Microsoft Word 2007

Use Quick Styles in a Word document to easily choose and apply a new style. View larger.

The new tri-pane review panel of Office Word 2007 enables you to quickly compare or merge two versions of a document and helps identify moved text and tracked changes within tables. View larger.

You can use the Document Inspector to remove comments. View larger.

The new user interface of Office Word 2007 enables you to create documents more quickly than ever because it presents the right tools when you need them. View larger.

Office Word 2007 enables you to digitally sign your documents, so readers know they haven't changed since they left your hands. View larger.

New Interface and Tools
Together with a new, streamlined, results-oriented interface, Word 2007 gives you the tools you need to create professional-looking content. You can add Building Blocks of predefined content and reduce the errors associated with copying and pasting frequently used content, while the Quick Styles function saves you time by helping you format text and tables throughout your document. And to make sure you documents are consistent, Document Themes apply the same colors, fonts, and effects.

Professional-Looking Documents
SmartArt diagrams and a new charting engine help you add a professional look to documents, while shared diagramming and charting with Microsoft Office Excel 2007 spreadsheet software and the Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 presentation graphics program help ensure a consistent look across your documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. You can even compose blogs directly from within Word, and complete your blog posts with pictures, rich formatting, spelling checker, and more. When it's time to publish your blogs you can do so directly from Word to many common blog services including Office SharePoint Server 2007, MSN Spaces, Blogger, TypePad, Community Server, and more.

Display Important Information
Word 2007 offers a variety of tools and functions to help you express and display important information. The Equation Builder helps you construct editable, in-line mathematical equations using real mathematical symbols, prebuilt equations, and automatic formatting. Live word count keeps track of the number of words in your document as you type, and is always in view in the new user interface. Typographic capabilities offer improved bulleted and numbered lists, numbered list styles, and new fonts designed to improve on-screen reading.

Add Building Blocks to an Office Word 2007 document to increase efficiency and reduce errors. View larger.

Editing and Reviewing Tools
Word 2007 provides editing and reviewing tools that help you create professional documents faster than ever before. Live visual previews, predefined style galleries, table formats, and other options are always at your fingertips. To help minimize time wasted re-typing, take advantage of new Building Blocks designed specifically for the addition of frequently used content to your documents. You can even create your own Building Blocks to simplify the addition of custom text, such as legal disclaimer text or other frequently used materials. For that professional touch, select from a predefined gallery of cover pages, pull quotes, headers, and footers.

High-Impact Graphics
Word 2007 helps you communicate more effectively with high-impact graphics. New charting and diagramming features that include 3-D shapes, transparency, drop shadows, and other effects help you create professional-looking graphics that result in more effective documents. Quickly apply a new look and feel to your documents using Quick Styles and Document Themes to change the appearance of text, tables, and graphics throughout your entire document to match your preferred style or color scheme.

Share Your Documents and Content Confidently
With Word 2007, you can share documents with colleagues to gather feedback efficiently. You can also help prevent unwanted distribution of your documents and even remove private comments or hidden text prior to publishing. Additionally, the tri-pane review panel makes it easy to compare and combine two versions of a Word document, so you can detect even the smallest differences when dealing with changes from reviewers.

Participate in Office SharePoint Server 2007
To help make users more efficient when working in a managed environment, participate in Office SharePoint Server 2007 workflows without leaving Word. You can start workflows, interact with workflow tasks, or get information about your documents from the new Document Alert Bar. Managed document repositories can also be accessed from within Word 2007, so you have greater control over document versions. For added peace of mind, information management policies consistently enforce the labeling, auditing, and expiration of documents stored in SharePoint Server 2007 managed document repositories. You can also choose to keep track of your documents with the Document Information Panel which can help add workflow and tracking information directly to your documents. And Word 2007 uses a separate file format (.docm) for macro-enabled documents, so you can quickly tell whether a file is capable of executing any embedded macros.

Keep Your Documents Safe and Secure
Word 2007 offers the Document Inspector feature to help you detect and remove unwanted comments, personally identifiable information, hidden text, or other information from documents so that private information stays that way. You can also add digital signatures to help others verify that content has not been changed since it was published. Another option is to add a new signature line to prompt other Word users for their signature, or to provide a visible digital signature within your documents. Additionally, the Reading Mode offers you an immersive, full-screen reading experience that makes online reading easier, reducing the need to print the document. And because quality editing depends on the ease of viewing text, new navigation controls and typography display improvements make the reading experience better than ever.

Convert Your Word Documents
With Word 2007, you can share documents in Portable Document Format file (PDF) and XML Paper Specification (XPS) format without using third-party tools. XML support facilitates smaller, more robust documents and deep integration with information systems and external data sources. Because Office Open XML Formats are compressed, segmented file formats, they offer a dramatic reduction in file size and helps ensure damaged or corrupt files can be easily recovered.

Facilitate Important Business Processes
Word 2007 offers a host of integration points to enable organizations to build powerful solutions that are easy for users to utilize successfully. XML Formats give developers unprecedented access to the contents of your documents, enabling broad interoperability with a wide range of programs and solutions. The Document Information Panel means users enter correct metadata by making it possible for you link document properties to Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services or to other external data sources. Content Controls help you structure the document authoring process by requiring specific types of information or by adding sections of documents that may not be edited or reformatted.

Tools For Developers
Custom-defined schema support of the Office XML Formats enables developers to host their own content within Word documents, using their own custom XML vocabularies. Instead of expensive translations, custom XML content is hosted directly within the file. You can also take advantage of Data Bindings and provide developers with an easy way to link the contents of external data sources and custom-defined schemas to their word documents.