If the price is not the criteria of comparision than it is true that Microsoft Office is true winner. I have used open office and it is good product but still in comparision it is not as good as MS office. This new version screenshot looking great.

Very simple design and less clutter than 03-04 from what I can tell by those Screens.

Massachusetts last month signed legislation that required all Government to drop the use of Microsoft Office for Openoffice instead. I havent used Openoffice myself so I do not know if it was a wise decision. On the one hand the cost of relearning new software for thousands of Gov employees might cost a pretty penny. But on the other hand the software is cheaper and they do not have to be stuck on proprietary formats (ie you have to use Office to open .doc files. Some other free programs can do this but not as well).

I hear that Office 12 will enable users to convert documents into pdf files, which is a so called open format. Maybe they added this feature to combat againt other government institutions from joining the open software bandwagon.

Finally another reason to remove Office 11 from my computer (oh how I wish to remove that buggy software... but I NEED it... lol!)

Right, can someone fill me in. Why call it Office 12? Is this the actual 12th version or is it a random number?

I currently have MSOffice 2003 Profession full edition, and I think it is great. The features it has allows me to create more dynamic pages quicker and easier than before. I would never recommend MSOffice XP, if you're going for an earlier verion, then use MSOffice 2000.

I have tried all (I think) office suites, and, although I like using some of them, I have to say that M/S Office is way ahead in features.

The main thing about it is that it has just so much, in fact, most people have no idea what a powerful suite it is, especially Word.


In fact, M/S Office is, in my opinion, the best thing they have done.

Yeah, I know where you;re coming from... I use office 2003 myself and I really pile onto all the custom animation of the slides.. then I head out to office and wham, it's all gone to the dogs..!! I mean even all the office laptops have 2000 on them so presenting to clients is a bit tricky if I've worked on something at home and then transferred it to one of the office laptops because I never know when something's not going to go the way I want it to.. really a bit much...!!

The new office layout seems very basic and quite plain.. but maybe that helps out in attracting users, and especially useful at not scaring away new users.

ActiveWin.com just some brand new microsoft Office 12 screenshots of the latest build available.
you can now see Word referred to as "Word 2006" in some pics
Excel 12 is looking just like Excel for Mac

http://activewin.com/articles/2005/21.shtml

A dozen or so pics here if you are interested.

Be interesting to see how close to what we have seen the final version looks like, so often they are quite different.

How much does this cost, i may buy one even though at the moment even microsoft office 2003 costs somewhere in the reigon of like £100 pounds which is a complete rip of? anyone else agree?