Microsoft Office Word 2007

Microsoft Word is the standard word processing software that everyone will be familiar with, the latest instalment; Microsoft Word 2007 shakes things up a bit making some changes to the Word program.

Look
The program interface has gotten a whole new look, it is still recognisable as Microsoft Word but it has been brought up to date with some features that make it feel like Microsoft's new Operating System, Windows Vista. In ...
...launch feature, but again for Microsoft Office, so here you will have easy access to your most commonly used and helpful things like, save, print, undo and it is customizable so whichever functions you like, you can put them in. The program has been skinned in the default blue but if you have Windows Vista you will be pleased to know you can make it into the Vista black colour scheme. If you want to break the mould a little you can also choose from ... more

Microsoft Word is the standard word processing software that everyone will be familiar with, the latest instalment; Microsoft Word 2007 shakes things up a bit making some changes to the Word program.

Look
The program interface has gotten a whole new look, it is still recognisable as Microsoft Word but it has been brought up to date with some features that make it feel like Microsoft's new Operating System, Windows Vista. In the top corner you have your Office Button which is very like the Windows Vista orb but features the Office logo instead, this is basically the start button for the program and from it you will be able to access all your usual functions such as Opening documents, saving, printing, publishing and all the usual options you would expect. Next to that you have something which is very like the taskbars quick launch feature, but again for Microsoft Office, so here you will have easy access to your most commonly used and helpful things like, save, print, undo and it is customizable so whichever functions you like, you can put them in. The program has been skinned in the default blue but if you have Windows Vista you will be pleased to know you can make it into the Vista black colour scheme. If you want to break the mould a little you can also choose from a silver colour scheme.

The New Word
The interface of Microsoft Office 2007 has been infinitely spruced up from previous versions. Creating documents has never been easier, a simple click of the Office Button and you can select from a myriad of different document profiles, from letters, gift certificates, greetings cards and many more, the selection is constantly updated from Office Online so you will always be able to create fresh and interesting looking documents. If you just want to get started you can simply go with a blank document.

If you are creating a document from scratch as you probably will be you will love the new interface of Word 2007, gone are the huge menus to edit your documents. These have been replaced with stylish tabs. They are as follows; home, insert, page layout, references, mailing, review and view. The home tab is where you will perform your most common options, changing the font sizes, colours and controlling functions like bold underlining and highlighting. You can do the standard copy, cut and paste options. A really neat feature here is if you change the font size or type the text will change giving you a preview of what it would look like so you can see if you like the desired effect before confirming it. You can also change your paragraph options and add in bullet points and indents. The styles options are also great and let you instantly format your documents without any effort at all, you can choose from a variety of different styles and you get a preview of what it will look like, just like the fonts options. Also here is the handy editing option which will find and replace words for you.

The next tab is the insert tab which will cover page options, tables, illustrations, links, header and footer, text and symbols. The pages options are great, you can add in really neat title pages which all you need to do is type in your name subject and title so you can instantly create a really professionally designed title page. You can also insert blank pages and put in page breaks. The table option is also pretty fancy, you get a little box and you can control how big it is, depending on how big it is, the size of the table you create will be affected. The illustration options are great and you can insert pictures from your computer, or choose from the selection in the Clip Art gallery, as well as adding in shapes, smart art which you use to make diagrams and flow charts, and the last options charts which you can use to bring in a chart from Microsoft Excel. All these are really customizable and you can change the colours of your charts and diagrams, pictures are also handled really well with options to crop, modify brightness etc. The header and footer options allow you to quickly add title notes and footer notes. The Text option allows you to instantly create impressive looking text with quick parts, word art which is very fancy and allows you to make really nice looking titles, text boxes, add in your own signature, time and date or text from another file. The last tab is symbols and allows you to add in all the strange symbols you find in math and science as well as common things like the exclamation point.

The page layout tab covers, themes, page setup, page background, paragraph and arrangement options. Themes are really nice and allow you to create documents that look like newspapers. Page setup allows you to configure the size of the page margins, useful if your printer cannot print right to the edge of the page, you may also change the orientation of your page from portrait to landscape as well as modifying the size of the paper you are working on to anything from a small letter paper to A3. You can also modify your text so it appears in columns and modify the amount of columns and so forth. In the page background options you can add in watermarks which make your documents look like they are from MI6 with a nice confidential watermark in the background; you can also make custom ones with your own text. Also modifiable is the page colour and borders. In the Paragraph option you can also set up indents to your paragraphs and configure spacing between them. The arrange tab only works when you have a picture out and will let you modify your documents moving pictures around and wrapping text around them or displaying them behind the text and so on.

The references tab is where you can add in your table of contents if you are writing a book or something. You can also update your tables and add to them at any time. Under the footnotes section you can create footnotes in your documents and edit your current footnotes as well as showing where your current footnotes are located. In the citations and bibliography section you can add in citations and add in placeholders so you can add in your citation later, you can also change the style of your citations so that they stand out. The caption function is interesting and allows to add captions to your pictures, this is really nothing more than a style change and you could probably create one of these on your own. The Index function and table of authorities function allows you to mark your index entries and citations.

The mailing tab is for when you want to make things to mail. Here you can create envelopes for your documents which you can then print as long as your printer supports that function, with the mail merge button you can create letters and envelopes for multiple contacts as well as using the recipients function to choose who it's going to as well as adding contacts. You can use the write and insert fields to insert address blocks, greeting lines. If you want to find a recipient you can use the preview results function to locate them and once you are done you click finish and merge.

Once you are done with writing your document you can head to the review tab. Here you can use the Proofing section to check your spelling and grammar, all words that are underlined in blue or red are errors and word will pick them up and tell you what's wrong, if word doesn't have a particular word in its dictionary you can add it. If you notice that a particular word is popping up more than it should, Word has a built in thesaurus which is dead handy. You can also translate your documents into different languages though this function just sends you to a website, if you are working on a document with someone else you can use the comment and tracking feature to add comments and make the stuff you have added stick out in red so your partner can clearly see what has been changed. If they have sent you some work you can choose to accept the changes they have made or decline and edit them. You can also compare the two documents you have. If your work is private and you don't want anybody messing with it, simply use the protect function to lock it and password protect it, you can set it to read only so people will be able to read but not modify your work which is very useful.

The view tab is the last tab, here you can set your documents to different views, you can choose from a print layout, web layout, outline, draft or a full screen reading layout. The full screen reading layout is very good and I often use it to read EBooks that I come across, this function works best with a widescreen monitor as it displays pages side by side just like a book. You may also choose to hide or show elements like rulers, gridlines, any messages that may be attached to the document, thumbnails and more. If you cannot clearly read a footnote, simply use the zoom feature to zoom right in up to 500% or if you find the text to big, zoom out. You can also switch the window to any other Word documents that are open.

Price & Conclusion
Microsoft Word is the most useful and feature packed word processor I have ever used, I can easily create really professional looking documents and edit them to my tastes. The new tabbed interface is great to use and a welcome change from the huge scrolling menus of old. The only disadvantage I can think of is that it is quite pricey, a copy of Microsoft Word 2007 if you purchase it with the Microsoft Office suite can cost hundreds of pounds unless you go with the basic Student and Teacher edition which is around £80-100, however if you do a quick search and look for a single Word 2007 license you can get it for a much more reasonable £50. Overall I recommend this word processor highly; you will find nothing better out there. 5/5 

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