Healthy Living Books Software

Rating: - Happy customer
I'm not big user of office and mainly use it for typing letters and reading documents from work. However compared to office 2003 i find it more user friendly and visually looks a lot better. It does the job and am happy which is why 5/5 -

I don't understand why the low marks that outlook 2007 is not included when if you have windows vista it comes built in windows mail ( which is same as outlook express ) and far better email client then outlook 2007.

Before buying from amazon i search the web to see if i could find better price and by far amazon is lowest by at least 20-30pounds. Super-save delivery took about 4days -

Also had registry issues due to previous office causing problems after uninstall. Microsoft technical support was first class and resolved the issue within minutes.

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Rating: - I dislike Office 2007 and will stick with Office 2003 - but schoolkids can get Office 2007 Enterprise for just over £50
I work at Oxford university and get Office 2007/2003/XP etc.. free via educational licences, but I choose to stay with Office 2003 Professional. As mentioned by other reviewers Office 2007 is a bit of a pain in the positrons compared to just about all other versions of MS Office that keep to the same basic menu and file format. It takes you 5 minutes just to work out how to load a word document with the new interface, gorgeous though it is. I run many networked PCs at home and at work, and casual users who are Office 2003 savvy don't take kindly when this new 2007 interface pops up. Worst still, almost unforgivable even, is that a Professional version of Office 2007 Student is no longer offered, when even secondary school kids need Access and Publisher as part of the GSCE in IT. Plus no Outlook either. So, great software as Excel, Word and PowerPoint is, this loses Office Student two stars in my book. Another downside is that many schools are likely to stay with 2003, making it hard for the kids to adapt to two interfaces and file formats at home and school [for similar reasons all our new Vista PCs have been reformatted back to XP Pro].

However if you have a schoolkid/student in the house and their academic institution [i.e. School or College] is on the participating list, and most will be, you can pick up the full Office Professional 2007 for them for just £45 [incl postage] via any Microsoft educational software partner. With Office Pro you get Access/Publisher/Outlook as well, for about the price of this cut-down Office Home & Student. If the kids might need OneNote as well then go for top of the range Office Enterprise 2007 for just £55 [there's even Wacom 'educational use' graphics stylus/tablets on offer]. Try for instance Microsoft Partner www.Software4Students.co.uk: you just select the school and input your kids name [who must be on the role-call and live at the delivery address], buy the software and the bare CD/wallet appears in the post. The rather natty CD/DVD is emblazoned with Microsoft holograms and the text 'Licensed by student and facility only'. Likewise you can buy your kids the superb Encarta Premium enhanced Student 2009 for just £14 [retail price £49] - it integrates into Office and gives superb homework help [Encarta encyclopaedia, Maths equations, languages and English literature]. Well now children that even makes Office 2007 seem desirable. For the rest of though I'd save the pennies and stick with Office 2003 for the time being, assuming you're lucky enough to own it.

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Rating: - No Good if your Children Use 2003 At School
I got a trial version of this (Fully working) and installed on my daughters computer, and my daughter went mad. They use 2003 at school and when she did her work at home to take into school it wouldn't work. Now you can use 2003 projects in 2007 version and the other way round, you can save your 2007 projects as 2003 projects, but somehow the School version would not open her projects correctly.

Some of the features were a lot nicer in the 2007 version and my daughter did get used to it eventually, but was happy when I put 2003 back on her computer.

Outlook is on the way out for live mail so that isn't a big thing to worry about.
I must admit I prefer open office, which is free. This program needs to be made cheaper, it just isn't worth more than £15, but then Bill Gates is on the greedy side isn't he!

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Rating: - Advanced user's nightmare
I'm writing this review after buying 4 copies for my company. As an advanced user (PowerPoint & Word) I used to give presentations for others on how to use the software to increase productivity.
I'll be short and focussed about my opinions. Firstly, the ribbon interface! It looks very pretty and is a great idea for anyone new to Office. For any advanced user though its a different story. Firstly it cannot be customised (by default), so if you built your own toolbars in earlier versions then you're out of luck. Secondly, and most frustratingly, is where all the icons are positioned. I think Microsoft, desperate to appear to be doing something new, have just randomly mixed up the icons! Luckily the right-mouse button is always as useful and contains the same contents as earlier versions. If you don't believe me, here's a very quick example: In Excel you want to add a new row. You click on INSERT, but there's no mention of it. Instead its under HOME (possible the most ambiguous name possible).
Another niggle is the endless amount of formatting options for emails. Given that Outlook uses its own Word format to code the message, its highly unlikely anyone reading your emails without the same Outlook version won't see anything near as pretty as the one you composed. Come on Microsoft - let's work to web standards please!
And as for the XPS file format... Dear Microsoft, the world uses PDF for read-only formats. Why try to re-invent the wheel and add yet another download for your IT department to deal with?
Once the confusion of the buttons passes, there's not much left to warrant the new release. It's new, it's flashy, but it just doesn't push the boundaries forward in the way that previous versions have done.

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Rating: - Pants
The basic idea behind the continued development of a software product is to improve the usabilty, performance and reliability of a product. To move the product forward. Well, this is the philosophy that I've adhered to in 12 years as a professional software engineer. Perhaps somebody should tip off the project managers and developers at Microsoft. Like Vista, MS Office 2007 is nothing less than an abortion on legs; at total mess. Unlike Vista, there doesn't even seem to be an option to revert to the classic Word/Excel look and feel.

Thinking of buying it? Do yourself a favour and download Star Office; it's 60 quid cheaper and far more intuitive and usable.

Microsoft Office 2007 Home and Student Edition (3 User Licence) (PC)