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| Microsoft Office Professional 2007 UPGRADE | 
 enlarge | From: Microsoft Software
Category: Software
List Price: $329.95
Buy New: $199.95
You Save: $130.00 (39%)
New (43) Used (6) from $199.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  99 reviews
Sales Rank: 82
Format: Cd-rom
Platforms: Windows Xp, Windows Vista
Media: CD-ROM
Edition: Professional - Upgrade
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3
Dimensions (in): 0.1 x 0.1 x 0
MPN: 26911093
Model: 269-11093
UPC: 882224263603
EAN: 0882224263603
ASIN: B000HCXKJY
Release Date: January 30, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Worth the upgrade July 15, 2007
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
This was $270 well-spent. Some impressions after my first day of use.
THE RIBBON. I actually like it. But I am a heavy Office user who recognises button icons easily. Less experienced users might need more time to adjust. However you view it, these context sensitive menus are the only way forward to dealing with complex menu structures. For the menu buttons I really need to hang on to there is the bypass of sticking them in the title bar of the window (object alignment and distribution in PPT for example, "send-to-back" in PPT)
EXCEL. Finally, "unlimited" amount of columns: EXCELLENT. Professional color templates (similar to those in PPT) now for use inside worksheets AND graphs. GREAT. The ribbon includes some useful buttons that in 2003 required a menu deep dive (wrap-text-in-cell, allign-cell-top-not-bottom for example)
POWER POINT. I love the new drop shadows and image manipulation functions. A shame that many of my clients do not have 2007 installed yet... Not many people write about this, but the color palette functions are a BIG improvement over 2003. Each palette color now comes in a number of intensity shadings, very useful.
OUTLOOK. I have not noticed much difference except for a nicer looking user interface.
PERFORMANCE. My 2002 P4 with 768MB is suffering some performance reduction. I am planning to upgrade to a new system soon, but in the mean time I switched off the format previews in Power Point.
UPDATE SEPTEMBER 2008 additional observations:
Much improved color management. Once you have defined your color schema, PowerPoint makes it very easy to apply intensity levels of the same color in your presentation
Adding a monochrome color overlay to images
Sophisticated drop shadows. There are many useless graphical effects in PowerPoint (Microsoft had a look at Adobe products), the drop shadow is the one I actually use
3D text rotation. In a later post I will explain how to stick a 3D logo/text on an image (update: here it is), PowerPoint has a more basic function now that more or less does the same
PDF conversion plug, one that is free, and better than Adobe Acrobat (see this post)
Smaller file size
Much improved editing of data charts, fully compatible with Excel. Creating beautiful, simple and clean data charts used to require a lot of "hacks" in 2003. It's not perfect in PowerPoint 2007, but a lot better.
The proportion of tip of an arrow does not change anymore when you re-size the object
The selection pane tool that allows you to edit charts with many overlapping objects, without having to send them to the back all the time.
 Steep learning curve July 4, 2007
15 out of 16 found this review helpful
I deeply regret Microsoft Office Professional 2007 UPGRADEupgrade. The new ribbon means that I have to completely relearn commands that I have used effortlessly for years. Some users find the ribbon to be intuitive; to me it is cluttered and obscure. It has become a game in my office, when we are searching the first time for a command, to see whose guess will lead us to the hidden treasure. Unfortunately, in our intensely busy, deadline-driven office, we don't have time for this.
Especially disappointing is the lame Help, which I have finally abandoned. I've had to resort to Google-searches for the commands I need.
The only way I have been able to get any work done in Word or Excel is through the prior version's keystroke commands, which are still built in. But you have to know the entire series of keystrokes.
I feel betrayed by Microsoft. Such a sudden and dramatic change with so little support for users of prior versions has slowed my work to a crawl.
You would probably like Office 2007 if you are new to Office, if you tend to use just the basics or if you really like exploring new software. If you have invested a lot in using prior versions and just want to get your work done, be prepared to lose a lot of time. Either way, I strongly recommend downloading a trial version before buying it.
Worked great....even with TRIAL Versions of the software installed June 26, 2007
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
Suffice to say IMO this is the best version of OFFICE in years....the improvements to OUTLOOK 2007 make it more than worth it.
Save yourself some money and install the FREE TRIAL Versions available directly from Microsoft for testing....then apply the upgrade....
I personally love it.
I have had ZERO problems installing and using it....but I must note I am using a brand new ATHLON X2 6000+ Build with all new hardware so it was a near virgin machine to install on.
 The Ribbon is cool June 26, 2007
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
As a long time Office user, it was an easy transistion to Office2007. The big attaction was the ribbon. It puts tools for a task right in front of you. And these tools change as the document changes depending upon what you are doing. It does add some cool formating and other features not found in the previous version, but the real reason to upgrade is useabliity. I have found it to be useful. Could you do without it? Sure, upgrading just makes life a little easier.
The Best Version Yet and Worth the Price of Admission June 26, 2007
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
I like the changes MS has made, it is quite a bit more user friendly, the enhancements for a small business with a business process integration approach is fantastic. First time I really felt that I was working with an integrated package capitalizing on the strengths of the different programs, Word for correspondence, Publisher for marketing materials, excel for performance measurement, etc.. The new version has opened up different ways to approach using the tools efficiently.
The transition went relatively smooth albeit I did look around a bit to find the normal things I use but after a few days I was up and running pretty much like normal. As a heavy Excel user I really like the improvements made with the conditional formatting and pivot improvements and presentation/report quality has significantly improved. The improvements to Outlook are also very beneficial from a task management standpoint, improvements to flag options and task color coding along with being able to customize search folders for easy mail retrieval has decreased the amount of time I have spent coordinating activities, that alone was worth the price of the upgrade. PowerPoint seems to be about the same but I do like the template that is formatted with a 16:9 "widescreen" aspect ratio.
If you are wondering how well it works going back and forth with MS Office 2003, I have not had any issues yet, there is a compatibility mode you can work and save in to go backwards to 2003, you lose some of the enhancement functionality when you save as a 2003 file but I haven't run into any show stoppers yet but I suspect it will only be a matter of time until I receive an e-mail stating that they could not open a file. I guess as technology advances we are always going to have that problem. I hope this review was helpful and have a smooth transition if you decide to migrate to the new version.
By the way, I am not a Microsoft employee or affiliated with them in any way.
All in all I am very happy with the improvements and felt the upgrade price, fairly cheap actually, was well worth it.
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