iP3K

It’s the first time I take some time to talk about this product but I’ve had access to it since last summer. I got the beta of Microsoft Office 2007 around the same time I got my Vista Beta 2. I had installed in on that system but wasn’t using it as a mainstream application. When I got an email from Microsoft saying that my beta key would expire at the end of March I said to myself I had to give it more credit and put OpenOffice aside for a few weeks. So I did it, I’ve been using Word, Outlook, Excel and PowerPoint 2007 for a few weeks and found it quite pleasent. People feared the new Ribbon interface was going away from the classic toolbar view. At first, it was very confusing but I quickly learned to appreciate the new ease of use it provided me. I’m running the Beta 2 Technical Refresh and it’s actually 95% functional, the only problem I’m still running into is that I can’t correct the misspelled instances, it does point them out with red or green underlining but when I select the correction from the contextual menu it does not change it to my selection. So for now I have to manually correct my mistakes. This has clearly been fixed in the final version.

Microsoft is setting the score straight just like it’s doing with Vista by bringing us new features and look by keeping what made their products work in the first place. You get a good balance between the ease of use and the in-depth options you can access with their applications. I’m a student, a free version is always welcome and they provide a lower cost edition for these type of situations.