MS Office: The Next Generation?

How is the next generation of Microsoft Office coming along? Maybe you could do some interviews with the Office dev team? That would be interesting!

I wonder what new features will there be?

Clippy 2: Now more annoying

Oh, yeah!
In the next version, I want an advanced notepad (Emacs-like text editor), a PDF writer, a fast XML database, a paintshop-like image editor and an evolved image office!

I guess I am one of the few ones who likes clippy; is it because I am old enough to remember Bob?

iStation wrote:

Oh, yeah!
In the next version, I want an advanced notepad (Emacs-like text editor), a PDF writer, a fast XML database, a paintshop-like image editor and an evolved image office!

I doubt your get a PDF writer because adobe owns all that and if they sell it to MS they will go out of business in a day. A better image editor would be nice.

I asked about a bob release with longhorn, nobody at MS replied

http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=6160

But there are already third party plugins that can convert doc to pdf for free... and some other Office suites (like Easy Office) have that function built in.  I don't think Adobe will go out of business...

Manip wrote:

Clippy 2: Now more annoying

Speaking of clippy, when Office XP came out, MS made a big promotional campaign about why clippy was not needed anymore.  Imagine my surprise when I found it in XP!! 

MS gets it: clippy is annoying, but why do a campaign mocking it then include it in the new product?  Beats me...

 

I have a "WYSIWYG" problem in Adobe's PDF writer/distiller for Visio2003's fonts! ;(

So, I hope MS will add a PDF writer in new Office versions and support the quality of PDF outputs.

oh jamie, you make me laugh... 

For what it's worth, PDFCreator seems to be working like a charm.
http://sector7g.wurzel6.de/pdfcreator/index_en.htm

So, is this something you could consider for a future video C9 dudes?

Btw; I like Clippy too.

PDFCreator is a good product - but PDF generation from Office applications without third party software would be good (as the competitors already do this). It only needs to be basic generation - Acrobat would then still be an option for more advanced tasks.

but surely MS want their own formats to be the dominant player, not PDF

Jaz wrote:

but surely MS want their own formats to be the dominant player, not PDF

Right, so it's very unlikely for Microsoft to include pdf generation in Office. 

I’m expecting the next gen of Office will in managed code, with fewer lines of code.

XML will be  everywhere….  

I bet the newer one will be slower than the current ones both in loading times AND operation completion times.

I also think it will add lots of useless features because they still don't understand what it is they are making. Office is an information presentation and organization package but MS don't seem to get that so they just keep on pilling on new useless features instead of investing into RD of new ways to present different types of information. I mean OneNote, what the hell is that?! They had to buy Visio because their RD couldn’t come up with that either…