Microsoft Office Standard 2007 review

Elsa Wenzel CNET

Published: 30 Jan 2007

The ambitious, ground-up rebuild of Microsoft Office Standard 2007 presents drastically different interfaces and new file formats. The new Office looks so unlike its predecessors, it's likely to spark intense love-hate responses from users. This upgrade isn't for everyone: if you're patient, eager to try the latest tools and willing to relearn most of what you already know about Office, then you may relish the challenge of Office 2007. Word, Excel and PowerPoint 2007 can produce more polished documents and presentations, and Outlook's new scheduling abilities make it a handier communications hub. Professionals who want to impress clients and co-workers with attractive reports, charts and slide shows will find this a worthy upgrade. First-time Office users may have an easier time than veteran users getting their bearings.

However, if you only use a small fraction of what Office offers or you felt that getting the hang of Office 2003 was painful enough, then you might want to avoid Office 2007 or try it free for a couple of months first. We imagine that power users who have mastered the nooks and crannies of the older versions will curse the steep learning curve. But take heed: the new era of Office affects even those who don't upgrade, and a conversion tool is needed to let older Office versions open Office 2007's default Open XML files.

Office 2007 does offer complex features that you can't yet find elsewhere. However, it also falls short in key areas. Integration among the applications isn't as thorough as we'd hoped, and there's no one-click way to collaborate with others on an edit without buying Microsoft's Groove online collaboration tool or working within a server setting. The advent of Office 2007 comes as a growing number of competing tools are simpler, cost less (if they aren't free), and handle the same core features. Oddly, despite its bevy of Windows Live and Office Live services, Microsoft chose not to build a bridge to the Web for all Office users.

Office editions

We reviewed Microsoft Office Standard 2007, which costs a substantial $399 (£203), or $239 (£121) to upgrade. This suite includes Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Outlook in addition to Office Tools that manage language settings and pictures and include a diagnostics tool for use in the event of a crash. If you don't need desktop email, you should opt for Office Home & Student at $149 (£76; no upgrade option), a new suite roughly equivalent to Office Student and Teacher 2003 but with OneNote instead of Outlook. The Basic package, with Word, Excel and Outlook, only comes pre-installed on computers sold by manufacturers that have Microsoft software licensing agreements. At $449 (£228), or $279 (£142) to upgrade, Microsoft Office Small Business 2007 costs $50 (£26) less than the $499 (£254) Professional edition ($329/£167 to upgrade) that includes the Access database program. Only the Enterprise and the $679 (£345) Ultimate ($539/£274 to upgrade) editions include the new Groove tool. And oddly, both the Enterprise and Professional Plus editions lack the Business Contact Manager component of Outlook, which corporate users might want for their marketing efforts. For more detail on the different Office 2007 editions, see our comparison table.

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