Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007

Author's product rating:   

Instructions / Help	Excellent
Ease of use	Very easy
Ease of Installation	Excellent - very quick and easy
Value For Money	Good

Advantages:	Simple to use, useful, reliable, nicely formatted
Disadvantages:	Expensive

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

When I bought my laptop it came with just about nothing of use on it I didn't have Word, Excel, PowerPoint or anything - oh I had Notepad, but if anyone has ever tried writing an essay on that they will know that it is more or less impossible. It just isn't advanced enough. Something had to be done, so I walked into my local Comet and started asking around. This was what they came up with.

The Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 is very basically a package which you can load onto your computer, it contains Word 2007, Excel 2007, PowerPoint 2007 and OneNote 2007. It is the most basic package they do and is made for non comercial use only, I have to admit considering that it is a very basic package the price of it is rather excessive. Mine cost me £100 from the Comet in the Birmingham Bullring, but that was because I could show them a student card, the maximum price I have seen it being sold for is £250. It is not cheap but it is absolutely brilliant and I know I wouldn't have been able to use my laptop to it's full potential without it.

===Installation===
As with most of the packages that Microsoft make, the installation of this is very, very easy. You don't even need the instruction booklet that comes with it. Every step you have to go through is explained as you move through the installation. I have to admit that this package has been one of the easiest things I have ever installed on my computer, there is none of the complicated and confusing steps, just a simple step by step way of doing it. It really is the kind of, put the disk in the computer, wait for it to load, pick your language, move through the steps shown on the disk, click 'I agree' to the main agreement that they insist you read through and such like (you know the one, the stupidly long one that no one actually bothers to read before getting bored and clicking 'I agree'!). And there you have it, the package is installed. And if I, a complete technophobe, can install it with such ease, then anyone can!

===Use===
As I said before there are four programmes in the package, and all of them are the latest versions of these (at the time of writing). They are all easy to use and very, very helpful to anyone looking to use their computer for basic purposes.

---Word---
Word 2007 is very much the same as any other Word programme, but there are certain differences, particularly in layout. All of the changes are basic changes and have only been introduced to make the programme slightly easier to use, and to change the aesthetics so it appears more like the popular Apple Mac format. For example, if you want to emphasise a heading or any part of your writing, instead of having to go through the usual, rather arduous font changes, Word 2007 has a series of 'emphasised fonts' stored on the computer to make it slightly easier, in that you only have to hit a single button to change font. Likewise the word count has been put automatically at the bottom of the page, and if you highlight a section of the text it will count this seperately as well; this means that if you are writing a 2000 word essay, you don't have to keep checking because it is right in front of you the whole time. It is easier to use, and all possible options that you might need to use have been placed in picture form in the top bar. My brother has raised the complaint that the system is overly complicated now, whereas the older versions were simple and user friendly, to be honest I have not found this while I have been using it but it is a point worth noting.

---Excel---
Excel 2007 is almost identical to the older versions of Excel and therefore is very easy to use to anyone who is used to the older versions. It has the same kind of formatting as Word 2007, and I have found that it is a far less strenuous process to make a graph out of data, and make a graph that actually looks good. This would seem like a rather strange comment, but one of the things that annoyed me with the older versions of Excel is that the graphs looked very simplistic, and if I had to put them in an essay any lecturer looking at them would be able to say 'Must be Excel'. This kind of automatic dismissal has, to a point, been resolved in the 2007 version as the graphs seem to look more professional.

---PowerPoint---
This is a program I don't use they often as I very rarely have to do presentations, so I will mostly rely on my foster father's view on the 2007 version in comparison to the older versions. He thinks that the newer format does make it more simple and user friendly, and from the small amount I have used it I would have to agree with him. The idea of it is exactly the same, but it is just easier to move about on it, organise your slide show and show it, as well as including note spaces solely for yourself if you are doing a talk presentation with PowerPoint as a back up.

----OneNote---
OneNote 2007 is one of the most useful programs I have ever used, although I had never even heard of it before. But it is a brilliant program. It is set out as if you have a series of notebooks down the left hand side of the page, chapters at the top of the screen and pages down the left side. It sounds stupid, or completely unnecessary, but actually it is very useful. I have used it both for revision purposes and for personal purposes, it's almost like having a scrap book on your computer. I have sections for my favourite poetry, reviews, recipes, lyrics, and just random things that I don't want to forget. It keeps the things that I will want to store safe, and considering that I have a memory like a fish it is very, very useful. And although at first it seemed like it was rather complicated it took me about 5 minutes before I'd got the hang of it, and I it has been one of my favourite programs since...

===Other packages===
Depending on what you want from your computer there are other packages which give more programmes for your money. The Home and Student 2007 is the cheapest of the lot, and as I said before it's not exactly cheap. The other main packages are:
Office Standard: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook
Office Small Business: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook with Business Contact Manager.
Office Professional: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook with Business Contact Manager, Publisher, Groove
Office Ultimate: All of the above with OneNote and InfoPath

It almost goes without saying that the higher package you get the more of your hard earned cash you are going to have to shell out, and for home purposes the student and home version should more than suit your needs. Or at least it more than fits my needs and I use the computer a fair amount because of my uni course.

===Money===
I wouldn't usually have a section entirely on cost and value for money but considering the pure amount of cash that you'd have to shell out for a single CD, I think it is necessary. Yes, it is expensive, I cannot contradict that. But personally I would say that it is worth it. Given the way that computers seem to come with nothing but the most basic formats on it, some other programming is actually needed to make the computer useful. And although this is expensive, it is reliable, useful and works wonders. I wouldn't advise any of the more expensive versions unless you need it for work and you actually need the extra programs, but this has been perfect for my needs. There is also a small plus in the fact that the disc is licensed for 3 computers, which means that if you are a cheap-skate like me then you can change 2 other people £30 and recoup some of the cost!

Conclusion

Expensive but worth it. A selection of programs that are useful and even on some occasions fun, it's reliable and almost necessary for anyone who has a basic computer like mine!