in Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007
5. Course 4625: What’s New in Microsoft Office OneNote 2007
6. Course 4626: What’s New in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007
7. Course 4627: What’s New in Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007
8. Course 4628: What’s New in Microsoft Office Word 2007
9. Course 4629: What’s New in Microsoft Office Visio 2007
10. Course 4698: What’s New in Microsoft Office Groove 2007

Post from: EveryJoe

Office 2007 Training Resources

All that aside though, if you’re interested in learning more about the functionality of Office, but don’t have time to sit and read, this may just be the thing for you.

There are lots of topics now available, check the list out at the The IW Center, A community portal for information workers….

Jensen Harris is to be thanked for this heads up as well.

I’m downloading and listening to one on Windows Mobile 5.0 right now, I’ll let you know what I think of it and some others specifically related to Office 2007 soon.

Post from: EveryJoe

Office 2007 Prodcasts

One of the interesting trivia facts he shares in his article is that the initial Microsoft Word had about 100 commands that were accessible through the menu based navigation system. Microsoft Word 2003 on the other hand, has more than 1500! You can quickly understand how some changes in structure and navigation on using those commands effectively would be important.

Over the years, Microsoft has tried to address these problems by adding new user interface elements that expose functionality in more discoverable ways. Task panes, Smart Tags, and smart menus are all examples of these efforts. But these efforts really just maxed the complexity problems in Microsoft Office and were, in Microsoft’s own words, a way to just “paint the pig” and not actually fix the core problem. Clearly, a daring new user interface was required. And about two years ago, Microsoft began working on what would become the new Office 12 user interface.

Paul Thurrott spoke with Jensen Harris and Jacob Jaffe who are intimately involve with the development of Office 12. Through his conversations, he found out that Microsoft was looking to address four core customer needs:

1. workforce evolution
2. one world of business
3. always on, always connected
4. transparent organizations

Specifically of interest in the workforce evolution was the following quote from Jacob stated:

And the younger generation–those people who are in college today–are using blogging, social networking, and other technologies today in ways that haven’t previously been used in the workforce. As these people enter the workforce, there is an expectation that they will continue to use technology in those new ways. So Office 12 must help both of these groups of people get better results faster.

Obviously it’s a no brainer that blogging and social networking, tagging, and such would be important to the workforce of today and tomorrow. But the question does become, how do you integrate that efficiently so it’s useful and meaningful in an business productivity application environment?

Paul’s thorough review is only Part 1 of what is to come. In the article he goes on to discuss details of Word, Outlook, OneNote and InfoPath, PowerPoint, and Excel.

Read the full article: Inside Office 12, Part 1 by Paul Thurrott

Post from: EveryJoe

An Outside Look Inside Office 12