Product Description

Office Word 2007 helps people create professional-looking documents by presenting a comprehensive set of writing tools in a new user interface. Rich review, commenting, and comparison capabilities help you quickly gather and manage feedback from colleagues. Advanced data integration helps ensure documents stay connected to important sources of business information.

Main Features

Share Your Documents Confidently:

Go Beyond Documents:

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2391 in Software
• Brand: Microsoft
• Model: 059-05442
• Released on: 2007-01-30
• Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows XP
• Format: CD-ROM
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 1.57" h x 5.51" w x 7.87" l, .60 pounds

Features

• Upgrade available on these qualifying applications: Microsoft Access 2000-2002; Microsoft Office Access 2003; Microsoft Works 6.0-10; Microsoft Works Suite 2000-2006 or later; any 2000-2007 Microsoft Office suite; and any Microsoft Office XP suite
• Combines a comprehensive set of writing tools with an easy-to-use interface
• Quickly construct documents from predefined parts and styles; compose and publish blogs directly from within Word
• Add Building Blocks of predefined content and reduce the errors associated with copying and pasting frequently used content; Quick Styles function saves you time by helping you format text and tables throughout your document
• Format your references automatically by selecting a predefined style guide, including APA, MLA, The Chicago Manual of Style, and others

Amazon.com
Microsoft Office Word 2007 is a document authoring program that helps people create and share great-looking documents by combining a comprehensive set of writing tools with an easy-to-use interface. Thanks to a host of new tools, you can quickly construct documents from predefined parts and styles, as well as compose and publish blogs directly from within the Word. Advanced integration with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and new XML-based file formats make Word 2007 the ideal choice for building integrated document management solutions. This version upgrade is available to those who have one of the following qualifying applications: Microsoft Word 2000-2002; Microsoft Office Word 2003; Microsoft Works 6.0-10; Microsoft Works Suite 2000-2006 or later; any 2000-2007 Microsoft Office suite; and any Microsoft Office XP suite.

Use Quick Styles in a Word document to easily choose and apply a new style. View larger.

The new tri-pane review panel of Office Word 2007 enables you to quickly compare or merge two versions of a document and helps identify moved text and tracked changes within tables. View larger.

You can use the Document Inspector to remove comments. View larger.

The new user interface of Office Word 2007 enables you to create documents more quickly than ever because it presents the right tools when you need them. View larger.

Office Word 2007 enables you to digitally sign your documents, so readers know they haven't changed since they left your hands. View larger.

Gather Information, Create Documents, and Communicate Effectively
Rich review, commenting, and comparison capabilities help you quickly gather and manage feedback from colleagues, and advanced data integration ensure documents stay connected to important sources of business information. With Word 2007 you can spend more time writing, less time formatting and communicate more effectively than ever. Initiate, manage, and track document review and approval processes from within Word 2007, and accelerate review cycles across your organization.

New Interface and Tools
Together with a new, streamlined, results-oriented interface, Word 2007 gives you the tools you need to create professional-looking content. You can add Building Blocks of predefined content and reduce the errors associated with copying and pasting frequently used content, while the Quick Styles function saves you time by helping you format text and tables throughout your document. And to make sure you documents are consistent, Document Themes apply the same colors, fonts, and effects.

Professional-Looking Documents
SmartArt diagrams and a new charting engine help you add a professional look to documents, while shared diagramming and charting with Microsoft Office Excel 2007 spreadsheet software and the Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 presentation graphics program help ensure a consistent look across your documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. You can even compose blogs directly from within Word, and complete your blog posts with pictures, rich formatting, spelling checker, and more. When it's time to publish your blogs you can do so directly from Word to many common blog services including Office SharePoint Server 2007, MSN Spaces, Blogger, TypePad, Community Server, and more.

Display Important Information
Word 2007 offers a variety of tools and functions to help you express and display important information. The Equation Builder helps you construct editable, in-line mathematical equations using real mathematical symbols, prebuilt equations, and automatic formatting. Live word count keeps track of the number of words in your document as you type, and is always in view in the new user interface. Typographic capabilities offer improved bulleted and numbered lists, numbered list styles, and new fonts designed to improve on-screen reading.

Add Building Blocks to an Office Word 2007 document to increase efficiency and reduce errors. View larger.

In addition, the Citation Manager and Reference Builder give you the ability to add references, footnotes, endnotes, tables of contents, tables of figures or tables of authorities. To save time, format your references automatically by selecting a predefined style guide, including APA, MLA, The Chicago Manual of Style, and others. There's even a Contextual Spelling Checker that helps you avoid common mistakes and misuse of similarly spelled words.

Editing and Reviewing Tools
Word 2007 provides editing and reviewing tools that help you create professional documents faster than ever before. Live visual previews, predefined style galleries, table formats, and other options are always at your fingertips. To help minimize time wasted re-typing, take advantage of new Building Blocks designed specifically for the addition of frequently used content to your documents. You can even create your own Building Blocks to simplify the addition of custom text, such as legal disclaimer text or other frequently used materials. For that professional touch, select from a predefined gallery of cover pages, pull quotes, headers, and footers.

High-Impact Graphics
Word 2007 helps you communicate more effectively with high-impact graphics. New charting and diagramming features that include 3-D shapes, transparency, drop shadows, and other effects help you create professional-looking graphics that result in more effective documents. Quickly apply a new look and feel to your documents using Quick Styles and Document Themes to change the appearance of text, tables, and graphics throughout your entire document to match your preferred style or color scheme.

Share Your Documents and Content Confidently
With Word 2007, you can share documents with colleagues to gather feedback efficiently. You can also help prevent unwanted distribution of your documents and even remove private comments or hidden text prior to publishing. Additionally, the tri-pane review panel makes it easy to compare and combine two versions of a Word document, so you can detect even the smallest differences when dealing with changes from reviewers.

Participate in Office SharePoint Server 2007
To help make users more efficient when working in a managed environment, participate in Office SharePoint Server 2007 workflows without leaving Word. You can start workflows, interact with workflow tasks, or get information about your documents from the new Document Alert Bar. Managed document repositories can also be accessed from within Word 2007, so you have greater control over document versions. For added peace of mind, information management policies consistently enforce the labeling, auditing, and expiration of documents stored in SharePoint Server 2007 managed document repositories. You can also choose to keep track of your documents with the Document Information Panel which can help add workflow and tracking information directly to your documents. And Word 2007 uses a separate file format (.docm) for macro-enabled documents, so you can quickly tell whether a file is capable of executing any embedded macros.

Keep Your Documents Safe and Secure
Word 2007 offers the Document Inspector feature to help you detect and remove unwanted comments, personally identifiable information, hidden text, or other information from documents so that private information stays that way. You can also add digital signatures to help others verify that content has not been changed since it was published. Another option is to add a new signature line to prompt other Word users for their signature, or to provide a visible digital signature within your documents. Additionally, the Reading Mode offers you an immersive, full-screen reading experience that makes online reading easier, reducing the need to print the document. And because quality editing depends on the ease of viewing text, new navigation controls and typography display improvements make the reading experience better than ever.

Convert Your Word Documents
With Word 2007, you can share documents in Portable Document Format file (PDF) and XML Paper Specification (XPS) format without using third-party tools. XML support facilitates smaller, more robust documents and deep integration with information systems and external data sources. Because Office Open XML Formats are compressed, segmented file formats, they offer a dramatic reduction in file size and help ensure damaged or corrupt files can be easily recovered.

Facilitate Important Business Processes
Word 2007 offers a host of integration points to enable organizations to build powerful solutions that are easy for users to utilize successfully. XML Formats give developers unprecedented access to the contents of your documents, enabling broad interoperability with a wide range of programs and solutions. The Document Information Panel means users enter correct metadata by making it possible for you link document properties to Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services or to other external data sources. Content Controls help you structure the document authoring process by requiring specific types of information or by adding sections of documents that may not be edited or reformatted.

Tools For Developers
Custom-defined schema support of the Office XML Formats enables developers to host their own content within Word documents, using their own custom XML vocabularies. Instead of expensive translations, custom XML content is hosted directly within the file. You can also take advantage of Data Bindings and provide developers with an easy way to link the contents of external data sources and custom-defined schemas to their word documents.

Customer Reviews

A giant leap backwards in user-interface design
Word 2007, some like it, but a very vocal group, one could say a majority, despise it. (just Google "hate word 2007" and you will see)

Unfortunately, I'm in the latter camp.

Having used MS Word back in DOS days, back then it was competing against the then reigning king of desktop word processing, Word Perfect, and gave it a good fight during the early years of Windows-based word processors, eventually winning the fight and driving Word Perfect into virtual obscurity.

I have watched the program undergo some fantastic development, each one better than the previous. Word 95 was remarkable, Word 97 even better, and it got progressively better as it matured and enjoyed a dominant position in the word processing marketplace. Word 2003 ruled the roost.

However, with Word 2007, Microsoft have pulled the unthinkable, and has literally foisted a new interface upon its loyal users under the guise of being "new and improved".

Boasting "new functionality", the ribbon interface appears like eye candy, and much to my disappointment, it is. Perhaps for a novice user or someone who's never touched a word processor before, it might be a pleasant learning curve to get used to the functions. Unfortunately, a vast majority of the Word 2007 users would be unsuspecting Word "loyalists" hoping to get something better than the previous version.

If you're used to keyboard shortcuts to do familiar tasks, or browsing a traditional drop-down menu to find things, you will find the ribbon as a rude shock. What MS has done is a literal "slap in the face" of the existing user-base, as it has changed access to many functions that users were familiar with (either by keyboard shortcuts, macros, even familiar menu buttons) and grouped them in a very confusing interface which seasoned Word aficionados would cuss and swear about trying to find simple things like "print" or "save-as".

Productivity takes a huge hit as a lot of time is wasted hunting for that "delete table" function or other which used to take seconds before. There is no option in the application to revert to classic menus.

To sum it up, I will use the analogy of MS releasing a new car, the "Word 2007 GT", only this time, the steering wheel is replaced by a big control ribbon taking 3 times the space of the old dashboard. It will have pretty pictures showing "Turn left" and "Turn right", and you have to tap your left foot on the foot button 3 times (they have done away with pedals) to get the "Go forward" image to appear, and then double-tap your right foot on the accelerator button to make it move. Going in reverse will require you to hover your hand over the "Go forward" image until the drop down appears showing a "reverse" symbol, which resembles a MS logo. Stopping is a whole new adventure, just nudge the red "X" on the 2nd menu's nested drop-down for "stopping functionality", and hope the car stops before hitting the one in front.

All in all, MS Word 2007 is a giant leap backwards in functionality, simply because they have alienated a massive number of their existing user base by not providing an option for "classic menus".

Back to my car analogy and MS, we want our cars to be consistent with what we've used before. It should have a steering wheel you turn to point in the intended direction. Pedals in the right places that are consistent with every other car you're likely to drive. Why fix what is not broken, Microsoft? Did your development focus group consist mainly of novices and morons?

I'd give this product a 0/5 rating if I could.

What I like: Live preview (e.g. document updates with the font or style you're hovering over). Too few others to mention.

What I don't like: Wasting time trying to find functionality that was literally a click, or a fast keyboard shortcut away. Ribbon interface taking up too much screen real-estate.

What I want: A service pack that brings back classic menus.

This just gets dumber and dumber
Word 2007 is now being forced upon us by it-departments all over the world. It is a complete makeover from the last version. The last version was ok. It was stable and for the most part you could find what you were looking for fairly quickly. Not so with the new version. It is a complte mess. And the program is extremely hard to use without reaching for the mouse all the time. In the ideal word processor, the mouse should be used as little as possible in order to maintain the flow. Alas, we have forever lost the best word processor ever in that respect, Word 2.0c. Now that was a great program. All the bells and whistles you actually needed. No stupid pets. Only took up 5 Mbytes on the hard disk.

Only if you have a spare two hours for installation.
I spent more than an hour and a half with a tech over a static phone line trying to activate this product once it installed. I have used computers since the beginnings and have never been so frustrated trying to install a simple upgrade program. Heavily accented techie and a static phone line make this hardly worth the while regardless of how well the new upgrade performs. Never again.