738 of 765 people found the following review helpful:
Best Office Yet
Its easy to hate everything Microsoft (I too hate crossing Bill's palm with Amex as much as the next person) and its also true that Open Office 2 is a supberb piece of software - particularly given as its free. In fact I have been using Open Office exclusively - until now.
There's one thing that gives Office 2007 the edge over Open Office and that's the new...
386 of 406 people found the following review helpful:
Value ......... or is it ?
Quite good value for software from Microsoft, and a must 'add on' for any student off to university, especially as it can legitimately be loaded onto three laptops or pc's at any one time - a bonus for families with more than one child or student whom may each have their own pc or laptop.
Others, not students, tempted to buy it for their basic office needs...
Its easy to hate everything Microsoft (I too hate crossing Bill's palm with Amex as much as the next person) and its also true that Open Office 2 is a supberb piece of software - particularly given as its free. In fact I have been using Open Office exclusively - until now.
There's one thing that gives Office 2007 the edge over Open Office and that's the new ribbon interface. It really is brilliant and it really does increase productivity. Afterall, if it wasn't for the ribbon it would be just another office suite and I would stick with Open Office.
It seems though, that Microsoft really have sat with end users and really have taken notice of how people use their software and I think that the new user interface is a huge step forward in software interaction.
As a home user as well I don't think the £85ish that Amazon is asking for 3 licenses is particularly expensive. About £27.50 each which if you think back to the cost of the full proper office suite a couple of years ago is pretty good value.
Just bear in mind that the standard Home & Student pack doesn't come with Outlook which I suppose most home users won't miss (although I can't live without it so bought it separately from MS for £40 odd) but it does come with OneNote which is proving useful.
All in all if you're not sure whether you're ready for the jump to Office 07 then download the 60 trial version from Micrsoft's website. Just be warned if you do you may find yourself reaching for your credit card - I did!! (and a word of warning, its much cheaper to by the software from Amazon than to acitivate your demo version via Microsoft).
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Quite good value for software from Microsoft, and a must 'add on' for any student off to university, especially as it can legitimately be loaded onto three laptops or pc's at any one time - a bonus for families with more than one child or student whom may each have their own pc or laptop.
Others, not students, tempted to buy it for their basic office needs such as Word and Excel and Powerpoint, may perhaps first like to check and see if their employer is signed up to Microsofts 'Home User Program'. This allows employees to register with Microsoft and get a more fully loaded Office package for the price of the disk plus postage and packing, currently about £18.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
This finally gives home users a cheap and legal way to get the 'basics' - Word, Excel and Powerpoint. Puzzling though is that Outlook (used by many home users and students to manage appointments and address books) is ommitted in favour of the utterly useless OneNote. Of course this encourages people to downgrade to Vista and get the improved Windows Mail, but nobody is going to spend hundreds on a new operating system just to get an email program - use Thunderbird instead.
To summarise, the three useful programs are VERY good - I am not one of those who hates the new interface - just make sure that you have an alternative email program available (Thunderbird, or a webmail service like Gmail or Yahoo) because you won't get Outlook with this.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
I'm writing this review after buying 4 copies for my company. As an advanced user (PowerPoint & Word) I used to give presentations for others on how to use the software to increase productivity.
I'll be short and focussed about my opinions. Firstly, the ribbon interface! It looks very pretty and is a great idea for anyone new to Office. For any advanced user though its a different story. Firstly it cannot be customised (by default), so if you built your own toolbars in earlier versions then you're out of luck. Secondly, and most frustratingly, is where all the icons are positioned. I think Microsoft, desperate to appear to be doing something new, have just randomly mixed up the icons! Luckily the right-mouse button is always as useful and contains the same contents as earlier versions. If you don't believe me, here's a very quick example: In Excel you want to add a new row. You click on INSERT, but there's no mention of it. Instead its under HOME (possible the most ambiguous name possible).
Another niggle is the endless amount of formatting options for emails. Given that Outlook uses its own Word format to code the message, its highly unlikely anyone reading your emails without the same Outlook version won't see anything near as pretty as the one you composed. Come on Microsoft - let's work to web standards please!
And as for the XPS file format... Dear Microsoft, the world uses PDF for read-only formats. Why try to re-invent the wheel and add yet another download for your IT department to deal with?
Once the confusion of the buttons passes, there's not much left to warrant the new release. It's new, it's flashy, but it just doesn't push the boundaries forward in the way that previous versions have done.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
This is fantastic value for the Home and Student edition of Office that, unlike the Student and Teacher version it replaces, can be used be *all* home users. I would've jumped at the chance of buying Office 2007 for less than £100... if only it contained Outlook.
I honestly can't think why Microsoft decided to remove this essential application from the home edition of their Office suite. It's without doubt my most-used Office application, and by excluding it they're only going to drive existing users to rival (and mostly free) products such as Mozilla Thunderbird, which while being so much better than the dreadful Outlook Express (now known as "Windows Mail" in Vista), doesn't quite include all the functionality of Outlook.
If you don't use Outlook much but do use a lot of Word, Excel and PowerPoint then this is a must-have upgrade. The new Office 2007 versions of these products are truly ground-breaking and will definitely increase your productivity and efficiency. Those used to having Outlook for their e-mail might be left feeling a little disappointed though.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Assuming you're running Windows Vista, you won't need Outlook any more (for basic email/calendar/contacts needs) because Vista comes supplied with Windows Mail, Windows Calendar, etc.
As for incompatibilities, it's true that older versions of Office cannot open/edit Office 2007 documents. However, there is a Compatibility Pack available from Microsoft (official update) for earlier versions Office (XP, 2003, etc) that lets you open/edit/save Office '07 documents for Word, Powerpoint, and Excel, using older versions.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
I work at Oxford university and get Office 2007/2003/XP etc.. free via educational licences, but I choose to stay with Office 2003 Professional. As mentioned by other reviewers Office 2007 is a bit of a pain in the positrons compared to just about all other versions of MS Office that keep to the same basic menu and file format. It takes you 5 minutes just to work out how to load a word document with the new interface, gorgeous though it is. I run many networked PCs at home and at work, and casual users who are Office 2003 savvy don't take kindly when this new 2007 interface pops up. Worst still, almost unforgivable even, is that a Professional version of Office 2007 Student is no longer offered, when even secondary school kids need Access and Publisher as part of the GSCE in IT. Plus no Outlook either. So, great software as Excel, Word and PowerPoint is, this loses Office Student two stars in my book. Another downside is that many schools are likely to stay with 2003, making it hard for the kids to adapt to two interfaces and file formats at home and school [for similar reasons all our new Vista PCs have been reformatted back to XP Pro].
However if you have a schoolkid/student in the house and their academic institution [i.e. School or College] is on the participating list, and most will be, you can pick up the full Office Professional 2007 for them for just £45 [incl postage] via any Microsoft educational software partner. With Office Pro you get Access/Publisher/Outlook as well, for about the price of this cut-down Office Home & Student. If the kids might need OneNote as well then go for top of the range Office Enterprise 2007 for just £55 [there's even Wacom 'educational use' graphics stylus/tablets on offer]. Try for instance Microsoft Partner www.Software4Students.co.uk: you just select the school and input your kids name [who must be on the role-call and live at the delivery address], buy the software and the bare CD/wallet appears in the post. The rather natty CD/DVD is emblazoned with Microsoft holograms and the text 'Licensed by student and facility only'. Likewise you can buy your kids the superb Encarta Premium enhanced Student 2009 for just £14 [retail price £49] - it integrates into Office and gives superb homework help [Encarta encyclopaedia, Maths equations, languages and English literature]. Well now children that even makes Office 2007 seem desirable. For the rest of though I'd save the pennies and stick with Office 2003 for the time being, assuming you're lucky enough to own it.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
As a business user I don't really have anything good to say about Office 2007. The new interface now requires 3-4 mouse clicks where 2-3 were needed previously. Many of the keyboard shortcuts no longer work or don't work the way they used to (I don't use the mouse very often). It's not possible to customise the menu structure to any extent as Microsoft have imposed the "ribbon" structure with it's fixed content.
Many of the highlight colours just don't stand out e.g. highlighting text is pink on a white background but highlighted buttons are a sort of yellow colour. There are also only 3 colour schemes available, blue, silver or black. None is particularly attractive and none is particularly clear. Differentiating between several windows often not easy because they are all similar colours.
As a heavy office user, I found the new version of office restrictive and un-instinctive, as if Microsoft have told me how i will work and what commands I will have easily available instead of me being able to select my own. Oh, and you can't even customise a macro button image now! Instead you have to use the ones provided which are an anonymous bunch at best.
you are restricted to a single row of custom buttons - the "quick access toolbar" but if you want the traditional icons on the bar (font, size, style) then you can only fit another 10 or so on the bar - which is restricted to a single line only. when visible, the ribbon occupies a massive amount of space (about 30mm of vertical height) thus restricting the amount of text that can be seen. There appears to be no option to relocate the ribbon, it's always along the top. Hiding the ribbon then needs a double click to bring it back.
I am struggling to express how frustrating I find this software. I am currently in the process of requesting a refund from MS and going back to Office 2003. Note that I can't find anything that 2007 does which 2003 didn't already do for me.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
The ribbon "feature" is what had me request to go back to 2003 at work.
I don't need 5 gazillion styles in my menu, I never use them. Nor does anyone else I know. It's especially bad in Word.
If this "Ribbon" were customizable, great. But it isn't. You're stuck with what Microsoft deems essential -- not you.
MS, believe me, Styles are not what I deem essential to have up at all times in rather wide buttons for each one. They are better served in a dropdown list as they used to be.
This isn't so much a case of not wanting to learn a new menu, it's a case of being unable to customize a large amount (LARGE amount!) of screen space. That doesn't exactly enhance productivity.
Frankly, the only thing worth having seems to be OneNote, but if that's truly the only thing you consider it for... www.evernote.com has an alternative.
There is a reason so many people move from Word / Excel to Open Office, and 2007 is one of them.
Powerusers will most likely not enjoy the new version.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Like several office users reviewing Office 2007 I have just put my hands to my head in despair at having to learn something that was easy back in Office 4.2, let alone 2003. Apart from writing a simple letter, if I want to do anything in the way of formatting, or adding autotext I have to trawl the help files. I gave up after and hour and have gone back to my own laptop. We use Office 97 - 2003 and this is not a problem: I use Mac, Windows and Linux and I have come to the conclusion after trying to use Office 2007 that I might just have purchased my last Microsoft product. Open Office is limited, but it works, Office 97 is familiar and now unsupported, but it works: I don't want to learn a new system. If, like me, you prefer the familiar, don't bother to buy this product, it's not worth it. If you are new to the whole thing, you might be interested in investing the time to learn how to use it, but if you only want simple spreadsheets and word-processing, why pay at all - get open office. I'm not an MS critic, ordinarily, but this product is like a new car with a steering wheel at the back - it might look like a porche, but it don't drive like one!
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Amazon Home
