SharePoint 2007 vs SharePoint 2010

Everything on this page is contained in Microsoft documentation, on the Microsoft website, on MSDN, on Technet, or in the Microsoft webcasts and presentations. As you can imagine it is placed in multiple pages, across multiple documents, and some of it is contained within specific Microsoft presentations. My goal with this page is to just have all of the comparison information in one place.

Note: I have used symbols here instead of images so it’s easier to copy and paste into a document or another location. So they may not look as nice, but you can use things like find and replace, as well as filter the values if you merge the tables.

Legend:

○= Feature Included

●= Improved In Office Sharepoint Server 2010

☻= New In Office Sharepoint Server 2010

Sites

Feature Name / Area	Sharepoint Server 2007	Sharepoint Server 2010
Office Integration	○	●
Line-Of-Business Integration	○	●
Read/Write Capabilities		☻
Enterprise Management Operations	○	●
Management Tools And Reporting	○	●
Web Analytics		☻
Mobile Connectivity	○	●
Full-Fidelity Viewing		☻
Editing To Mobile		☻
Office Interaction	○	●
Read/Write Capabilities	○	☻
Robust User Experience	○	☻
Contextual Ribbon		☻
Microsoft Silverlight		☻
Office Web Applications		☻
Tagging		☻
Audience Targeting		☻

Communities

Feature Name / Area	Sharepoint Server 2007	Sharepoint Server 2010
My Site: People Profile & Personal Site	○	●
Photos And Presence	○	●
Status Updates	○	●
Ask Me About		☻
Note Board		☻
Recent Activities		☻
Organization Browser		☻
Add Colleagues	○	●
Social Bookmarks		☻
Tags		☻
Tag Clouds		☻
Tag Profiles		☻
My Network		☻
Blogs	○	●
Wikis	○	●
Enterprise Wikis		☻
Ratings		☻
Colleague Suggestions	○	●
Keyword Suggestions		☻

Content

Feature Name / Area	Sharepoint Server 2007	Sharepoint Server 2010
Compliance Everywhere		☻
Flexible Records Management		☻
Shared Content Types And Managed Metadata Service		☻
Content Organizer		☻
Rich Media Management		☻
Document Sets		☻
Word Automation Services		☻
Support For Accessibility Standards		☻

Search

Feature Name / Area	Sharepoint Server 2007	Sharepoint Server 2010
People And Expertise Search	○	●
Search From Windows 7 And Windows Mobile	○	●
Common Connector Framework For Indexing And Federation	○	●
Scale And Performance Via Improved Topology Architecture	○	●
Ability To Build Search-Powered Applications	○	●
Refinement Panel And Sorting		☻
Search In Context		☻
Social Behavior Improves Relevance		☻
Thumbnails, Previews, And View In Browser		☻

Insights

Feature Name / Area	Sharepoint Server 2007	Sharepoint Server 2010
KPI Details		☻
Dashboard Designer	○	●
Enhanced Navigation, Including Filtering And Sorting (Top/Bottom 10, Switchable Measures)		☻
Publish More Workbooks		☻
Javascript Object Model		☻
Powershell Scripting		☻
Richer Fidelity With Excel Workbooks		☻
Support For Analytical Services Formatting		☻
Additional Data Sources, Including External Lists And “PowerPivot” Workbooks		☻
Improved Strategy Map Connection And Formatting		☻
Seamless Management Of Dashboard Content	○	●
Integrated Filter Framework		☻
Calculated KPIs		☻
Improved Visualizations		☻
Chart Web Parts		☻
Business Intelligence Center	(Report Center)	☻

Composites

Feature Name / Area	Sharepoint Server 2007	Sharepoint Server 2010
Browser-Based Customizations	○	●
Business Connectivity Services		☻
Sharepoint Designer	○	●
Human Workflows	○	●
Forms Services	○	●
Visio Services		☻
Access Services		☻
Sandboxed Solutions		☻

Microsoft Office 2010 with Different Versions of SharePoint

Feature Name/Area	Description	SharePoint 2010	SharePoint 2007
Coauthor Documents and Presentations	Share ideas with other people simultaneously and see what areas of a document have changed.	With coauthoring, work together in Microsoft Office Word 2010 and Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2010, and see others’ changes tracked in documents hosted in SharePoint 2010.
Simultaneously Edit Spreadsheets and Notebooks	Work together on content using a Web browser	Work together in Microsoft Office Excel 2010 and Microsoft Office OneNote 2010 Web applications simultaneously and see others’ changes in real time.
Highlight Changes in Shared Notebooks	Enable multiple people to add to and change the same shared notebook. Author names appear in near real time as changes are made.	Shared OneNote 2010 notebooks provide a clear trail of what other authors have changed since the last user opened the notebook.
Broadcast Slide Shows in PowerPoint	Share a PowerPoint presentation over the Web for remote or networked viewers.	Audiences do not need to have PowerPoint 2010 installed; they can see the presentation in high fidelity in a Web browser.
Save Documents and Presentations Directly to SharePoint	Automatically discover SharePoint document libraries to make saving content easier and more intuitive.	People can save Office 2010 documents directly to the SharePoint 2010 document library from Office Backstage view.
PowerPivot	PowerPivot for Excel 2010 provides streamlined integration and Web-based analysis in SharePoint. Use data from multiple sources and manipulate large data sets that have up to hundreds of millions of rows.	Publish and share analysis with less effort and enable others to enjoy the same Data Slicers and fast-query capabilities, even when working in Excel Services reports.
Publish and Share Information Through Excel Services	Share analysis and results across the organization by publishing Excel 2010 spreadsheets to the Web or other SharePoint sites (intranet, extranet).	Use Backstage view in Excel 2010 to selectively publish selective parts of a worksheet, hide formulas, and stage data to SharePoint 2010.	Use Backstage view in Excel 2010 to selectively publish parts of a worksheet to SharePoint 2007.
Microsoft Office Access Design for the Web	Microsoft Office Access 2010 applications developed in Design for Web mode can be designed and edited for publishing to SharePoint, so people can share, collect, and report on data.	Use Access 2010 to publish data, forms, logic/macros, and reports with nearly the same look and feel in the browser as in Access 2010 on a PC.
Automate Metadata Capture	Provide better, automated metadata capture in SharePoint to make information more findable, perceptible, discoverable, navigable, manageable, and re-usable.	Use Word 2010 to provide better and more automated metadata capture from Backstage view, including document information either added automatically or typed quickly in AutoComplete fields.	Word 2010 provides automated metadata capture from Backstage view, including document information added automatically.
Use Office Backstage View	Seamlessly connect Office 2010 applications with SharePoint to provide workflow integration, the ability to enter metadata, and social context.	By using Office Backstage view in Office 2010 applications, people can enter metadata, interact with workflows, access authors’ profiles, view recent content the author has created in SharePoint 2010, and more.	By using Office Backstage view in Office 2010 applications, people can enter metadata and interact with workflows
Access SharePoint Templates	Access Office 2010 document templates stored in SharePoint more quickly and easily.	People can access document templates stored in SharePoint 2010 via the New Document wizard in Office 2010 applications.
Apply PowerPoint Themes to SharePoint	Make customization of SharePoint sites more flexible by using themes used in PowerPoint 2010 presentations.	People can apply themes to SharePoint 2010 sites by using the same themes as in PowerPoint 2010.
Use Reusable Workflows	Support workflows to be used multiple times and provide workflow templates for later use in SharePoint.	SharePoint Designer 2010 supports reusable workflows and workflows attached to content types.
Visualize Workflow	Allow a workflow designer to see the steps in a SharePoint workflow in a visual format.	Workflows developed as drawings and exported from Office Visio 2010 can be imported into SharePoint Designer 2010 for modification and deployment.
Use Forms-Based Applications	Forms-based applications connect with back-end data and include workflow, reporting, custom Web pages, and other components.	Integrate InfoPath 2010 forms with back-end data by using external lists in SharePoint 2010, and include custom sandboxed solution code.
Provide the Office Ribbon for InfoPath Forms Web Services	Provide the Fluent Office Ribbon interface for Web-enabled forms so people can easily find, access, and use the features they want when designing Web-enabled forms.	When used with SharePoint 2010, InfoPath Forms Services provides Web-enabled forms with their commands in a Ribbon interface.
View and Edit Documents, Spreadsheets, Presentations, and Notebooks in the Browser	Allow editing, even if applications are not loaded on a PC.	View and make light edits to documents through Office Web applications in a browser. Document formatting and content are maintained when changes are made in the browser and Web applications can be hosted on the premises running in SharePoint.
Mobile Access Enhancements	View and edit documents from a mobile device even when on the go.	View Office 2010 documents from virtually anywhere by using Web applications, without losing fidelity, and make changes with limited editing capabilities.
Work Offline with an Improved Experience in Microsoft Office Access	Edit Office Access 2010 forms, reports, queries, and macros offline and synchronize changes in SharePoint when reconnected to the network.	Data in SharePoint 2010 list is cached in the Access 2010 by default.
Collaborate Offline and Online	Work offline with SharePoint contents and when reconnected to the network, changes are synchronized.	Work offline in SharePoint 2010 document libraries and lists through SharePoint Workspace 2010.
Fill In Forms Offline	SharePoint list forms are synchronized so people can work offline.	SharePoint 2010 list items open in an InfoPath 2010 form that is hosted in SharePoint for edit in display mode.
Extend the Reach of Forms	Fill in InfoPath 2010 forms in a Web browser, while online or offline, and from a mobile device.	The InfoPath 2010 forms solution offers embedded solutions that use InfoPath controls that can be hosted.
Publish Access Databases to the Web	Securely publish database applications to the Web so IT managers can meet data compliance, backup, and audit requirements.	While publishing data, Access 2010 checks for incompatible objects and builds a report of any runtime differences between the client and server.
Use Business Data Applications	Design forms for SharePoint that create, read, update, and delete business data from a back-end system.	Business data applications start with an external list in SharePoint 2010 and use InfoPath Designer 2010 to create custom forms on top of the list.
Offline and Online LOB Integration	Take LOB data offline and synchronize changes automatically when back online.	Synchronize LOB data in both directions between SharePoint Workspace 2010 and enterprise line-of-business systems by bringing LOB data into SharePoint 2010 Sites and then taking it offline via SharePoint Workspace 2010.
Enhance Information Security and Integrity with Digital Signatures	Help ensure the integrity of information contained in forms with the controls necessary to enable single, co-sign, and counter-sign scenarios for the full form or portions of the form.	InfoPath 2010 and SharePoint 2010 support CNG digitally signed content.
Manage Forms More Easily	More easily manage form versions, updates, and upgrades in SharePoint to ensure that team members are working in the correct version of a form.	Automate template version management with SharePoint 2010 and InfoPath 2010 to provide an improved process for checking for template updates.
Use Line of Business data in applications	Provide a SharePoint-based framework for creating Office Business Applications.	Business Connectivity Services (BCS) provides the read/write capability to connect SharePoint 2010 and Microsoft Office client applications to external data sources (such as SQL, Oracle, SAP, CRM, Siebel, Web services, and custom applications).	Use Business Data Catalog within SharePoint to provide read access and surface line of business information in Office client applications
Business Connectivity Services: Use Data as Document Properties	Insert LOB data as document properties to make critical information more findable, perceptible, and re-usable in SharePoint.	Expose BCS data as Word 2010 document properties and insert it into documents.
Package and More Easily Move SharePoint Applications	Move InfoPath applications more easily from site to site and server to server.	Package InfoPath 2010 applications more quickly and easily packaged by using Windows SharePoint Services solutions (.wsp) and SharePoint site template (.stp) file formats.

Architecture Comparison

Web Services/Object Model

Available with SharePoint 2007:

Administration
Alerts
Authentication
Data Retrieval
Permissions
Sites
Search
People and Profiles
Workflow

New with SharePoint 2010:

List REST access with ADO.NET Data Services
Excel Services REST access
Client Object Model
WSRP (v1.1) Consumer Web Part

Editions

v Enterprise Client Access License

v Standard Client Access License

v SharePoint Server 2010 for Internet Sites, Enterprise

v SharePoint Server 2010 for Internet Sites, Standard

v SharePoint Foundation 2010 (Free)

v SharePoint Designer 2010 (Free)

Microsoft has created a fantastic interactive chart here that goes through each edition.

What’s New For Administrators

Available in SharePoint 2010:

IT Pro Productivity

SharePoint Best Practices Analyzer

Backup And Restore Configuration Data

Site Collection Migration

Content Recovery Down To The Site And List Level

Content Restore Of Site Or List

Windows PowerShell™ Snap-Ins And Commands

Managed Accounts

Correlation IDs

Scalable Unified Infrastructure

Shared Service Applications

Hosting And Multi-Tenancy Architecture With Site Subscriptions

Claims-Based Authentication

Profile Synchronization

High Availability Automatic Failover

Content Type Syndication

Sandbox Solutions

List Throttling

Remote Blog Storage

Flexible Deployment

Prerequisite Installer

Visual Upgrade

Configuration Wizards

Scriptable Deployment

On-Premise Or Online

Diagnostics

Unified Logging Service (ULS)

Usage Database

Developer Dashboard

Reliability and Monitoring

SharePoint Maintenance Engine (SPME) Rules

System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) Monitoring

Reporting

Out of the Box Usage Reports

SCOM Reports

I will try and update this page from time to time with more relevant material (if you know of any please comment here).

Hope this helped someone,
Richard Harbridge

{ 14 trackbacks }

SharePoint 2007 vs SharePoint 2010 Feature Comparison: March 30, 2010 at 6:12 pm
Tweets that mention SharePoint 2007 vs SharePoint 2010 Comparison -- Topsy.com: March 30, 2010 at 10:21 pm
Sharepoint 2007 versus 2010 « Scanning with Microsoft SharePoint: April 9, 2010 at 10:20 am
SharePoint 2007 VS SharePoint (Comparación) - Ricardo Muñoz - MVPLatino.MS: April 13, 2010 at 4:37 pm
SharePoint 2010: Recopilatorio de enlaces interesantes (VII)! « Pasión por la tecnología…: May 1, 2010 at 3:03 pm
SharePoint 2010: Recopilatorio de enlaces interesantes (VII)! - Blog del CIIN: May 1, 2010 at 3:07 pm
aantekeningenuitwerken | SharePoint2010: June 13, 2010 at 12:47 pm
SharePoint 2007 vs SharePoint 2010 « MarkjOwen's Blog: August 13, 2010 at 4:42 pm
SharePoint 2010 vs SharePoint 2007: Una comparativa de la que partir! - Blog del CIIN: September 4, 2010 at 1:27 pm
SharePoint 2010 vs SharePoint 2007: Una comparativa de la que partir! « Pasión por la tecnología…: September 4, 2010 at 1:28 pm
Using Sharepoint as a Project Management Tool | iOpener: October 31, 2010 at 9:00 pm
SharePoint Architecture Comparison « SharePoint Dude: January 16, 2011 at 11:57 pm
Memulai MOSS 2007 « ..: d!aNa’s bLog :..: January 24, 2011 at 3:37 am
SharePoint Issues at Reflective Journal: May 22, 2011 at 1:01 pm

{ 50 comments… read them below or add one }

Next Comments →

1 SharePoint Scanning April 9, 2010 at 10:15 am

Awesome outline, I will link to you from my BLOG.

2 Veronique Palmer April 12, 2010 at 5:55 am

Very helpful thank you, been looking for one for ages!

3 Jay O'Hara April 12, 2010 at 11:59 am

Thanks Richard! So Helpful. would love to find a comparison of SharePoint 2010 with different versions of Office, but as it stands, the information provided here is incredibly helpful!!!

Thanking you.

@jayincalgary

4 Richard Harbridge April 13, 2010 at 12:11 am: They have that 🙂

http://download.microsoft.com/DOWNLOAD/2/A/A/2AA0D302-86A6-4AA2-A0A4-4F15FA7DBF5C/BUSINESS%20PRODUCTIVITY%20AT%20ITS%20BEST_WHITEPAPER.PDF

Found a bunch more stuff and will hopefully update this page soon. 🙂

Reply

5 Tom Resing April 14, 2010 at 2:56 pm

Awesome detail! Keep it updated. I’ve never included Project Web Access in my 2007 picture. May I should?

6 Richard Harbridge April 14, 2010 at 4:53 pm: I try and include everything (alot more than I show here) so that they have a good picture of the application landscape.

As an example often an organization has specific needs they think SharePoint is the right fit for, but actually could be better resolved by say another Microsoft product. Say for instance you show on the application landscape Microsoft CRM. This might lead a company to better understand why investing in a platform like SharePoint is a good idea – It means more future integration with other MS products/platforms within that enterprise.

It also helps to understand IT’s overall strategy relating to its own Application Landscape and what technology could replace other technology etc.

I suppose that’s the short answer. Hope it helps,
Richard Harbridge

Reply

7 Jackson Lee April 16, 2010 at 3:42 pm

Very useful resource, thank you.

8 John May 10, 2010 at 11:41 am

Hi Richard,

I have been tasked with investigating re-hosting a Sharepoint installation for an in-house group. They will be moving from 2007 to 2010. You have a very nice summary. I would like to use your summaries for a presentation to the IT management here at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, of course giving you full credit whichever of your stuff I would use. Please let me know if that would be ok.

John S.

9 Richard Harbridge May 10, 2010 at 5:37 pm: Absolutely okay with me. 🙂

I appreciate you asking! If there is anything else I can do to help, or resources im missing let me know.
Richard Harbridge

Reply

10 John May 11, 2010 at 11:04 am

Thank you! Saves me a load of time.

John

11 Tony Butt May 19, 2010 at 5:44 pm

Excellent document.

12 Guilherme Bueno May 20, 2010 at 1:34 pm

Very useful, thanks a lot!

13 Kristoffer June 29, 2010 at 1:59 am

Great list – saved me a great deal of time. Thanks a million!

14 PS June 29, 2010 at 8:03 am

Thanks a ton…saved a lot of time…

15 Marwan July 4, 2010 at 6:24 am

Good work, awsome

16 Alexander Meijers July 4, 2010 at 10:37 am

Hi Ricard,

I’m glad that finally somebody (you) took the time to put such a comparison together. This will help a lot for developers, IT pros, customers and not to forget project managers to understand the differences.

Thanks!!

Alex

17 itay July 5, 2010 at 3:51 pm

You have done an Amazing job!

18 Jason Gallicchio July 8, 2010 at 11:49 am

Awesome Post Man,

See you at SPSNYC

19 Javier Barrera July 8, 2010 at 3:39 pm

FANTASTIC stuff!!! and I mean that in all caps. this is a great summary I would like to use if possible. Of course all credit will go to you for all your hard work putting this together. Let me know if this is okay or problem.

–Javi

20 Mark Owen August 13, 2010 at 2:33 pm

I agree. Really appreciate the hard work you’ve put in here. I’m also going to post on my blog (with all due credit naturally). If this is not OK, please let me know.

21 Michele Vochosky August 17, 2010 at 3:30 pm

Great comparison info all in one place. Very helpful to my organization as we move into SP 2010.

Perhaps you can answer a question I have about web design for SP2010. I’ve read elsewhere that SP Designer 2010 is NOT used to design web pages as SPD2007 had been. The suggested web design program was Expression Web. Do you have any knowledge of this? –many thanks!

22 Richard Harbridge August 17, 2010 at 3:43 pm: Glad to hear it helped.

For SharePoint Designer 2010 it is a SharePoint specific development tool. It is absolutely the tool that should be used for many SharePoint Design activities such as building MasterPages and Page Layouts (combined with Visual Studio to support more effective deployment etc).

However it cannot modify a typical .Net website like SPD 2007 used to be able to. Really the way things have gone is that Expression Web (Part of the Expression Studio) is now the Microsoft application for modifying and designing non SharePoint websites. The downside is that there are licensing considerations. The upside is that the entire expression studio suite is pretty robust and powerful.

You can still use SPD2007 on non SharePoint sites, or other free tools, but if you really want the full powerhouse I would recommend looking at Expression Web. Keep in mind though that SharePoint still very much should use SharePoint Designer. 🙂

Reply

23 Christopher Thomas September 3, 2010 at 12:19 pm

Great article. What would make it better if you indicated the versions of SharePoint and Office that are required for each feature. Examples: SharePoint Standard vs Enterprise, Office Standard vs Professional Plus/Enterprise.

24 Priyanka September 20, 2010 at 11:28 am

Great Article..Very Helpful!

I have got a Question on “Publish
and Share Information Through Excel Services ” feature in Sharepoint 2010.

How Can I hide formula using this service.i cannot find any material in web which explains me how to do it.

Thanks much

25 Richard Harbridge September 20, 2010 at 10:04 pm: What do you mean by hide a formula? Hide the results of a formula in a cell?

Reply

26 Bob September 26, 2010 at 11:22 pm

I know it’s pretty unlikely you kept them, but in the future it’d be useful if you include references to the papers you got info from =)

27 Richard Harbridge September 28, 2010 at 4:45 pm: Ack! Great point! I am trying to do that with the standards but will definitely do that with any updates to this page as well. 🙂

Reply

28 Pavan September 30, 2010 at 2:24 pm

Richard, really great work it has helped me immensely in my research on differences between SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010.

However, I do have a question regarding how SharePoint 2010, with its all “new” features for social collaboration fares in comparison to other social collaboration tools (Jive, Telligent etc). Did you find any particular feature(s) which is going to be a game changer in SharePoint 2010? How does SharePoint fare in external collaboration scenarios.

Thanks a bunch

29 Richard Harbridge September 30, 2010 at 3:12 pm: The short answer is:
Internally it is good enough.
Externally it’s is a more difficult story. I would say the benefits lie in a powerful development framework, integration framework, and more powerful management features than most other vendors (it’s just such a big platform).

There are a couple major factors we have to take into account: Jive, Box.net, SocialText etc have much shorter development cycles. So no matter what; typically any SharePoint functionality will be dated even on release. That’s the core reason why the external scenario is so challenging.

The positive benefit on that is that things are more carefully vetted, tested, and integrated in the development cycle. From a partner perspective this adds quite a bit of opportunity as they don’t have to constantly re-tool as much and can build quite a bit on top of the SharePoint stack.

From a feature perspective bringing say Live accounts into the mix is actually much easier than it was before and with the claims model of authentication and the new SharePoint Security Store (SSS) it can lead to some pretty powerful ‘easy’ authentication scenarios. I have seen some interesting ones using netflix and other authentication schemes that track and store it for users to create a more seamless feeling when showing other external content within the structures of say a SharePoint external list.

The foundation for ‘game changer’ that is set in SharePoint 2010 is simply that they revamped/improved their authentication, interoperability, and social story. This along with the adjustment in how supportive they will be to the community and easier developer ramp up should mean that the real ‘game changer’ will be how partners leverage the core set of capabilities to challenge the best capabilities of other social technologies. (I can think of many partners who are doing this as we speak.)

There are a number of interesting points in comparison with other WCM platforms and especially other Social WCM platforms. While I am a bit overwhelmed right now with projects and some community launches I do hope to dig further into this and write a nice post on it. If nothing else I will be discussing it in depth at the SharePoint Symposium (WCM panel) in DC in November.

Keep the questions coming and forcing us all to have the conversations! 🙂 Certainly worth having!

Reply

30 Iain October 7, 2010 at 5:47 am

Wow after trolling around for days trying to find answers I’m looking for i think i may have found a great resource here. I’m a complete newbie to sharepoint, although i understand the concept and its capabilities but am coming from it at a different angle and would love to hear your thoughts on my problem/concern.

This is a design and marketing agency, we have a considerable amount of business with large organisations, large e-commerce sites and education establishments. Generally we brand, re brand and design documents, ads and brochures for print and websites for online. Currently our websites are created using HTML/ASP pages with PHP on our own CMS and blog platform, however we find many of our (particularly education) clients are talking about sharepoint integration of there sites and documents and we feel like we may be losing some pitches to agencies that have an understanding of it.

I’m actually a back up developer to our main development team my main role is actually SEO, however being the only person in the agency that has used Microsoft products and the fact that I am (was) a Frontpage genius I’m now tasked with getting a grip on this sharepoint thing!

My questions really relate to designing for sharepoint users as the clients are the users of the SP installation we just need to design the online elements of our services for SP.

do we have to design in SPD?
can we design in photoshop/illustrator things like brochures and use the designs in Sharepoint?
if we designed and developed sites in the normal fashion, without the CMS presumably, can they be used with sharepoint or must they be modified in expression web or SPD. – on this point I assume that if we design in SPD within a SP installation we can include the full CMS elements of SP rather than modifying our code to make something that works?

the thoughts of someone who knows something would be extremely useful to us

Thanks
Iain

31 Richard Harbridge October 14, 2010 at 3:23 pm

The short answer (apologize as I would prefer a longer explanation but am stressed on time) is that you CAN Design in SharePoint Designer. You can also design in Visual Studio or to varying degrees in other applications.

The recommendation would be to design and brand in SharePoint Designer. Once you have your design you PROVISION or DEPLOY your brand throughout multiple environments (or site collections) by using WSP’s and packaging it in Visual Studio.

That would be my high level recommendation on how (process wise) you work on SharePoint 2007 or 2010 branding/design.

That being said there are a number of design architecture pieces you need to fully understand. The first is Masterpages and how they work in SharePoint, the second is PageLayouts (if you are using MOSS or SP2010 not WSS or Foundation 2010), and then of course there is Themes and how CSS is used in SharePoint (Alternate, Embedded, Themed, etc) and the order which CSS overrides/loads to the page.

For individual components often you will use DataView Webparts or Content Query Webparts and their XSL transformations to improve component level design and roll ups…

This is actually a pretty big conversation but hopefully this gets you started on the right foot and with further reading/exploration you can wrap your head around SharePoint Branding and Design. If you have more questions feel free to ping me as I have branded many a SharePoint site.

32 Mr A September 20, 2011 at 7:00 am: Richard’s short answer is fine as far as it goes – but you have a lot of work to do to get your head around how all this stuff works in SharePoint. What I would recommend as a starting point (and I’m sure Richard would have mentioned it too) is Heather Solomon’s excellent site on branding SharePoint MasterPages and Templates.

http://www.heathersolomon.com/blog/

Personally I’d stay away from Themes – Microsoft might have several strengths, but honestly, graphic design isn’t one of them.

Mr A (SharePoint Monkey)

Reply

33 W3C November 4, 2010 at 11:17 am

If your going to write a blog or website about web technologies or pretend to know anything about any kind of web development, DONT PUBLISH YOUR FUCKING PAGES FROM WORD! You’re source is a fucking nightmare! Sort your shit out!

34 W3C November 4, 2010 at 11:52 am

Btw, I forgot to mention, the content is very useful and informative! Well done on that front!

35 Richard Harbridge November 4, 2010 at 1:33 pm: Hahaha I totally understand. The issue I had was one of time. I was going to just code the entire page but literally did the compiliation in the course of an hour or two (and it was all in word). So it just made sense to skip the middle man and hurt my development roots.

And yes. It did hurt me to use word, but the business user/tactician in me knows that sometimes it’s okay to sacrifice certain quality in order to get a message out faster. 🙂

Reply

36 Tareqe December 15, 2010 at 10:33 pm

Please don’t mind if I use this link to my blog as reference.

37 kbworks January 10, 2011 at 4:47 am

trackback http://www.kbworks.nl/blog/archive/2011/01/08/important-links-about-sharepoint-andor-linkedin.aspx

38 Nbr February 11, 2011 at 8:22 pm

Really great article !
Would you mind if I use this link in my website ,www.patgiri.com

Thanks!
Nbr

39 Richard Harbridge October 14, 2011 at 10:04 am: Not at all. Go ahead.

Reply

40 Raja February 17, 2011 at 2:24 am

Thanks for the wonderfull insights. Sharepoint has become very big and definately a good reference.

Could you also help to find from architect perspective. Something on the content, db, architecture etc..I mean the low level details.
That could help someone from the big guy Microsoft!!!!

Thanks.
Raja

41 Sudhakar March 10, 2011 at 3:56 am

Hi Richard Harbridge,

You have done a great Job.It is very helpful for me.

Thank you !!!!!

42 asuperkool35 January 5, 2012 at 5:21 pm

Hi, great article!
My company is looking to migrate from MOSS 2007 to SP2010, and I’ve been trying to find some good looking web sites or companies that have already used SP2010 to design their home pages. Any suggestions that you could provide me? Thanks.

43 Richard Harbridge January 6, 2012 at 10:26 am: Absolutely.

If you go to http://www.WSSDemo.com/LivePivot you can actually filter down to SharePoint 2010 public facing sites. While this isn’t a perfect representation if you are doing an internal upgrade or migration it certainly can help give you creative design ideas. Just select Platform from the right and SPS2010 + SPF2010.

In regards to getting additional help I actually work for a rocking SharePoint consulting company that performs many SharePoint migrations, upgrades, and branding projects. I will send you a personal follow up with additional details in case you are interested. 🙂

Thank you,
Richard

Reply

44 Bhupesh Mohan April 1, 2011 at 6:15 am

Excellent post.

45 pradeepa April 6, 2011 at 1:24 am

thanks dude

46 Lucy lu April 12, 2011 at 6:55 am

Thank you very much.. this is so helpful and well written. It has been a one stop site to answer my Sharepoint 2007 vs 2010 query.

47 Melonie May 6, 2011 at 7:14 pm

Great article! Thank you for doing so much research and putting it in such a easy-to-reference format. I hope you don’t mind me posting a link to this article from my blog site.

Cheers!
Melonie

48 Susan May 9, 2011 at 5:48 am

Thanks so much for this really helpful round up.

W3C should be ashamed of themselves for using such foul language on your website – they clearly have no idea about how to give constructive feedback and swearing (in capitals) shows their total lack of professionalism. If it had been me I would have removed their post (and to be honest you still could)! Well done to you for your gracious response. Although copying from Word into HTML pages does annoy me too, as you say for getting a message out it can be much quicker and for most people just reading your pages it won’t even matter.

49 Susan May 9, 2011 at 6:15 am

You can Save Documents and Presentations Directly to SharePoint 2007 if you first create a network place for the relevant site or document library in SharePoint 2007. You may like to add this into your table above.

50 Nagaraj M R June 2, 2011 at 7:44 am

Very helpfull and thanks for the information.

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