Microsoft Office Word 2007 Full Version - My Word What an Upgrade!!!

Author's Rating:

Pros: It is truly an "upgrade" this time, not a cosmetic face lift.

Cons: After using drop down menus not organized well, it is almost difficult to follow intuitiveness!!!

The Bottom Line: 
This is a very good job by Microsoft of actually making a change for the better rather than a new version just to make people buy new software.

Author's Review
I have been using 2007 Word now for nearly two months. It does take some getting used to and I am glad there is no “Classic View” for the former drop down menus or I would certainly be using it and not getting the full benefit of the changes.

That is right, you now have very few options that require you look at nearly every menu at the top and find what you want it to do. For instance, previously in versions 2003 and prior, you had the standard menus along the top: File, Edit, View, Insert, Format, Tools, Table, Window and Help. Each of these dropped down with a variety of options, some did not make sense where they were listed. Should you not select “Insert” to put in a header and/or footer? Maybe, but it was located under “View” and then “Header and Footer”. Why? Because Mr. Gates liked it that way.

Nevertheless, of course, everyone knew where everything was eventually by trial and error. The help files were a last resort, but useful. Well, you can forget all that, though previous knowledge of Word’s former versions will certainly make the transition easier. If you never learned the menus thoroughly, then 2007 will really add value to your word processing experience.

The New Set Up – Tabs with Icons

Microsoft 2007 Word has the following menu items at the top and we will explore each to give you a feel for them: Home, Insert, Page Layout, References, Mailings, Review, View and Developer. As stated, they are not drop downs, but rather iconic selections grouped under categories.

At first, I was just plain lost from over a decade of using the familiar program, only varying slightly over the years in its upgrades. Reluctance to change has become a thing of the past for Microsoft; it would appear, in the newer versions of everything it has released, like Vista as an example. The overall concepts still exist; there are just radical changes in looks, which is a positive thing for 2007 Word. Let us look at each tab…

The Home Tab

This is a welcome sight and includes the icons you are likely very familiar with using and some features that are new. The five sections here are Clipboard, Font, Paragraph, Styles (nice!) and Editing. The Clipboard has the “Format Painter”, the little paintbrush that when selected over a specific format, will apply that formatting to other text you choose next. It has Cut and Copy icons and Paste. Paste allows you to: Paste normally, Paste Special – as a Word Document Object, Formatted text/RTF, Unformatted Text, Picture – both Windows Metafile and Enhanced Metafile, HTML format and Unformatted Unicode Text.

The Font and Paragraph sections include the old drop down for font, size of the font, you can use a button to make the font larger or smaller without entering number and clear formatting – leaves as plain text. In addition there is bold, Italic, Underline with several options and you can have a different color for the selection you choose for underlining – single, double, and many more. You also have highlight text with the color of your choosing and the text color itself.

The Paragraph section allows you to use bullets, numbering, indent, sort alpha, spacing between lines, background for the paragraph with any color and a selection for the border of a table, like the one in Excel versions.

Styles is a neat way to set your default choice, like my Times New Roman, 12 font. You can highlight a section not formatted in this manner, push the button and it makes whatever it is in the style you choose for default. There are a number of them, each you can customize, so that if you want multiple formats, just highlight and select the one you prefer.

This is the same for Headers and Footers, titles, subtitles, quote and many more. You can also add more if you like! If you get an annoying version of a document, say in a font you hate, just highlight the entire document and put it in YOUR default, preferred style. Finally, Editing allows the find and replace options along with selecting text of the same format.

The Insert Tab

Hey, Header and Footer are under this as I said it should have been in the old versions. It is broken up into Pages, Tables, Illustrations, Links, Header & Footer, Text and Symbols. You can select a cover page with many formats to choose from to make that school paper or business document really stand out.

The Clip Art is here, you can insert a picture, text box, hyperlink, table and Smart Art. The latter allows you to enter various shapes in much the way you would with Visio, making it easy to create an org chart.

The Page Layout Tab

As you would imagine, you can set your margins, paper orientation (portrait/landscape), and the actual paper size to which the document is destined to print, insert a watermark – maybe this should be on the Insert Tab – something for the next upgrade, I guess. There are built-in watermarks for Confidential and Do Not Copy as well as the ability to create customized ones and save for reuse. You will see the groupings of Themes, Page Setup, Page Background, Paragraph and Arrange on this tab.

The References Tab

This is very useful for those writing term papers that need footnotes, bibliographies and/or endnotes. You can mark citations with their source, insert a table of authorities as well as a table of contents. The table of contents has several different styles to choose from when adding in this information. This tab is broken into: Table of Contents, Footnotes, Citations & Bibliography, Captions, Index and Table of Authorities.

The Mailings Tab

From the Create, Start Mail Merge, Write & Insert Fields, Preview Results and Finish subsections, envelopes can be created as far as printing to them, where you can choose from just about every size. You also can print to labels from here and do any mail merging files that you may want to set up.

The Review Tab

Wow, do students have it better than us old folks did when typewriters were still en vogue. Here you will see a Proofing, Comments, Tracking, Changes, Compare and Protect sections. You have your Spelling & Grammar Check as well as a thesaurus, but, in addition, there is a research icon for looking up information from reference materials included, such as the Encarta Encyclopedia. Not that I went much, but, along with the Internet, you may have few papers that require you look up on your college campus’s map where the library is located. That is amazing.

The View Tab

This is divided into Document Views, Show/Hide, Zoom, Window and Macros. You will find this intuitive based on previous versions. Reading Layout is now called Full Screen Reading. Under the Show/Hide, a nice feature if you are inserting pictures is a gridline view to help ensure it is centered or otherwise justified properly as well as the text method you may choose to go around it.

The Developer Tab

Made up of Code, Controls, XML, Protect and Templates I am guessing more specified software may be in order if you delve too much into this. It is straightforward and probably the most useful deal here is the Protect features to prevent anyone from adjusting your document.

Word 2007 Help

This is not a tab, you hit a question mark icon in the upper right corner. It does not have tabs like the traditional MS Help files do. Instead, it shows you the contents, gives you a search box and has some recommended reading for new users in the pane that displays a topic once you have selected it. I have used it a few times and have found what I was looking for on each occasion. I also have not seen that annoying little robot trying to make suggestions as to how to do it is what I am working on. If I wanted his help, I would have clicked there…

My Final Thoughts

This is a drastic improvement over earlier versions and unprecedented in the major overhauls made from previous editions to the next, though takes a bit of getting used to, based on old habits. This new version saves files as .docx. You can change that to save documents as plain, old .doc and make this the default until the rest of your computing friends/business relationships catch up. I have chosen that. You can set so many granular defaults when you hit the Windows 2007 icon in the upper left and choose “Word Options” that it saves you tons of time customizing each document.

It is not just a change for the sake of change this time. It truly is a step in the right direction as far as ease of use and complexity to make wonderful, professional documents. Instead of searching every menu for that one feature you may use only once in a great while, all are now organized in a fashion that makes far more sense and greatly aid in finding that needle in a haystack.

Certainly, there will be at least mild frustration as you make the switch, but the length of time this lasts was tremendously less than I thought it would be for me. Do not get me wrong, it made me quite angry at times, but no more than a couple of days. This is not Vista, a beta OS, they really put effort into getting this one right!

O/S & Hardware Requirements

CPU - 500MHz Processor, preferably 1.4GHz or faster
RAM – 256 minimum, 512 recommended
Hard Drive Free Space – 2GB
Monitor capable of 1024 x 768 resolution
Windows XP SP2 or higher



Here are my other software reviews:


Nero Ultra Edition - I rated it: 3 Stars

Reader Rabbit Playtime for Baby & Toddler - I rated it: 4 Stars