Talk about improvements!

Author's Rating:

Pros: More user friendly, faster to load, automation of common features, better organized, and beautiful interface.

Cons: You have to learn to use the new interface but it is worth it.

The Bottom Line: 
Great product. User interface is much more organized and lets you have everything you need at first glance. You do not have to dig around for hidden features.

Author's Review
The standard version of Microsoft Office 2007 includes Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint and Word.

The main difference that most users will notice is definitely the user interface. Instead of the usual menus on the top left area of the window, you have what Microsoft calls a ribbon on the top area of the window. A ribbon is a set of buttons and menus with related functionality that are placed together in a large toolbar. So you have a small section on the top with the Undo, Redo, Open File, Save File and other buttons (for Word, Excel and PowerPoint), then you have a strip of tabs such as Home, Insert, and Page Layout. Each tab is associated with a ribbon containing the related buttons. The first time I saw this it just looked so weird and different to what I was used to, but with little time and effort I got used to it and started finding everything faster.

Because you do not have to open menus and small windows to make selections and changes to the layout and other items in the page, it takes a lot less time to make changes and format your document. You also get to see options that you may not even know existed before because they were hidden and you get to format your documents better. And you do not have to open 10 toolbars at the same time to have everything you need close. When you switch to another tab you will have buttons related to the same functionality so you can use them until you are done and then go to another tab if needed. I appreciate the effort that the Microsoft Office team did to improve the interface so dramatically.

Another change is the file extension. It is the same three letters as before with the letter x added (docx, xlsx and pptx). Of course, the file format for this new version is different than other versions but you can download the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats and use Office XP or 2003 to open these new files. You will not get the added functionality available in 2007 but you will be able to view and edit the documents with your version.

I want to mention a couple of great features that have really made my life a lot easier. For instance, in Word, when you go to the Page Layout tab, you can select the margin and orientation of the page right there without having to go to the Page Setup option in the File menu as was done in previous version. And they include options for default margins such as .5 inch for all margins, 1 inch for all margins and others. I love the Narrow one (.5 inch).

In Excel, you can just select your data from the sheet, click the Format as Table button in the Home ribbon and select one of the default formats and you get a beautiful table with alternating row colors, and sorting and filtering menu for each header. Just like that! I used it for a report not long ago and the person I sent the report too was very impressed with all the sorting and filtering because it was so easy to work with and so intuitive. He called me and asked me how I did it. I told him and he was absolutely amazed that the program did that automatically with the click of a button. They also have a Formulas ribbon that includes categories for the Formulas (Financial, Logical, Text, etc.) and you can choose from the sub menus the formula that you need, which makes it easier and a lot faster to create complicated formulas.

In Outlook, I have to give the award to the search feature. You can type something like “from: John” and find all the messages sent by John. And the program searches as you type, which is really nice. The best part is that the search is actually really fast. Before it was incredibly slow. I used Outlook 2003 before and I hated having to do searches because it just took so long. I had to create folders for everything to organize my messages but this was not always practical. Now I may put all the messages together in one place and just do searches when I need to because it would be faster than looking for the right folder and then the message.

In PowerPoint, the Animation ribbon is awesome. It has all the features you need to create the animation all together so you can add all the effects very quickly and configure the other settings right there too. The Design tab has everything you need to set up the page options, background, and color schemes. As with the other programs, having all the buttons you need to work on some specific functionality in the same place just accelerates your work considerably.

I recommend the standard version of Microsoft Office 2007 to anyone who likes to create beautiful, fully functional and impressive documents, presentations and charts quickly and with minimal effort. And if you use email for your work or personal communication, then you need Outlook 2007. All the programs have magnificent interfaces and load faster than the older versions.