Healthy Living Books Software

Rating: - Office 2007 Not quick enough
I upgraded from Office 2003 which I use full time at work. Office 2007 programmes have grouped all the same type of functions together which you might ask why has it taken so long to do something so logical. The problems arise when you don't know which group to search in. i.e. to to set the print area in Excel. This makes for a guessing game which can get long winded and frustrating when you're trying to do something quickly and efficiently. Given time of course one will remember where these are hidden but if you don't use Office very much at home this could take a long time. When one wants to send Office 2007 documents and spreadsheets to the office one has to remember to save them in the format that can be read by the programmes at work. In my case that's Offce 2003 so 'Saving As' in Office 2003 format is an extra burden, - more so if you forget! I have removed Office 2007 from my PC and reinstalled Office 2003. I can work faster in Office 2003 and don't miss Office 2007's extras at all. I'm now 'in sync' with how I work at the office and much happier for it. I would be happy to install Office 2007 if/when we use it at work.

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Rating: - If It Ain't Broke....
Luckily (?!) I only paid £17 through Microsoft's HUP (home user program) in conjunction with my employer. To be honest, I still feel like I've lost out after only paying that relatively small amount.

There was nothing wrong with Office 2003; it looked great, the features were brilliant and if you'd used previous versions of Office in the past then you could install and use straight away.

However, Office 2007 is a different kettle of fish entirely. After installation it took me about half an hour to find out how to open a document!

The worst thing, however, is the new docx format. What was the point of that, Microsoft?!

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Rating: - Horrific, why fix something that wasn't broken?
Office 2007 is a disaster. The old offices were easy to use, intuitive and did exactly what you wanted them to.
2007, like Vista has tried and failed to do something that is already being done well.
The new interface is confusing and cluttered, and whilst it looks pretty, it will dumbfound you and leave you lost even for simple tasks such as printing. In my office, a colleague has left his desk because he's new PC has Office 2007 on it, and opted for an older slower PC at a different desk purely on the basis that it has the old office on it.
Do not upgrade, it is not worth it, and will make your life a lot harder!

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Rating: - Very frustrating for existing users
If you've never used Office before and are looking at Home and Student; this is a good price for the package. But if you are upgrading; don't do it.
The pictogram menu system is TOTALLY different to previous versions and immensely frustrating to use. Using Office Home and Student has become a like using Works, as some of the functions (charts in Excel) don't work the same at all and information and properties boxes are very difficult to find. It has bugs ('features') like it defaults to spellchecking in Welsh when you install it for English (UK), and it will wipe out your Outlook Express spellchecker(Microsoft's helpful 'fix' is to tell you to go buy one from someone else).

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Rating: - Simply awful
As a bit of an MS office fan I was looking forward to this. I first came across Word in the DOS days, and loved it. When Word for Windows came out I was amazed. Various versions, from Word 2, Word 95, 97, XP, 2000, and 2003. MS has done well out of me. They did well out of me too with 2007.

This is a six month review. I have tried using the product for six months and today finally gave up in frustration trying to find items in the ribbon. I've finally removed it and gone back to 2003, which is so much easier to use. Until MS bring out an upgrade enabling a "Classic" menu view, then I wont be using it. I'd rather use a WIMP than a WIRP any day.