Healthy Living Books Software

Rating: - No advantage over Office 2003. Difficult interface
As a business user I don't really have anything good to say about Office 2007. The new interface now requires 3-4 mouse clicks where 2-3 were needed previously. Many of the keyboard shortcuts no longer work or don't work the way they used to (I don't use the mouse very often). It's not possible to customise the menu structure to any extent as Microsoft have imposed the "ribbon" structure with it's fixed content.

Many of the highlight colours just don't stand out e.g. highlighting text is pink on a white background but highlighted buttons are a sort of yellow colour. There are also only 3 colour schemes available, blue, silver or black. None is particularly attractive and none is particularly clear. Differentiating between several windows often not easy because they are all similar colours.

As a heavy office user, I found the new version of office restrictive and un-instinctive, as if Microsoft have told me how i will work and what commands I will have easily available instead of me being able to select my own. Oh, and you can't even customise a macro button image now! Instead you have to use the ones provided which are an anonymous bunch at best.

you are restricted to a single row of custom buttons - the "quick access toolbar" but if you want the traditional icons on the bar (font, size, style) then you can only fit another 10 or so on the bar - which is restricted to a single line only. when visible, the ribbon occupies a massive amount of space (about 30mm of vertical height) thus restricting the amount of text that can be seen. There appears to be no option to relocate the ribbon, it's always along the top. Hiding the ribbon then needs a double click to bring it back.

I am struggling to express how frustrating I find this software. I am currently in the process of requesting a refund from MS and going back to Office 2003. Note that I can't find anything that 2007 does which 2003 didn't already do for me.

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Rating: - Stay with the previous version or waste a lot of time
As a business user I don't really have anything good to say about Office 2007. The new interface now requires 3-4 mouse clicks where 2-3 were needed previously. Many of the keyboard shortcuts no longer work or don't work the way they used to (I don't use the mouse very often). It's not possible to customise the menu structure to any extent as Microsoft have imposed the "ribbon" structure with it's fixed content.

Many of the highlight colours just don't stand out e.g. highlighting text is pink on a white background but highlighted buttons are a sort of yellow colour. There are also only 3 colour schemes available, blue, silver or black. None is particularly attractive and none is particularly clear. Differentiating between several windows often not easy because they are all similar colours.

As a heavy office user, I found the new version of office restrictive and un-instinctive, as if Microsoft have told me how i will work and what commands I will have easily available instead of me being able to select my own. Oh, and you can't even customise a macro button image now! Instead you have to use the ones provided which are an anonymous bunch at best.

you are restricted to a single row of custom buttons - the "quick access toolbar" but if you want the traditional icons on the bar (font, size, style) then you can only fit another 10 or so on the bar - which is restricted to a single line only. when visible, the ribbon occupies a massive amount of space (about 30mm of vertical height) thus restricting the amount of text that can be seen. There appears to be no option to relocate the ribbon, it's always along the top. Hiding the ribbon then needs a double click to bring it back.

I am struggling to express how frustrating I find this software. I am currently in the process of requesting a refund from MS and going back to Office 2003. Note that I can't find anything that 2007 does which 2003 didn't already do for me.

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Rating: - Disappointing - an opportunity lost
The previos version of office was excellent. Stable and easy to use, compatible with most things and did 99% of anything you ever wanted. If you have the previous version then STAY WITH IT AS LONG AS POSSIBLE is my advice. Word 2007 is a really annoying product. Many things which could have been done in one click previously now take 2 or 3 clicks to achieve the same effect. There are a limited number of colour "schemes" silver, blue or black. They're all pretty grim with low contrast icons. Oh, yes, and the traditional File>Edit>View>Insert etc menu bar has been replaced with tabs Home>Insert>Page Layout>References>Mailings etc. The problem being that there is no backwards compatible mode and many keyboard shortcuts now work differently. This is an extreme irritation in itself. The one customisable feature is the "ribbon" but this only gives you a single strip of commonly used icons. Oh, yes, and you can't customise macro button images either. This is one of the worst "upgrades" I've ever seen and a great case of changing things for the sake of change. Microsloth's much vaunted improvements are, in fact, a giant leap backwards. Oh, and if you want the tabs visible, then they occupy a huge chunk of the screen. On my laptop this leaves about 3" (75mm) of visible space for actually writing. The change in file format is also a pain.

The menu complaints also apply to Excel, Powerpoint and Outlook. Office 2007 is so bad that I'm now evaluating alternative software such as Ability Office and Star office instead.

Office 2007 gets 2 stars because at least it's stable, otherwise this would be 1 star.

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Rating: - A great step forward...
Don't listen to the usual army of doomsayers and Microsoft bashers. This IS a great improvement on earlier versions of the popular Office product. Other than the lack of a new version of Outlook (in the home/student edition), this is a slick, visually impressive and versitile suite of software that no one should be without. Forget the old versions and the clunky free, open products. This is the real thing - and with Vista, its a dream.

It is licensed for up to 3 PC's and will update earlier versions or install from new. Great value too!

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Rating: - Good product but shop around...
I took out a 60 day trial of this product and was impressed with the strides forward that have been made in Excel, Outlook, Powerpoint, and Word since 2003. The overall look to the above four programmes is clearer and more pleasing on the eye than the 2003 version.

The Document Recovery Tool in Word is probably the most useful of the newer features, and gets rid of that old fear of losing documents and not being able to retrieve them. The Document Inspection Tool in Word comes a very close second though and allows you to edit documents for personal details etc.
Outlook features improved anti Spam measures and a useful To Do Bar which can be a very effective diary/calendar and can be utilised while reading or writing email.

I bought a Full Standard Version Disk rather than just activating my trial version on the Microsoft website. Using the Activation code on the box, I was able to activate my Trial Version without having to install the version on the disk. My recommendation is to trial the product first of all and for that you can get your 60 day free trial from the Microsoft website.
After the trial period has elapsed or just before, I would then shop around and purchase a Full Standard Version Disk rather than just activate it from Microsoft and pay the fee for that. Why? Prices tend to start around the £300 mark for these disks. By shopping around, I was able to pick up a new Standard Office 2007 Disk for just over £100.