Barnard College Academic Technologies

Upgrading to Office 2007

In summer/fall 2009, we are upgrading faculty and staff computers from Office 2003 to Office 2007. Office applications include Word, Excel and PowerPoint, as well as Outlook and Access.

Academic Technologies is upgrading several pilot departments in June. Other departments will be contacted in July and August to schedule upgrading and training.

Frequently-Asked Questions (FAQ)

See basic info about the Office 2007 upgrade in this Frequently-Asked Questions document.

Orientations by Educational Technology

The basic functionality of the Office programs remains much the same but the user interface - how the program looks and the organization of commonly used commands - has changed. Therefore, Educational Technology is offering orientations and hands-on practice sessions for Office 2007. The sessions will highlight the changes between Office 2003 and Office 2007 and are intended for users who currently work with any of the Office 2003 programs.

Orientation to Office 2007 (One hr)
An demo/presentation of the most important things to know about the upgrade from Office 2003 to Office 2007.

Hands-on Practice Session (One hr)
Prior attendance at Orientation to Office 2007 recommended but not required. Includes basic hands-on exercises and an orientation to the online “Up to Speed with Office 2007…” training modules; also a chance to ask individual questions about Office 2007.

Note: Orientation to Office 2007 sessions will resume in middle or late September. Check back here later for schedule information or contact Help Desk.

Microsoft training resources

There are many more Microsoft videos and tutorials on a range of Office 2007 topics; see complete listing.

Here is what we recommend for getting started with the Office 2007 upgrade.

Orientation videos (10 min)

Each of these videos from Microsoft covers mostly the same material (the new interface) though seeing demos in the context of more than one program may be helpful. Download and install Microsoft's Silverlight plug-in if you are prompted to do so

Interactive tutorials (30-40 min)

These are good basic tutorials from Microsoft. The show-and-tell demo sections don't require Office 2007 and work with any browser. The sections that involve hands-on practice require Office 2007 on your desktop and Internet Explorer (not Firefox)

Tutorial: Up to Speed with Word 2007
Tutorial: Up to Speed with Excel 2007
Tutorial: Up to Speed with PowerPoint 2007
Tutorial: Up to Speed with Outlook 2007

More training resources

Lynda.com

Columbia University has a University-wide subscription to Lynda.com, which provides video tutorials covering hundreds of software applications, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Photoshop, Acrobat, and more. This is a relatively painless way to learn new programs or new features in the programs you already use. To use Lynda.com, login with your UNI if you are off-campus or simply continue to the site if you are on campus.

Element K

Barnard College subscribes to Element K, an award-winning IT service that provides online tutorials on computer applications. Interactive tutorials are available for Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Windows XP, HTML, CSS, Acrobat, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and more. For access, just send your request to the Help Desk at help[at]barnard.edu or x47172. Note: If you have an Element K account already, click here to login.

Related downloads

Microsoft Office 2003 Compatibility Pack
By installing the Compatibility Pack, Office 2003 users can open, edit, and save Word 2007, Excel 2007, and PowerPoint 2007 files.

Microsoft Office 2007: Save as PDF or XPS
This free downloadable add-in allows you to export and save to the PDF format in Microsoft Office 2007 programs. Note that the standard upgrade at Barnard already includes this add-in.