Legal Technology Journal

Some may have misgivings, but the forthcoming edition of Microsoft’s ubiquitous Office suite, and particularly its word processor, represents a giant leap forwards.

‘Here we go again,’ you may well be thinking – another Microsoft-sponsored roller-coaster ride in the shape of a major Office upgrade due for volume-licensing corporates at the end of the year, and individuals from January 2007.

Since some genius in Seattle started numbering the releases of major products by years instead of version numbers, it is even more obvious to your staff and clients when you work on old versions of software: ‘So you’re still on Office 2003? How quaint.’

The disincentive to rushing headlong into an early adoption is not chiefly the software licence cost, significant though that it. Rather it is the pain of reintegration; revising standards, forms, styles and templates; retraining; and – most of all – waiting for the various ‘gotchas’ that you just know will be lurking around the corner.

But we have to move ahead, and Microsoft has to sell more and more software licences just to stand still. The Office suite is an industry all to itself – it has over 400 million users worldwide, and earns Microsoft $250m a week.

Legacy file format problems over

Anyone old enough to remember the release of Word 97 may be reminded of the chaos caused by the introduction of a new Word file format (fair enough) without the ability to backsave a file to a version truly compatible with earlier releases of the program. Due to attempts to reduce development effort and meet release dates, saving a file from Word 97 in Word 6/7 format actually converted it to an RTF file. This was, at best, a ‘compatible’ compromise – the problem was, stuff got lost in that conversion. Clients and law firms were driven insane by the resulting shambles, until Microsoft released a fix for the problem. The memory of this pain remains, leaving many IT directors wary about early adoption of any new version of Word.

The company has learnt from its mistakes, though. ‘We wanted to make sure we didn’t repeat the errors we made with Office 97,’ Jean Paoli, senior director of XML architecture for Microsoft, explains. ‘A big part of our thinking was to make sure everything would be backwards-compatible.’ So, while Word 2007 uses the new Microsoft Office Open XML as its default format, it retains true compatibility with earlier versions. (Interestingly, there is already an international standard open XML document format – the so-called Open Document Format (or OpenOffice.org XML) from the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS). It seems that Microsoft did not like this Sun-sponsored ISO Open Document Format and – quoting backwards compatibility for legacy users – decided to build a new one. Microsoft Office Open XML is not an internationally agreed ISO Open Document Standard yet, although it has been submitted for adoption as such. Of course, this raises the issue of whether the world needs more than one open XML standard. There may be trouble ahead.)

Word 2007 also supports (for output only) PDF and XPS format, which is much like an open-source PDF system. However, due to disagreements with Adobe, the ‘Save as PDF’ feature will only be available as a free download from Microsoft’s website, not included in the box.

And there is also good news in that, due to the incorporation of ZIP technology within the Open XML format, document file sizes will be roughly half those of existing Word documents.

The new-look Word

So what does it look like? Well, of all the revised Office 2007 applications, Word is the most strikingly different to its predecessors (at least until you double-click on an e-mail in Outlook – see p14-15). While this might seem rather befuddling to those who have been using Word for many years now, it should really be regarded as great news, as the changes offer significant user benefits.

The most obvious change is that Microsoft has removed the familiar menus from the top of the screen. A large circular icon has been added in the top-left corner; sometimes part of the title bar is used as a menu (the ‘ribbon’ UI); and the default font has been changed again. Some people are going to be very confused when seeing all this for the first time, and will probably be tempted to switch back to the old UI. This, though, would be a shame as to do so would mean missing many of the benefits of the new system. (Of course, it is highly likely that the rest of the world’s software interfaces will follow where Microsoft has led, so it could be only a matter of time before this drastic new layout becomes a standard.)

The advantage arising from this drastic change is that almost all the menu options and even sub-options are now more clearly and graphically demonstrated, so it is easier to see the effect selecting a particular feature or formatting function will have. As a logical extension of this, tiny windows that Microsoft feels might be useful or relevant (given your context) appear as ghostly images either to be ignored or, if you move your mouse pointer towards them, become active and visible, which has the potential either to be tremendously useful or intensely annoying.

New compositional features

Aside from a drastic overhaul of the UI, Microsoft has introduced some extremely useful new features to Word.

Building Blocks

On the basis that Word users in the legal community have expressed a desire to reuse content within their documents, such as disclaimer text, header information or other commonly used content shared in most of the documents organisations create, Word 2007 introduces a way to create and store ‘Building Blocks’ of this information that can easily be applied to new documents.

On the references tab, all reference tables (contents, authorities, figures, indexes) are galleries of pre-built content. On the Page Layout tab you will find a watermark gallery while the Headers and Footers tab repeats the header, footer, page number, and quick parts.

The contents of all Building Block galleries are stored in templates, so it is easy to extend the built-in sets with custom content. As with many of the features in Office they all use a visual style to preview and insert content. However, despite their similarities, they should also be viewed as individual features. For example, cover pages will be inserted at the beginning of the document as expected, headers go in the document header area and repeat across all pages, and text boxes are inserted in the page the cursor is in.

With all this in mind, Building Blocks Organizer looks to be a strong contender for becoming the favoured way of simplifying document creation and managing corporate consistency at the same time, especially as content controls help you prevent users from editing, deleting or restyling specific content within a document.

Copying and pasting

For less commonly used material that needs to be recycled from old or ‘borrowed’ documents, though, the usual way is to copy and paste the relevant text. Unfortunately, these source documents very often have different styles, and the copy-and-paste method can lead to significant problems. You can get around this (if you know about it) by using Paste Special, but to help ease the frustration of style mismatches and other unexpected copy-and-paste behaviour, Word 2007 helpfully includes new functionality allowing software administrators to define how the copy and paste features will behave, ensuring greater predictability and easier formatting when reusing content.

The new options allow you to specify whether you want to keep the formatting of the original document, match the new location, or paste the text unformatted. This alone will save many hours of secretarial time rescuing (or even retyping) defective documents resulting from lawyers accidentally importing ‘alien’ styles and formatting.

Numbers, bullet points and lists

Another step forward for Word 2007 is the improvement of number recognition and the ways in which lists are managed, making the often frustrating experience of creating bulleted and numbered lists easier. New galleries have been introduced to offer authors improved control of numbered lists, bullets and outlined lists. These galleries offer a visual preview of the list before they apply it to the document. Usefully, a ‘live’ preview is also applied to the document text, to demonstrate the effect of adopting the new list format on the document itself before it is actually applied.

The outcome of this is that, using the list galleries, you can create your own bullet, number and outline list styles, and apply them to documents with a single click.

In prior versions of Word, when formatting bulleted and numbered lists, many times selecting one of the entries would not only change the bullet or number but also the overall formatting of the paragraph. According to Microsoft, many users expressed a desire to separate the numbered, bulleted and outline list formatting from the text formatting attributes. Previous releases of Word offered no way to create a library of the number formats or bullet styles preferred by an individual user.

Microsoft concedes that ‘restarting and continuing lists can be confusing and difficult to manage’, so a new Outline Numbering gallery has been added in Word 2007 to provide more direct access to control over multi-level lists.

There have also been several minor changes made to improve the experience of working with lists within documents. For example, in a numbered or bulleted list, pressing backspace first removes the number without changing the position of the text; pressing it a second time moves the text to align under the number or bullet; and a third press returns the text position to the left margin – very handy.

Document collaboration on Word 2007

There is a wide range of enhancements here, which may have the effect of reducing the need for firms to run additional collaboration systems such as Workshare Professional.

Document Compare

Lawyers will almost certainly be familiar with the following situation: you have two different versions of a document and want to know what changed, but aren’t interested in who made the changes. This, of course, requires use of the Document Compare function. Word 2007 includes significant improvements to the user experience in this area.

In earlier versions of Word, the process for starting a Document Compare required having one of the documents open and browsing to the other using the File Open dialog, and then selecting an option from the split drop-down menu. Often, users who worked with a document management system (DMS) would not have the compare options available. Also, it could get confusing: after a while of flicking between the documents, it was easy to forget which would be considered the ‘original’ and which the ‘revised’. Word 2007 solves this by allowing you to start the process without any documents open, browse for documents, and then specify which is the original and which is revised. This straightforward interface is also used for document combination functionality (see below). Word 2007 also offers the handy option to change the name that will be attributed to the revisions. This could be useful when, for example, the comparison is being run by a secretary but you want the revisions to be attributed to the lawyer, or if you want the changes to be attributed to the law firm itself.

Another useful and time-saving feature is that, when comparing documents, you can now choose to ignore certain elements:

• comments;
• formatting;
• case changes (eg ‘the’ versus ‘The’);
• white space;
• tables;
• headers and footers, footnotes and endnotes;
• text boxes; and
• fields.

Move tracking

A further improvement is for those constantly annoyed by deletions and insertions being shown while tracking changes or comparing documents, when all that had happened was that a few sentences had been moved: Word 2007 now includes ‘move’ tracking, which is turned on by default. When you cut text from one location and paste it in another, it will be identified as ‘moved’ (with the text appearing green, though this can be changed) rather than as ‘deleted’ and ‘inserted’. Move tracking will track sentences and paragraphs (including list items and headings); unfortunately, cutting and pasting anything smaller than a sentence will still be tracked as a deletion and insertion. However, this is certainly a step in the right direction.

Table comparison

In what must be considered a great leap forward, Word 2007 finally adds the ability to compare tables to identify differences. Inserted, deleted, split and merged cells, rows and columns are now tracked, as well as inserted, deleted, and moved text within a table.

Conquering Workshare?

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services’ versioning capability can also be used in tandem with the document comparison feature of Word 2007. Word will display additional options where documents are opened while linked to a server that contains other versions. Those options allow you to directly compare the current document with the previous version, the last major version, or another version of your choice. When one of the server comparison options is selected, Word will automatically open the documents for you and then the comparison is done using the same new UI. This functionality is not just threatening Workshare, but bringing Word ever closer to the functionality of a mainstream DMS.

The strongest assault on Workshare, however, is the new Combine feature – if you want to combine the changes from the reviewers into a single document, then you can use this. Word 2007 now allows you to combine two documents (although only two) at a time. This allows you to merge changes into their documents in a manageable fashion, helping you reconcile inconsistent comment and conflicting amendments.

At this point it is worth noting the visual similarities with Workshare. When you compare or combine files, you will see a tri-pane view (Fig 1) that shows the resulting document along with the source documents. The reviewing pane can also be used to show comments in a simple summary view. All views scroll synchronously, allowing you to see your changes in context. You can then accept or reject changes in the resulting document – sound familiar? It will to Workshare users.

(Figure 1 - The new tri-pane review panel of Word 2007.)

Like the document comparison feature, combining revisions from two versions of a document takes advantage of the new tri-pane review panel (Fig 2). This enables you to see both the original and revised document, along with a new, composite document that represents a combined version of the two.

(Figure 2 - When combining documents, you can view a single document and merge the changes from two reviewers – rather like Workshare, perhaps?)

You can, though, operate the Document Compare and Combine features without having three versions of a document open; the preference is entirely up to you. A new, composite document does not have to be created to represent the merged documents. The original or the revised document can be used as a home for the combined feedback from multiple reviewers.

‘Finishing’ documents

Finishing documents presents its own set of problems, and Word 2007 contains some very useful features that help to solve them. The new Document Inspector is particularly worthy of attention – it will run through a document and identify all potentially unsightly, or embarrassing, metadata, and then remove it for you.

A new Mark as Final feature has been added to Word 2007. By marking a document as final, you can prevent inadvertent changes to the content when it is read by a different user. Mark as Final also removes editing artefacts from a document, such as grammar or spell checking – this is useful, and also reversible. If you need to return to the document for editing, you can disable the feature to restart grammar checking, spell checking and other editing operations.

As part of the finalisation process, individuals and corporations can also add digital signatures to the document, to ensure its authenticity and/or as part of an authorisation process.

Word integration issues

These enhancements are welcome, and all very well, but law firms do not use Word in isolation; they will present to their lucky users a ‘rich document production environment’ which may include an Interwoven DMS, Workshare collaboration and comparison software, various styles, formats and templates, and add-in tools like DocXTools and D3.

Most of these external vendors are already touting and even demonstrating Office 2007 integration, albeit for future releases of their software – which will, in turn, also have to be purchased and implemented. The really interesting ‘gotchas’ are likely to occur when a triple integration is involved – such as receiving an e-mailed Word 2007 document into a DMS with Workshare professional collaboration information.

Outlook 2007

In contrast with Word, Outlook 2007 does not look like a radical departure from previous versions, except when editing (Fig 3), but there are some significant changes nevertheless.

(Figure 3 - Outlook 2007 – the new e-mail editing panel.)

The worst feature of Outlook 2003/XP is the so-called search facility – it generally takes a long time not to find anything useful, and was the main reason I installed Google Desktop, which goes some way towards filling the gaps. Thankfully Outlook 2007 has a much improved search facility, in which you can use keywords, dates or other criteria to locate items in your e-mail, calendar, contacts or tasks.

With Outlook 2007 users can check priorities for the day by looking at the permanent To Do bar on the right, where flagged mails and tasks are set out. The To Do bar also neatly connects tasks you may have stored in other Office 2007 programs like Project, OneNote, and SharePoint Services.

A further enhancement is the ability to read and manage RSS feeds and blogs from within Outlook 2007. This means you no longer have to leave the application to read the latest news or stay up to date with interesting blogs.

Finally, there is the rather useful Attachment Preview, which allows you to preview your Outlook 2007 attachments directly in the reading pane before you select them, thus avoiding the problem of sending the wrong documents out by mistake.

Other Office applications

Naturally, there will be new versions of the other mainstream Office packages, such as Excel and PowerPoint, but it is beyond the scope of this article to go into them in depth. There are also new versions of OneNote, Visio, Access and Project in the offing, as well as three new applications:

• Communicator 2007 – a unified messaging interface;
• Groove 2007 – team-based collaboration, as with Project it also has a Server version for added functionality; and
• InfoPath 2007 – forms workflow.

Migration and implementation

Microsoft says that the implementation will be simplified by its new Setup architecture, as well as the Office File Conversion Toolkit and the Office Migration Planning Manager.

The Setup architecture in Office 2007 is aimed at reducing the complexity of customising and installing Office products, providing the following features:

• Setup can now be patched and updated;
• Setup checks an ‘updates’ folder in the source files so that you can apply any updates created or downloaded as part of the setup process (ie customisations);
• it enables you to control the Setup experience through the Office Customisation Tool for enterprise deployments; and
• it provides you with improved logging and issues resolution capabilities.

The Office File Conversion Toolkit and Office Migration Planning Manager enable you to carry out a more controlled migration of Office documents, and provide you with the ability to scan files in your network to identify potential upgrade issues early.

The Office Customisation Tool enables IT departments to create customisations for both new and existing Office 2007 application installations. Its benefits include:

• a single, more powerful tool replacing the nine separate wizards and tools necessary in previous versions;
• you control the Setup process including the user experience, default installation locations, prompts and EULA acceptance; and
• you can customise default settings in Office applications, security settings and the user experience.

Microsoft Office Diagnostics provides built-in tools that monitor performance and stability – intervening when issues arise that require remediation:

• monitoring and issue resolution, with easy-to-understand information and instructions for the end-user;
• by leveraging Office Diagnostics and the Local Installation Source, you can detect and repair corrupt files and resources; and
• it helps users and IT support identify more specific, likely causes of instability by ruling out Office-specific and hardware issues via scanning.

Improved tools and solutions for the Office 2007 suite provide IT professionals with the flexibility to choose the right level of guidance for each stage of the migration process:

• Business Desktop Deployment Solution Accelerator provides best practices, tools, and guidance for rolling out and managing the deployment of Windows and Office;
• Desktop Deployment Planning Service provides free planning consulting from a certified partner to customers with Software Assurance; and
• the Office Resource Kit provides task-oriented guidance and tools for deploying and managing Office desktop applications.

The Multilingual User Interface is a new architecture offering complete separation of language from functionality in the 2007 Office suite. English is no longer required, nor is there a preferred base language – all languages are treated equally.

In terms of security – an issue that Microsoft is taking more and more seriously as time goes on – the bad news is that there is an ‘entirely new’ security model for Office 2007. This is tempered by the good news that there is a new Microsoft Office Trust Center to make administration of this as easy as possible.

There is also an Office File Conversion Tool – a desktop admin utility that will let the IT department convert older Office documents (all the way back to Office 97) to the new format. By using output from the Migration Planning Manager, the File Conversion Tool can be employed to automate document conversion through an Open and Save As process.

All in all, this range of new tools should make the forthcoming Office upgrade noticeably easier than the last one.

Try before you buy

Microsoft has certainly tried to minimise surprises and bugs, and the Office 2007 beta is one of the most subscribed beta programs ever created – most IT professionals have been using it for months.

Office 2007 is now in its second beta – and is thus relatively stable – and is available by download now from www.microsoft.com/office/preview/beta/overview.mspx.

If you don’t fancy that level of commitment, then go for the Office 2007 ‘Test Drive’ experience instead – www.microsoft.com/office/preview/beta/testdrive.mspx – and you can run and play with any of the programs in the Office suite remotely via the web.

Conclusion

Do we have to upgrade? The answer is yes. Because there is simply no avoiding the stream-roller global marketing IT behemoth that is Microsoft. And because eventually your integrated applications will stop working. You will also miss out on significant user benefits.

But another compelling reason is that it is a fundamental component in a developing, all-encompassing Microsoft ‘world’ (SharePoint, Windows Server, Exchange Server etc), all of which simply need to be upgraded from time to time in order to preserve the integration between them. In particular, current and future versions of SharePoint are going to offer more and more attractive collaboration functionality that both users and clients are going to value for document and knowledge management and sharing.

Outlook 2007’s ability to link e-mails easily with Contacts is going to prove a boost for Business Contact Manager and with Dynamics CRM, certainly in non-law firms, but maybe smaller law firms too.

Neil Cameron is a legal IT management consultant and managing director of the Neil Cameron Consulting Group.