Why haven't the graphics options in Publisher 2007 been improved?

[welsh_girly]

The new design, drawing tools, word art features etc. in Word & PowerPoint
2007 are fantastic, much more professional looking and very easy to use and
manipulate. They use the new style title bar and everything is very
accessible - I've found features i've never used before!

Publisher 2007 still uses the same format as before - no smart art, drop
down menus, less options. When moving between two programmes it's like
stepping back in time - I find myself having to create the fonts, shapes and
textboxes i want in PowerPoint, saving them as a picture, and inserting them
into Publisher - why couldn't it just have been designed the same!
Considering it is a Publication package, I can produce much better documents
using PowerPoint and Word!

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[Ed Bennett]

why couldn't it just have been designed the same!

Primarily an issue of resources - Publisher has a fixed amount of
manpower devoted to it, so implementing a major change such as that
would have meant losing improvements elsewhere. It would have been
particularly difficult for Publisher to implement, since it would have
required upgrading the functionality to support CMYK (as was done in the
current drawing tools back in 2001 for Publisher 2002, 4 years after
they were first introduced in Office 97).

I have personally suggested very strongly to everyone I was able to find
in Microsoft that this should be a high priority for the next version.

 

[bjm]

Thank goodness they didn't "improve" Publisher!

I'm having enough trouble figuring out Word (to prepare articles) without
having to battle Pub as well. I've tried to get it to start up the way I
want but even the "instructions" I've seen here don't seem to work.
I am totally a non-pro home-type user. If I wanted "pro-level" s/w that's
what I'd get.

I hope MS doesn't forget us "little people"!
I see there are plenty of us here having troubles
so I know it's not just me.
bj

 

[SMD]

The new Word does look good, but you can't customize your tool bars -
something I value in Publisher because I can by-pass a number of steps to do
what I want. Just because you don't see tools doesn't mean they're not there
- once you find them you can put them out "in public" (on your toolbar) so
they are easy to find, you can't do that in Word. I've been doing some work
in Word because I'm helping a friend that only works in Word and the
navigation drives me nuts (scrolling for pages instead of clicking on them),
and making adjustments when I want it my way instead of MS's is a pain. And
I rarely use canned ideas. I'll take old-fashioned Publisher.

 

[bjm]

The new Word does look good, but you can't customize your tool bars - ....
I'm helping a friend that only works in Word and the navigation drives me
nuts (scrolling for pages instead of clicking on them),

I know what you mean!
Have you tried making a QuickAccess toolbar in Word?
It does help.

I'm not sure what you mean by scrolling-for-pages, though.

The "we know how you *should* do this...(because it's the best way no matter
what *you* think!)" reminds me of my typing teacher in 1957 -- she got on my
case a few times because I hit the space bar with the *wrong thumb*!
bj