If you’re interested in Office 2007 Beta 2, I’ve posted a screen shot gallery here: Office 2007 up close and personal. Accompanying analysis here: 10 tough questions about Office 2007.
The more I dig into the software, the more little things I find. I’m finding the 80–20 rule to be highly applicable. About 80% of the everyday tasks I do in Office are easier, thanks to the rejiggered interface. The other 20% take a little searching. It took quite a while for me to find the AutoText entries in Word, for instance. They’re now incorporated into something called the Building Blocks Organizer. It took me a few minutes to find out how to add an AutoText button to the Quick Access toolbar.
One interesting note is that the keyboard shortcuts for Office 2003 menu choices generally work exactly the same in Office 2007, even though the latter has replaced all menus and toolbars with the new Ribbon. Here’s what you see in Word, for instance, if you tap Alt, I, A (the keyboard version of Insert, AutoText):
Even more bizarre is that if you finish the menu sequence by typing X ( for AutoText), Word displays the contents of the AutoText tab of the AutoCorrect dialog box. Except there’s no AutoText tab on the AutoCorrect dialog box in Word 2007! So if you click another tab, there’s no way to get back to where you were.
Ah, the joys of beta-testing.
Ed Bott 
I also think Word-07 will be welcomed by academic writers. Figures, graphs, tables, and spreadsheets are simpler, easier to compose, and edit.
You nailed it when you said, “Task-oriented workers will need a new set of instruction sheets.” Among other things, though, I hate all the real estate the ribbon consumes. That’s three full rows of toolbar icons in 2003, and the menu bar and the title bar. It would be nice to push all that to the left panel of the screen, allowing me to see my whole document. All that extra eye candy knocks out 15-20% of the page’s visibility.
In the end, office workers who never read a manual will eventually be saved by this new graphical “ribbon” model. But as you noted, us power users are already annoyed at its lack of customizability. I will probably hold off upgrading until I can find and do everything I’ve been doing. In other words, until I can compose and edit a dissertation in Word-07, I’m very comfortably sticking with 2003 for an extended time.
Wrong name…it’s 2007 Office. 🙂
I did find it a bit strange that the Autotext would not be included in 2007. Microsoft Office 2007 Help actually says “The AutoText feature, which was part of Microsoft Office 2003, is not included in the 2007 Microsoft Office system programs.”
However, following the instructions above (Alt-I-A-X), cjas caused Word to crash on me each time I’ve tried it.
I hope the release version will see the feature fully integrated.
Eric
Bamenda, Cameroon
I have created some step-by-step instructions on how to “Jury Rig” your AutoText in Office 2007. It’s a little easier to follow then the link. Check it:
http://www.juryriggin.com/2007/02/22/updated-office-2007-autotext-missing-problem-its-all-about-the-f-keys/