Microsoft Office 2007 Professional Edition (Upgrade) (PC) (CD-ROM)

Upgrade doesn't upgrade! I downloaded the free trial version off Microsoft web site and loved it, so I bought the upgrade because I already have office 2003. I installed it, but it didn't take. The trial version still running and the purchased version didn't work. Worse - not only did it tell me that the Outlook upgrade on my purchased CD was not available for me, even though I paid for it, it disabled my existing Outlook program and I had to re-install my old Office 2003 CDs.

MS Office I have been using the Beta version and have been prompted to write my review after reading the other comments. I find all the programs easy to use and much better than their predecessors. All programs are quick to load up. Powerpoint seems much improved though I can't pin down why. Certainly it is much easier to integrate charts into a presentation. Outlook is amazing and I can't live without it. Though not the fault of Microsoft (I guess), integration with AVG's email scanner was not good (I think this may have been fixed by AVG.) I still find Access hard to get my head around, but I have only used basic features. I no longer use excel as I am not a student anymore. I will buy an upgrade if I am entitled (only have Beta version and OEM MS Works so not sure if I am yet) or I will shell out the extra for the full copy. Either way I am definitely going to get a copy.

Slightly buggy and definitely slow, but easier for novices and files ARE a lot smaller I'm using now Office 2007 for two years, and it took me some time to get used to it. Now I wouldn't go back, although there are some things which I still don't like. Whereas Office 03 was only a little different from Office 2000 (really not worth the upgrade), this is a major change. The main change in look and functionality is the tabbed ribbon. Well, I think that this Ribbon thing is an excellent idea for people who did not know Word inside out, as I did. WHAT I DON'T LIKE: It IS slower, as the other reviewer said. No, it's not your impression, I also noticed it. And I have a 2,14 GHerz processor. The reason it is slower is that it sort of "zips" the file. That's why it is so much smaller, and that's why it takes some time to open it, if it has to first unzip it! I suppose you can't have everything, can you? I find it a bit time-consuming to switch among tabs in the Ribbon, when you had all the info neatly arranged in categories with drop-down menus. Now you have to switch back and forth all the time. But, like I said, for people who didn't know about the subtleties and where to find them, it must be a great relief, because once in the right tab, you have everything in front of your eyes. Tables are so easy now for my co-workers who were timid about tables. I knew all the hidden places of everything, and I found it in a jiffy, and now for some things I need two or three clicks instead of one. With the result that I had to clog the customizable bar below the ribbon with all my necessary commands - which are quite a few, if you think that before they took three toolbars and now they have to be squeezed into one! For instance, Open New Blank Document. It's quite laborious if you want to do it "their way". Click on the Microsoft icon, click on New, and then you have a dialog box which has you choose whether you want a document or a spreadsheet or a presentation. What's the use of that? 99% of the times you click "New" from Word, you will want a Word document, otherwise you would open Excel, wouldn't you? There are also some bugs, things not working as they say they will. In the beginning I had quite a lot, now with Service Pack 1 most have gone, but there are still some. The most annoying for me is text styles. I have asked Word repeatedly to modify normal style according to my wishes. I have a black and white laser printer, so I didn't want the default light blue headings, I wanted them black, and I also didn't want all that space between the lines, I wanted the "no spacing" to be Normal default. So I saved my changes clicking on "not only for this document, but for all documents based on this template". Next document, blue headings. Then, thinking I'm very clever, I went and changed "normal.dot", the template document, saved my changes, and went back to a document. Blue headings. GRRR. Not only that, but many times, when I select a text and then click on the "Normal" style, it won't change to normal, it remains as it was. Same when I do Shift+Control+N. Nothing. I have to scroll down the zillion fonts I have on my font list to find the one set for normal, put it there manually. Or sometimes it works when I click "delete formatting" and then ask again for Normal. On a more frivolous side, I don' t like the fact that it only has those boring default colours, which you cannot change: blue, black-grey and light grey. Whereas my classic windows were a gradient between blue and pink, with nice violet hues in between. WHAT I LIKE: I like the calibri font. zoom and unzoom from the toolbar word count from the toolbar (but if you want the details, and I do, because I'm a translator and I am paid by characters, not words, it's much less easy to find them). Office Clipboard is not hidden in a menu, but more ready at hand, as you really want it often. Beautiful new table styles an important thing. This docx format is much much much smaller than regular docs. It's just a pity that it isn't backwards compatible with them. Now, before saving as docx, you have to think: "do I want this document only for myself, or would I want to send it to some friend who doesn't have Office 2007, and wouldn't be able to read it"? Well, of course, in this case you can always save it again as doc and send it to the friend, but it is a nuisance. I'm saving my docs little by little, and I find I'm making space in my hard drive. And there are many many other great features. If only they could fix those annoying bugs. It crashes less than its predecessor. It does crash, even if you're not doing anything wrong (Word 2003 crashed on me often when I used document map, which I always use to navigate between chapters of a book or play which I'm translating). This one crashes more randomly, and the recovery is much better. I surely recommend it for novices. But for old-timers who were completely satisfied with Office 03, it's not essential. I mean, it's fun, but you really don't need to change, so if it will be a big financial sacrifice, you could easily consider not to make it.

For me - not worth the cost of upgrade I've just upgraded to MS Office 2007 Pro. Whilst it probably has some rinky dinky new features, for me, I wish had kept my money in my pocket. After a couple of days of usage I've come to the conclusion that I should very definitely not have upgraded. If it ain't broke, then why did they fix it? On the face of it the programs have been given just a new and annoying user interface with a few new frills. Word is driving me nuts at the moment! All those tried and tested tools have been scattered all over the place and I'm spending a disproportinate amount of time searching for the things I know and love. I'm not sure if it is my computer but Office 2007 seems to be running more slowly than the earlier version I had. In the new Outlook I have to wait for the program to catch me up when I'm typing (I've got a dual processor machine with 4 G/Bytes of RAM!). Maybe I'll get used to this new version of Office but, for the moment, I'm having dark thoughts about Microsoft Office and what I see as the waste of over £200 for the upgrade. There's a lot of truth in the saying 'caveat emptor' and I really am starting to wonder for how much longer I can continue pouring money into the Microsoft coffers. Time for a change I think. I would advise other customers to try before you buy. I dropped a bit of a clanger on this one!