Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 21-25 of 39
 Open Office is free -- get it instead September 16, 2007
Plextorized (USA, defenders of freedom the world over)
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
openoffice dot org
OpenOffice: open source "equivalent"
All the power 90% of you people need, and zero cost. TINY download. SMALL space consumption on drive. EVEN a portable version. Can open and save Microsloth documents
FREE. no licensing hassles. no demonic EULA.
Warning! Avoid at All Costs! May 24, 2008
Revival Student (United States)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I recently bought a new laptop, and the changeover involved an "upgrade" to Office 2007. I was aware that there was a new user interface, but was not aware that Office 2007 is, in almost every respect, an INFERIOR product to any Office version that came before it!
I have used MS Office for many years, and am what could be called a "power user," especially for Word and Powerpoint, which I use weekly.
One of the great features of Office is that it has been totally customizable. For those who use office frequently, it has been easy to create your own custom toolbars so you have what you need easily available. Most tasks could be done with one or two mouse clicks... Until Office 2007!
In Office 2007, hardly anything is customizable! You have a constantly changing tool ribbon, which takes up a lot of screen real estate.
The ribbon presents a set of icons based on what it "thinks" you will need at the moment. It is rarely right! ... so you go searching through the tabs trying to find the icon that was on the ribbon a few moments earlier! There is one small "tool bar" up on the title bar that you CAN customize, but it is not convenient, and will not hold many icons. It has the option of being moved below the ribbon, which takes up even more screen real estate, but is still very limited, and cannot be docked or moved from there.
Granted, there are third party programs, such as Ribbon Customizer and Toolbar Toggle, that add back some of the ability to customize, but it is still far inferior to what Office users are used to!
Even the third party programs, however, cannot get around the fact that there are some features in earlier Office versions that are simply NOT included in the new one. In previous versions of Powerpoint, you could add a set of icons that, with one mouse click, allowed you to adjust the vertical spacing of text. That has been omitted in 2007. In the "improved" 2007 version, you must open a dialog box, and make several mouse clicks to adjust vertical spacing!
To make matters worse, Office 2007 documents are not compatible with earlier versions. After spending years establishing formats such as .doc and .ppt as industry standards, Microsoft has introduced a version of office that does not use these formats! If you want to send a document to someone who still has Office 2003 (or any other program that reads .doc files) you need to remember to save it in that format. The default 2007 format cannot be opened by earlier versions!
Office 2007 CAN open the older formats, but even in opening earlier Office formats, there are problems. For example, most users of Powerpoint have learned the trick of adding drop shadows behind the text to make the text stand out on the screen. Office 2007 has changed the way these shadows are formed. When you open a powerpoint presentation made on an earlier version, your old drop shadows WILL NOT ANIMATE with the text. When a slide appears, the shadows of the letters are already in place, and the letters animate in on top! Mircosoft's only suggestion... go through your slides and take the old shadows out, and put new shadows in! (I tried this... it takes 30-40 minutes per presentation! ...And I have hundreds of powerpoint presentations in my file!)
For someone who never used Office before, or who just uses Word to type simple letters, 2007 may be okay, but for anyone who depends on Office for detailed tasks and productivity, 2007 is a nightmare.
I have always loved Microsoft Office. It has been an industry standard for ease of use. In my opinion, that is no longer the case. I believe Microsoft tried to produce something "different" to attract new users, but in the process totally ignored the needs of those who have used their products in the past. If you have the option of staying with an earlier version, DO NOT UPGRADE to this product!
 Best Office Product Yet June 9, 2007
P. Young
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
It takes a little bit to get used to the new user interface but overall the product akes everything so much easier.
Office Small Bus. 2007 April 12, 2008
K. Harrell (Ft.Worth Texas USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I received my product just as ordered. Wonderful service. I am having a hard time learning to use it, so if you are not real computer "savvy", you might want to stick with Office 2003.
Lots of great features August 8, 2008
Rachel Beatty (Seattle, WA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I haven't had time to use most of the features in this upgrade but PowerPoint 2007 is beyond awesome. I'm a graphic designer and I am amazed at the variety of templates and themes, the smart art and great diagram features, the very cool tutorials and the ease with which even a beginner can create a stunning presentation. If you are not a beginer, then the sky is the limit.
All my contact information and emails from Outlook 2003 poppped up in Outlook 2007. Of course I wasn't sure this would happen so I wasted time saving them in a separate place.
Great upgrade - very good value for the money!
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