Microsoft Office Professional 2007 UPGRADE Reviews

• Wait for this upgrade -- Important Things to Know

  
  By A21AOHWYUQ3QEY on 2007-03-28
  Normally I might wait to install a new software upgrade, but I just got a new laptop and thought it would be best to use Office 2007 with the new Vista operating system. I was wrong.
  
  You would expect that a multi-billion dollar company like Microsoft could put out a powerful and bug-free piece of software. But after a month of using Office 2007, you get the distinct impression that this software is not ready for public release. Microsoft should be ashamed.
  
  I don't know the root cause of my problems, but I have to stress that I am running a clean install of Office 2007 on Vista, so there shouldn't be any software conflicts or issues.
  
  So what are my issues? The list is long:
  
  -- My biggest concern is that MS Word constantly hangs and stalls. It can making editing a document very painful. I suspect the problem is when I put images or Visio diagrams into a document. But that is something the old MS Word was able to do without an issue. Oddly, if I have a colleague open the document and save it out in Word 2003, the problem goes away! What?! It's killing my productivity.
  
  -- When ever I cut and paste from an old document, Word hangs for 15 to 20 seconds. And often the formatting and margins in my new document go haywire. I keep having to spend a ton of time fixing things. This never happened in the old Word. This is another time killer.
  
  -- Every few days, Outlook 2007 starts telling me that it cannot display my email folders. Uh oh! I have to completely restart my computer to see my email again.
  
  -- Outlook 2007 breaks many graphic emails that people send -- they look like a mess. It is because Outlook 2007 does NOT render HTML correctly since it uses the Word engine, not Internet Explorer to display email. I have no idea why Microsoft did this, but they have got to fix it.
  
  -- Many of the issues in the old Word 2003 still haven't been fixed. If you place an image, it can often be hard to get it to appear correctly. Why can't they solve this one?
  
  -- While most Office programs have the new ribbon interface (which I like), some programs like Visio 2007 do not. So you have to remember how to use two interfaces. Couldn't Microsoft find the time and money to update ALL its programs? Give me a break.
  
  -- On a few occassions in Visio 2007, my files have failed to save correctly. At first I thought this must have been my fault, but it's happened to me a few times and can't be a coincidence. A few times I've gotten an error message and lost my work. Ug.
  
  -- Word and Excel 2007 use a completely new file format. So anyone you send a document to has to have 2007 installed (which isn't likely the case). To get around this, you can save it down to a 2003 file format, but then you end up with two files on your hard drive -- one in the new format and one in the old format. What a pain! Also, there definitely seems to be an issue with Office 2007 opening older Office 2003 files. Could be the cause of many of my problems, but there is no way I can avoid using old files. They should have worked harder on compatibility.
  
  There are good things about the new 2007. I do like the new interface design and the new features in Outlook 2007 are amazing for organizing tasks and sharing your calendar.
  
  But I don't think it's fair that Microsoft released a product so full of serious, serious bugs that have cost me hours and hours of extra work. I didn't spend hundreds of dollars on a beta product and don't think the public should have to suffer. Surely they can afford to do better!
  
  NEW ADDITION TO MY REVIEW:
  Today I discovered that I can no longer paste Excel charts into Word like I used to. When I try, the chart goes in, but any bars/lines disappear.
  
  
  

• Worth the upgrade

  
  By A37TBVL9EBQP7C on 2007-02-13
  I have been using the Professional version of this software for about 6 months now. The beta version had some bugs but that is why it was a beta. I became fluent in MS Access while I was working in the corporate world and took that knowledge with me when i started my own business. I wish I had had 2007 when I developed all my software tools around MS Access. It would have greatly reduced my development time. The new interface takes a little while to get used to but now it seems second nature to me. I can even confidently do mail merges between apps. That is something I have always had trouble remembering how to do since i don't do it everyday. The only reason it doesn't get a 5 star rating is that I think the upgrade price is a little steep.
  
  

• Is this the end of Microsoft Bloatware?

  
  By A2LLTV9E3S8S5D on 2007-01-31
  I hate this new version! For years I've been able feel smug and superior by criticizing just how bloated and clumsy to use Office became in the late 1990s. For me, it was a textbook case in how not to make a user interface, particularly the many steps it took to change a style. "Heck," I'd tell people, "even InDesign with its incredible 26 palettes and dozens of pull-down menus is easier to use."
  
  Now I can gloat no more. By all accounts, Microsoft has cleaned up the interface wonderfully, with PC Magazine reporting, "Once you get past the few minutes needed to navigate the new Ribbon interface, you'll wonder why Microsoft waited so long to get so many things right."
  
  Now my only gripe is that I have to wait until fall for the Mac version.
  
  --Mike Perry, author of Untangling Tolkien
  
  

• Comprehensive - But Maybe Too Much So

  
  By A20S4G1EXF2OM7 on 2007-08-14
  I needed to get a copies of Access and Publisher for my new laptop which was running 2003 Office Standard. After Googling around a bit I determined that Office Professional would give me these plus the upgraded to 2007 Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook applications with a host of other features including Business Contact Manager for about the same cost. The install was reasonably painless and the software activated and registered without any problems - not always the case with Microsoft but this time they seemed to get it right. After using the applications for a couple of weeks I am still trying to get used to the "Ribbon Bar" which is markedly different, somewhat intuitive and decidedly more comprehensive. The applications take longer to initialize and Outlook has become painfully slower but works. I am running it on a Sony SZ230P with Intel Centrino Duo T2400 1.83 GHz running XP Pro with 2 gigs of RAM so maybe it is underpowered. I did uninstall the desktop search agent which seemed to make the system more sluggish and have now improved performance a bit. I am reasonably proficient in the Office applications but probably only use 5-10% of the functionality embedded - but I carry the overhead on the system which, I believe, bogs the system down overall. Would be nice if MS would allow the configuration of various levels of sophistication during the install process depending on the needs of the user. In summary, I will continue to use the Suite and become more proficient in using the "Ribbon Bars" and hoping that MS will issue some upgrades that speed up the system overall until I can afford to upgrade the laptop to a faster processor.
  
  

• Not worth a penny!!!

  
  By A3SBRJS9U7Y3C on 2007-02-11
  MS Office 2007 is the worst Microsoft product ever develpoed. I would like to use Excel 2007 as an example to explain my point of view:
  
  1) The so-called "Ribbon" is so tall that it occupies almost a quarter of my notebook screen, further more, you get status bar and task bar, NOT MUCH SPACE LEFT for you to work in. The thumnail in the ribbon is not nearly as nice as those pop-up windows in older versions.
  
  2) When you try to change a line style in a graph, this version update the entire screen instead of a sample-view in the pop-up window, thus, comsuming a lot of CPU power and slows down computer tremendously. You really need to upgrade your hardware to run office 2007.
  
  3) If you have multiple data sets (say 10 sets) in a graph and you want to change the data range, you'll find that it's a big headache to do so in version 2007, because you have to pop up new windows 10 times instead of once in older version.
  
  4) When open my old Excel files in this version, all VBA codes got lost.
  
  5) Overall, the Office 2007 has a new look but much worse performance. I would not spend a penny for this junk!!!
  
  
• Office 2007 - big mistake
  By A5A2DU8TV9SME on 2007-04-11
  I excitedly upgraded to Office 2007....'07 Outlook is FAR slower - ties my reasonably powerful machine up in knots (110% of resources) for minutes at a time inexplicably; spell ck doesn't work consistently; HTML emails have lost functionality I used to use often with 2003 ver; Excel opens MUCH more slowly; no real gains in Excel fuctionality; various add-ins essential to my biz no longer work in Excel 2007; Access 2007 was billed as much easier to use - FALSE; Word has a couple of improvements but messes up spell ck with Outlook if you keep both Word 2003 & 2007 on yr machine; the highly touted "Ribbon" is mainly cosmetic; I believe 2007's indexing is at the heart of some of sluggisness which might be ok if it worked..but it retruns strange results....NET, NET, I am uninstalling Office 2007 and going back to 2003 with all its stupid faults....it's too bad no one at MSFT actually uses thier products to realize how defective they are.
  
  
• Business Contact Manager is Great!
  By A1F4AA1PEIFWG9 on 2007-02-01
  This version of Office is truely a time saver and a productivity tool. No more ACT!ing up for me or SalesHorceing around. Business Contact Manager is for anyone that needs to manager a large number of contacts and opportunities with those contacts. Awesome job on the interface from someone that was very, very cynical about whether this product would be a true inprovement. I am now going to recommended it to the rest of my staff.
  
  
• UGH!! Get it away from me!!!
  By A2PJBD6714GSCB on 2007-02-21
  1 star is far too high for this junk.
  
  I installed it this morning. The screens were blurry and hard to read. I used to be able to read my email from halfway across the room. Now I have to squint and get up close. Everything is low contrast, the fonts are blurry, the menus are byzantine at best. From an useability standpoint we were better off with WORDSTAR. After a few painful hours trying to figure out how too make the software minimally useable I've uninstalled it and am reinstalling 2003. Even if I lose all my settings and old emails, it will be worth it. Heck, it would be worth it to roll all the way back to DOS to avoid this ill-conceived piece of junk.
  
  For the record, I've got a high-powered machine with dual high quality monitors, this isn't a hardware issue. If I display Office 2007 on the right monitor and something else on the left, I can easily read the left monitor, but not the stuff from Office on the right. This happens even when the fonts are smaller on the left monitor.
  
  
• Steep learning curve
  By A11U94FL7VAZF4 on 2007-07-04
  I deeply regret Microsoft Office Professional 2007 UPGRADEupgrade. The new ribbon means that I have to completely relearn commands that I have used effortlessly for years. Some users find the ribbon to be intuitive; to me it is cluttered and obscure. It has become a game in my office, when we are searching the first time for a command, to see whose guess will lead us to the hidden treasure. Unfortunately, in our intensely busy, deadline-driven office, we don't have time for this.
  
  Especially disappointing is the lame Help, which I have finally abandoned. I've had to resort to Google-searches for the commands I need.
  
  The only way I have been able to get any work done in Word or Excel is through the prior version's keystroke commands, which are still built in. But you have to know the entire series of keystrokes.
  
  I feel betrayed by Microsoft. Such a sudden and dramatic change with so little support for users of prior versions has slowed my work to a crawl.
  
  You would probably like Office 2007 if you are new to Office, if you tend to use just the basics or if you really like exploring new software. If you have invested a lot in using prior versions and just want to get your work done, be prepared to lose a lot of time. Either way, I strongly recommend downloading a trial version before buying it.
  
  
  
• Excellent Upgrade
  By A274U619ZC3X0M on 2007-06-01
  Good or not, office, particularly word is installed on about 90% of all desktops. Word, Excel, Outlook, and Powerpoint have become the standard.
  Having said that, Office 2007 is really an excellent upgrade.
  For the first time, in Word, i find the options that i need to do my job.
  The "ribbon" after a day or two is a big step forward.
  The graphics, and the resizing of pictures and all images are excellent.
  I am now moving beyond just producing document, and now producing really good looking documents.
  Office 2007 stability has been good, no significant bugs.
  This is a good product upgrade. And i guess $250 after five years of Office 2003 is reasonable.
  Office 2007 is even easy to install.
  I like this product.
  
  
• MS Office pro 2007
  By AZD9KHWGEIA2D on 2007-03-08
  The upmost change I have seen in many years from MS. The change caught most workers off guard and it will take some time to learn the programs again and the office production will suffer to this regard. Also we need to exchange docs between clients and our firm that have not upgraded.They can not read the word docs unless you save them down to an older virsion.The native version of Word 2007 does not allow older versions to view or open. This also did not sit well with clients that we have sent marketing material docs.to review and could not open them until we saved them down to Word 97. Then wasting time and cost to do the job again.
  DE Lundquist
  President
  LGI
  
  
• Great 2007
  By A2Y6TH1CRCVYS5 on 2007-02-02
  I had this for a month and it has been really useful you can save documents with passwords and much more.
  
  
• New is better?
  By A1IMZF6QC5EYVB on 2007-04-06
  As with any upgrade or new program, things do not always get better. Biggest problem, trying to find features you were used to for many years with previous programs. I find two issues disturbing. When closing a document in Word, the whole program stops, whereas you do the same in Excel, yo get an empty screen and can open a new file, while being in the program. In Word, every time you close a document you have to start up the Word program if you want to look for another file. Time consuming! Also, in Excel you are able to save a document in previous versions. In Word it does not have that option, if you want to save a file from i.e. Outlook in another folder than available in Outlook. In the new version you get all files twice in a directory (folder), because it also keeps all the Word features for each document in a separate folder. Too much! Since I use Outlook and Word more than any other programs, I find the above issues a handicap. This besides trying to learn where all the new features are, which are supposedly easier to find. Might be true once you get used to it.
  
  
• Great product
  By A28HV0B1T6HG1R on 2007-02-07
  Much improved and beautiful interface, great new features, easy update. (How can a company like Microsoft release such a great product and, at the same time, release a lemon like Vista?)
  
  
• Worth the upgrade--for some
  By A2Q5A25SHENTTX on 2007-02-14
  I run a boutique IT firm and this is a significant improvement over 2003 IF you run high powered computers with large screens. I really like 2007 and have been using the beta for about 6 months. However, I am sticking with 2003 on my ultra portable notebooks since without a big screen the ribbon isn't useful.
  
  
• Worthwhile upgrade
  By A1Z9N4UIO9PVOB on 2007-04-05
  If you use Office for basic word processing, an upgrade might not be worthwhile for you (although real-time word count and contextual spell check are pretty nifty). On the other hand, if you use Office for more than typing documents, this product is definitely a must.
  
  Pros:
  -- more user friendly
  -- Ribbon interface provides quicker and more efficient access to icons that were previously difficult to find (if you don't like the ribbon, F1 will make it disappear)
  -- Excel offers millions of colors now (instead of just 53); transparency in bars and lines for charts/graphs; WAY more rows and columns.
  -- Numerous new collaboration features. Seemless integration with Sharepoint and improved document-sharing capabilities.
  -- improved search features in Outlook.
  
  Cons:
  -- steep learning curve. The ribbon interface is cool and a major improvement, but it is very different from the old menu interface.
  
  --You probalby would not be researching a Microsoft product if you prefer open-source or less expensive alternatives like StarOffice or OpenOffice. Cost, openness, and potential security flaws (probably just a matter of time) could be potential drawbacks.
  
  
• Upgrade to Office 2007
  By AUIB048IM0Z5D on 2007-06-07
  Had a questionable office 2003 installation I had goten through an Ebay vendor and wanted to get firmly legit. It is actually cheaper to upgrade to 2007 then go and get 2003 - especially if you go the upgrade route as I did.
  
  The upgrade on Microsoft says any old package (includeing Works 6 and forward) will qualify. Someone in India said it would not, but pre-sales in the US said yes. They were right, you simply need the qualifying application on you machine OR an old Works or other qualifying disk will do. You simply point to it during the install.
  
  So far, it is all working good (including contact manager). Have not really tested many of the new features yet.
  
  As other reviewers have mentioned, Word and Excel create a new file format that cannot be accessed by older versions (2003 and earlier) unless the would-be user downloads a microsoft downloaded conversion program. It is easier to just save in the old format if you are going to share the worksheet or document.
  
  
  
• Dumbed-down, slower, and harder to use
  By A2MYTY15IFSP3G on 2007-07-29
  The new ribbon design is supposed to make it easier to learn and use. It may be for some new users but for experienced users, it isn't. This version takes away some critical nuts & bolts customization features and many tasks now take longer to perform. This is not due to the learning curve, it is the inherent nature of the way the ribbon works. Once you are familiar with the program, nothing is faster than the old menu structure. If Microsoft added an option to allow users to choose between menus and ribbons, it would be the best of both worlds, satisfying the needs of both new and experienced users. The new version does not run macros as fast however. My recommedation for existing users: keep Office 2003 for as long as you can and consider going to Open Office when Microsoft no longer supports 2003 (unless they restore the functionality in a newer release of 2007).
  
  
• I like it
  By A2F84A4GKI35XE on 2007-03-22
  I got my upgrade from Amazon for $280. And while it's a little expensive, it is a suite, not just one program. The changes are great, once you get used to them. If you are a long time user of MS Office, you're in for a shock. The entire GUI has changed. All the menus are gone and you have a bunch of buttons along the top seperated by tabs. The shock wears off after a few weeks once you figure out where everything is at. The reason I don't give it full stars is that there was little documentation to cover the changes for someone used to the old style. I was on my own to learn the changes.
  
  
• Try it for free... Excel 2007 has two plusses, but many minuses
  By A2B9AHC16F7B4M on 2007-04-19
  You can try this for free for up to 60 days by registering with Microsoft and downloading an evaluation copy. When you're sure you want it, permanently activate it with the product key you get in your Amazon package.
  
  The new version of Excel has two huge advantages:
  
  1. It removes the old 256 column/65,536 row limitation. You can now have 16,384 columns and more than a million rows.
  
  2. Excel 2007 can use all the cores/processors in your computer (or you can restrict it to use only some, so huge background calculations do not tie up your machine). On my dual core computer, Excel 2007 is **way** faster than 2003 at almost every task.
  
  I've seen no crashes, hangs, or hiccups.
  
  But everything else about Excel 2007 is frustrating. The new "ribbon" interface is unnecessary and awkward -- almost every operation takes more pointing and clicking than older releases. Bypassing the ribbon with the new "Quick Access Toolbar" is problematic because (bizarrely) Microsoft has deleted many distinctive command icons, leaving them with identical green circles.
  
  Right now Excel 2003 costs more than Excel 2007. If the two plusses don't help you, you may think that 2003 is worth more.
  
  
• Office For Dummies - Not To Be Confused With The Book
  By AQX4UGN1E6N5 on 2007-05-22
  I have used nearly every version of Microsoft Office since 1994. So, I looked forward to using Office 2007. To say the least I was disappointed. I feel that this product is aimed at novice or weak users who might feel more at home using a product like Microsoft Works or perhaps the "Home" version rather than a professional product version. I suppose that its new "ribbon" interface would be of some value to new users of Office who might not have much previous experience with the product. However, I'll bet that after a bit of use the "ribbon" will become as tiresome as it became to me.
  
  From my point-of-view, I had a number of problems with the product.
  
  1. The old "File" functions (Save, Open, etc.) are hidden until you click on a non-descript icon. Why not have "File" option on the menu bar? If the term "File" is too passe then at least call it something.
  
  2. Each one of the new "ribbons" is loaded with stuff that is seldom used by most Office users. And, in so doing, these always take up an excessive amount of screen space. I didn't like that I had to click on each of the menu choices to drop down the corresponding "ribbon". These were not organized in the manner I was used to and I didn't know where some things were that I often use. In previous versions just moving the mouse pointer over the menu item dropped the corresponding list of functions. Maybe there is an option for this buried somewhere to do this but it couldn't be found if so.
  
  3. The installation default for the ribbon is to disappear after one function is performed. I found this very frustrating. At last I found an option that would retain the "ribbon" after each use but then I was stuck with it until I turned the option off. The old pre-defined (but customizable) toolbars, which usually take up less space, are gone. Yes, you can make an optional custom toolbar as well. However, you can do the same in previous versions without the "ribbons" clutter.
  
  4. There is no option to revert this "ribbon" setup to the Office 2003 menu / toolbar setup. (I'll bet that there will be one in the next release or two).
  
  5. There are very few new capabilities in this product for most mortal Office users.
  
  In short, I recommend that you find a version of Office 2003 rather than buy this one. If you already have Office 2003, save your money.
  
  
• Office Professional 2007
  By A3LXPHQ168U1CQ on 2007-06-10
  I have upgraded my office product every time Microsoft has provided an update... this is the first time I am regretting that choice. I like and use all of the suites in MS Professional, I am completely frustrated with all of the changes to the tool bar in Office. It took me 1 day to learn to print and save a document in Word. I may actually have to read the instruction manual after being an Office user for over 15 years. Ridiculous!
  
  
• The Best Version Yet and Worth the Price of Admission
  By A32ONKG37ERUTU on 2007-06-26
  I like the changes MS has made, it is quite a bit more user friendly, the enhancements for a small business with a business process integration approach is fantastic. First time I really felt that I was working with an integrated package capitalizing on the strengths of the different programs, Word for correspondence, Publisher for marketing materials, excel for performance measurement, etc.. The new version has opened up different ways to approach using the tools efficiently.
  
  The transition went relatively smooth albeit I did look around a bit to find the normal things I use but after a few days I was up and running pretty much like normal. As a heavy Excel user I really like the improvements made with the conditional formatting and pivot improvements and presentation/report quality has significantly improved. The improvements to Outlook are also very beneficial from a task management standpoint, improvements to flag options and task color coding along with being able to customize search folders for easy mail retrieval has decreased the amount of time I have spent coordinating activities, that alone was worth the price of the upgrade. PowerPoint seems to be about the same but I do like the template that is formatted with a 16:9 "widescreen" aspect ratio.
  
  If you are wondering how well it works going back and forth with MS Office 2003, I have not had any issues yet, there is a compatibility mode you can work and save in to go backwards to 2003, you lose some of the enhancement functionality when you save as a 2003 file but I haven't run into any show stoppers yet but I suspect it will only be a matter of time until I receive an e-mail stating that they could not open a file. I guess as technology advances we are always going to have that problem. I hope this review was helpful and have a smooth transition if you decide to migrate to the new version.
  
  By the way, I am not a Microsoft employee or affiliated with them in any way.
  
  All in all I am very happy with the improvements and felt the upgrade price, fairly cheap actually, was well worth it.
  
  
  
• Worked great....even with TRIAL Versions of the software installed
  By A3SKJR85RGGZG7 on 2007-06-26
  Suffice to say IMO this is the best version of OFFICE in years....the improvements to OUTLOOK 2007 make it more than worth it.
  
  Save yourself some money and install the FREE TRIAL Versions available directly from Microsoft for testing....then apply the upgrade....
  
  I personally love it.
  
  I have had ZERO problems installing and using it....but I must note I am using a brand new ATHLON X2 6000+ Build with all new hardware so it was a near virgin machine to install on.
  
  
• Worth the upgrade
  By A18SHG99Z4FI1J on 2007-07-15
  This was $270 well-spent. Some impressions after my first day of use.
  
  THE RIBBON. I actually like it. But I am a heavy Office user who recognises button icons easily. Less experienced users might need more time to adjust. However you view it, these context sensitive menus are the only way forward to dealing with complex menu structures. For the menu buttons I really need to hang on to there is the bypass of sticking them in the title bar of the window (object alignment and distribution in PPT for example, "send-to-back" in PPT)
  
  EXCEL. Finally, "unlimited" amount of columns: EXCELLENT. Professional color templates (similar to those in PPT) now for use inside worksheets AND graphs. GREAT. The ribbon includes some useful buttons that in 2003 required a menu deep dive (wrap-text-in-cell, allign-cell-top-not-bottom for example)
  
  POWER POINT. I love the new drop shadows and image manipulation functions. A shame that many of my clients do not have 2007 installed yet... Not many people write about this, but the color palette functions are a BIG improvement over 2003. Each palette color now comes in a number of intensity shadings, very useful.
  
  OUTLOOK. I have not noticed much difference except for a nicer looking user interface.
  
  PERFORMANCE. My 2002 P4 with 768MB is suffering some performance reduction. I am planning to upgrade to a new system soon, but in the mean time I switched off the format previews in Power Point.
  
  UPDATE SEPTEMBER 2008 additional observations:
  
  Much improved color management. Once you have defined your color schema, PowerPoint makes it very easy to apply intensity levels of the same color in your presentation
  
  Adding a monochrome color overlay to images
  Sophisticated drop shadows. There are many useless graphical effects in PowerPoint (Microsoft had a look at Adobe products), the drop shadow is the one I actually use
  
  3D text rotation. In a later post I will explain how to stick a 3D logo/text on an image (update: here it is), PowerPoint has a more basic function now that more or less does the same
  PDF conversion plug, one that is free, and better than Adobe Acrobat (see this post)
  
  Smaller file size
  
  Much improved editing of data charts, fully compatible with Excel. Creating beautiful, simple and clean data charts used to require a lot of "hacks" in 2003. It's not perfect in PowerPoint 2007, but a lot better.
  The proportion of tip of an arrow does not change anymore when you re-size the object
  
  The selection pane tool that allows you to edit charts with many overlapping objects, without having to send them to the back all the time.
  
  
• Experiences with Office 2007
  By A1BZBQ7767WWNG on 2007-07-26
  I am finding the learning curve from previous versions of Office to Office 2007 to be very difficult. I should mention that I have not been a heavy user of the individual pieces over the years,just as needed for business support. However, with previous versions I had become accustommed to where to find needed functions from the menus. With the change to ribbons I cannot seem to find much of anything with any consistency. I find that the fucntionalities that I normally use seem harder to find, and from one session to another, I can't seem to remember what I had to do to get there the last time. At this point I feel I would gladly trade 2007 for the previous version if I knew it would run without problems on Vista (and be supported for as long as 2007). I find View and Insert to be particularly annoying. I do a lot of work where I make a copy of a document and change the header/footer to refelect a new period. The only way I have found I can do this is go to the Insert ribbon, choose Header/Footer (which in Excel tells me I have to lose my freeze panes). Then, after I make my changes I have to go to View and select Normal to get out of the Header/Footer view.
  I don't personally as yet see the great advantage to ribbons vs. menus. It just seems to add another layer tothe things I use. Hopefully I will learn to use before they change it again.
  
  
• Few new features for the price of the upgrade
  By AF2VR25VDY91F on 2007-07-29
  Product By Product
  
  Outlook - rehashed 2003 version cleaner looking some features are better for power users - day to day - I don't see the benifit. I continue to get better results searching Outlokk emails with Google Desktop than with the built in search in Outlook - why does MS have such a hard time with this? There is still the quirky seperate email adress book seperate from contacts. MS needs to integrate them in such a way the email adresses are gleened from the contact list and added to inline complete without the need for sending an initial email to the contact, at which point Outlook adds the email address (not the contact) to some mystery location that shows it sell when you are using auto complete.
  
  Excell - Very nice upgrade especially for conditional formatting - updating data from the internet is much smoother and easier to maintain than in 2003. Better. If you are a power user - this is essential.
  
  Access - same old program different face - since 2000 I might add.
  
  Powerpoint - pretty much the same - but I must admit I rarely use this program
  
  Word - I enjoy a lot of the new features - getting used to the ribbon was a hard concept - I was very used to the menu system. - Once you are used to it the ribbon IS intuitive and makes using word more like a graphics program.
  
  Publisher - I have always used publisher (although I have the feeling that Adobe has more than one program that can do a better job than this one) There are just a handfull of upgrades such as reformatting an entiredocuments theme smoothly that I like - once again I do not use this program often enough to tell you to base a decision on my review of publisher alone.
  
  Accounting Express - ugggg - Quickbooks is the only way to go for me - this looks like a lame attemt for MS to piggyback (way too late I might add) on the sucess of this program...If you are using Quicken or Quickbooks at this time - stick with it - if you are a pioneer and want to trudge through the learning curve with Microsoft - well good luck.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Crash, Lose Work, Repeat...
  By A1OA071B0IECRV on 2007-03-06
  You've gotta love Microsoft. They must spend more time protecting their monopoly than preparing their products properly before release. I have the hardware to run this suite and I installed it on a clean Win XP SP2 system. All patches and updates are current.
  
  Excel crashes constantly and I lose all my work (in spite of setting up to auto-save every 2 minutes). It wastes a lot of time. The number of "error reports" that my machine automatically sends every time Office encounters an problem must be huge. Here's an error report, Microsoft: If its BROKE, don't ship it!
  
  
  
• The Ribbon is cool
  By A21UA38YLSMB0K on 2007-06-26
  As a long time Office user, it was an easy transistion to Office2007. The big attaction was the ribbon. It puts tools for a task right in front of you. And these tools change as the document changes depending upon what you are doing. It does add some cool formating and other features not found in the previous version, but the real reason to upgrade is useabliity. I have found it to be useful. Could you do without it? Sure, upgrading just makes life a little easier.
  
  
• Exceed expectations and great features
  By A33RVIDTZ7ZXYX on 2007-02-06
  The Microsoft Office Professional 2007 Upgrade was well worth the money, and of course cheaper than you can purchase at a store. I especially like the upgrades to the microsoft outlook and word; however, I haven't found a feature to stump me and I refuse to read directions.
  
  Great functionality and enourmous upgrades to professionalize your documents, and easy to covert.
  
  

• Special Edition Using Microsoft Office 2007 (Special Edition Using)
• 2007 Microsoft® Office System Inside Out
• PC World
• The Neat Company NeatScan To Office Scans to Excel Outlook Word and PowerPoint (White)
• Microsoft Office 2007 Spanish Language Pack

• Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate UPGRADE [DVD] [OLD VERSION]
• Special Edition Using Microsoft Office 2007 (Special Edition Using)
• Microsoft OneNote 2007
• Microsoft Office Professional 2007 FULL VERSION
• Microsoft Office Standard 2007 UPGRADE