Major Upgrade For Office

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While Office 2003 offered a refreshed look and some improvements in functionality, the basic structure remained the same. While veteran users were able to easily navigate the familiar menus, it had become increasingly difficult to locate some features (for instance, in Word, would you find "insert new rows" to a table in the "insert" or "table" menu?).

With Office 2007, Microsoft offers the "ribbon", a new and more intuitive way to access features that we used to find in the menus. While the features are basically the same, they are now grouped together according to when and how you would normally use them. These groupings are accessed by clicking on tabs, which are organized in the order you'd use them. The best way to get a better understanding of this change is to check out the screenshots, or download a free trial version of Office from Microsoft. While Office 2007 was released at the same time as Vista, you do not need Vista in order to run it. The program ran fine on my Windows XP laptop, which only had 512 MB of RAM, and it runs even better on my Vista laptop with 2 GB of RAM.

As for which version of Office to buy, this is the third time I've opted for the Home and Student version (which has had other names in previous releases, but is still being sold for $149). I need Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, and this is the most cost-effective way to get those programs. I was disappointed that Microsoft dropped Outlook from the Home and Student version. In order to continue to use Outlook, I installed Outlook 2003 and haven't had any problems.

Instead of Outlook, you get OneNote, a program that uses notebooks and tabs to save and organize all sorts of files and documents. I haven't had much time to play with OneNote yet, but the more I use it, the more impressed I am with it. It looks like one of those programs that you can personalize to meet your own needs and not have to fight with it to get it to do what you want.

This is a significant upgrade and should allow all users, new and experienced, to work more efficiently and quickly.
Get yours Today! Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007

Once You Get Used To It, You'll Love Microsoft Office 07

By
Bleuet


This student edition of Microsoft Office 07 comes with four programs: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. Unless you specifically have a need for another Microsoft Office program, this will be more than enough for the average Office user. You've got all the essentials: a word processor (Word), a spreadsheet (Excel), a slide show creator (PowerPoint), and even a nice program to put all your notes (OneNote). Home and Student Office 07 version gives you the basic programs at a cheaper price than the other versions of Office. The main difference you'll find between this 07 version and the Microsoft Office 03 is that all the programs now have the "ribbon" instead of being menu-driven. The ribbon is a much more visual representation of all the features you can use. All the different tasks are grouped into ribbons; which are divided up into different tabs you can click on. For example, if you clicked on the "Insert" tab in Word you would find tasks such as "inserting" a header or "inserting" a table. What this means is that instead of being hidden in menus and submenus, most features now can be found simply by being in the right tab. This allows you to find some useful features that you might otherwise not have known existed. Everything from Microsoft 03 is there, it just might take awhile to get used to the new layout of things. There are also a lot of cool new features added in this version, such as easily being able to write complex math equations in Word (it was such a pain in Word 03) and being provided with an easy format to create a bibliography in APA, MLA, Chicago style etc. Perhaps the only drawback of Office 07 is that it's such a drastic change from Office 03 that it will take awhile to get used to. After years of knowing all the complex menus you'll have to learn where everything is all over again, which can be frustrating for vetrans of Office 03. However, if you just give it some time, you'll fall in love with just how well everything is set up and appreciate the new visual style this version implements. Pros: * The new visual style allows easy access to all the various features * You can still save files in Office 97-03 format (Example .doc) Cons: * You must relearn where everything is because of the Ribbon * Not all websites/ programs recognize the new 07 files Final Recommendation: Buy it, get used to it, and love it!

Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007

Finding Really Hard To Relearn

By
Carol "kepela"


The new look of the software is really confusing. I'm not a computer expert by any means, but I am knowledgeable enough that my family and friends call me to help them fix their computers and software problems, so I'm not a newbie either. I understand the basic idea that some things are on the screen for you to see, the things they consider to be the most important; but the things I use the most, like frame or underlining are now several click away and you can't customize the menus to what you like. They've put up what they think is important and that's it. If you use other features, you're out of luck... it's hunt and peck every time. You also have to learn to think the way they think. If you want to find a feature, it might not be in the menu set of screens you think. They may consider it a different type of feature than you think of it being, so you have start searching all the different sets of menus to find the feature you're looking for. Also, I like to copy and paste from boxes like this, when writing on the internet, for spell checking... well you can't do that anymore because when you paste back your text it appears in HTML format with all the weird stuff that goes along with it. It might be that I'm just too set in my ways and don't feel I have the time to learn a completely new software to do a simple letter. Maybe if I had the time to relearn everything I might find it easier, but I just don't have the weeks it would take to devote to the study of each product (Word, Excel mainly). I got the software and tried it for several months and went back to my old Word and Excel.

Let's Reconcile All Those Good and Bad Reviews

By
John Robertson



Well, it's been a week now, and while I still have Office 2002 (virtually identical to 2003) and Office 2007 on my laptop, I've pretty much stopped using 2002. I give '07 a thumbs up. I have used Office since 1994 for just simple letters and spreadsheets until the last year, where I started becoming a heavy user of some really odd features, like non-standard line spacing, different headers within the same document, embedded Excel sheets in a Word doc, embedding images in headers and footers, charting, tables, etc. I was worried if all these newly discovered features that I just learned would suddenly disappear in the changing ribbon that everyone was talking about. Despite using weird features, or maybe because of it, I am a little more tolerant of looking up how to do things. But I didn't want to relearn everything, and I haven't had to. The default blank document has tabs for Home, Insert, Page Layout, References, etc, which really are not much different than the categories in the classic drop-down menus. Once clicking on these tabs, you are offered the same choices as before...charts, insert picture, bookmarks, wordart, etc., and a few new ones, like references, balloons and highlighting, footnotes, and more. It IS a different layout, but to this point, I don't think it ever took me more than 10 seconds to find something. I'm surprised no one is talking about the ability to save documents in .pdf (what was once exclusive to Adobe). I know other software has allowed this for sometime, but the ability to make a document that will launch in Adobe Reader with all the functionality of Word or Excel is something I've been waiting for. In 2 years, we'll all wonder how we did without it. This is important to me because once in .pdf, the formatting is locked in, and won't change depending on how it's previewed or printed. Another thing that is important is the new, modern looking charts and tables. This isn't just the 'pretty' factor, but more effective to understanding lots of data more easily. Office 2000/2002/2003 just looked old and unimpressive. It's true that Microsoft is just catching up to Apple, Adobe and others, but they've at least done it. Equally important is the ability to instantly see changes to formatting before you've committed it to the whole document. I've probably wasted a month's time over the course of the last year reformatting documents to do it a better way. If only I authored them in 2007, which was available a year ago, I would have saved so much time. One reviewer said his Home/Student version "did not have all the features as the full version". I've tried to investigate this, and as far as I can tell, Home/Student's versions of Word/Excel/Powerpoint are no different than any other version. I don't want to get too personal here, but all the reviewers who are angry that their saved homework or important business document was saved in .docx and therefore was not readable by anyone else really are just wanting to be victims. Office 2007 makes it abundantly clear that you will be saving in .docx, and if you don't want to, you don't have to. It tells you how and where to save it as a compatible .doc file (or .xls, etc.) and whether you want this as your default setting. I'm sorry, but if you're a student and you ignore all those messages, I think you're going to have more problems in school than using this version of Office. The Grammar check seems to be improved, catching problems that my Office 2002 did not. Hot keys like Ctrl K for hyperlinks or Ctrl C to copy all still work. I'm not sure if they removed others as some reviewers have said, but so far it has not affected me. The concept of Add-Ins (plugins) is a little bit annoying, as to get certain features like the ability to save .pdf requires you go online and install the add-in. Then again, this gives Microsoft the ability to add features from time to time (hopefully they'll use it that way - I think a big reason for add-ins is to give Microsoft a way of periodically checking your software to ensure it's legal). I also like the always-on word count, something that Amazon probably wishes I would use in my reviews. I'm at day 7 and counting, and I don't feel much reason to ever open my Office 2002 again.

Click here to pick up yours today!
Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007

Major Upgrade For Office Review

Families rejoice, Microsoft’s Home and Student 2007 can be installed on up to 3 PCs for the same low price. That means everyone in the family gets their own legal copy of the 2007 versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. The applications are more powerful than ever before with enhanced text effects, improved bullet and numbering stability, SmartArt diagrams and bigger charting and graphics galleries. The newcomer to this party is OneNote 2007. It's your new digital notebook that lets you gather text, images, audio, video and web clippings on one page to keep your projects better organized than ever before. Just like in a paper system you can categorize things into notebooks, sections and pages. The new Fluent user interface exposes the most commonly used commands so you can produce high quality documents and spreadsheets even faster than before. The context sensitive Ribbon at the top of the applications displays context sensitive commands so you don’t see commands that you don’t need.

Check out the reviews:

By
pm444 "pm444"

While Office 2003 offered a refreshed look and some improvements in functionality, the basic structure remained the same. While veteran users were able to easily navigate the familiar menus, it had become increasingly difficult to locate some features (for instance, in Word, would you find "insert new rows" to a table in the "insert" or "table" menu?). With Office 2007, Microsoft offers the "ribbon", a new and more intuitive way to access features that we used to find in the menus. While the features are basically the same, they are now grouped together according to when and how you would normally use them. These groupings are accessed by clicking on tabs, which are organized in the order you'd use them. The best way to get a better understanding of this change is to check out the screenshots, or download a free trial version of Office from Microsoft. While Office 2007 was released at the same time as Vista, you do not need Vista in order to run it. The program ran fine on my Windows XP laptop, which only had 512 MB of RAM, and it runs even better on my Vista laptop with 2 GB of RAM. As for which version of Office to buy, this is the third time I've opted for the Home and Student version (which has had other names in previous releases, but is still being sold for $149). I need Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, and this is the most cost-effective way to get those programs. I was disappointed that Microsoft dropped Outlook from the Home and Student version. In order to continue to use Outlook, I installed Outlook 2003 and haven't had any problems. Instead of Outlook, you get OneNote, a program that uses notebooks and tabs to save and organize all sorts of files and documents. I haven't had much time to play with OneNote yet, but the more I use it, the more impressed I am with it. It looks like one of those programs that you can personalize to meet your own needs and not have to fight with it to get it to do what you want. This is a significant upgrade and should allow all users, new and experienced, to work more efficiently and quickly.

Click Here To Get Yours Today!
Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007