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Word 2007 Beta Review

By Adam Myers ⋅ May 25, 2006 ⋅ Tags: microsoft, office, review, vista

For many, Word is their go to application in the Microsoft Office Suite. Many of us have been using Word for so long that when people come along and don’t know how to change things like Margins, it boggles are our minds. If you know Word like the back of your hand, prepare to have your mind boggled.

When you open Microsoft Word, you will see the brand new Ribbon. Before you get too scared, simply take a second to actually look at the options. Even the most hardcore user shouldn’t take but a few seconds to get comfortable with the new results oriented menu system. I decided to write this review in Word 2007 so I could become more comfortable with it. It didn’t take me very long to get used to the new interface, and it also didn’t take long for me to fall in love with it.

When it comes to the basics, even with the massive user interface change, Word 2007 is still just a program where you type things. All of your basic functions are right there in front of you, and it shouldn’t take any time at all for someone to sit down and type out a letter, or some other type of document.

• The Home ribbon menu gives you most of the functionality of the Standard toolbar in previous versions of word. It also brings in many of the key tools of the Formatting toolbar as well.
• There is a new default font for Word 2007. Called Calibri, it is a sans serif font and is also set to be included in Vista. In my opinion, almost anything would have been better then Times New Roman. Although I do like Calibri, there are some kerning issues that I have noticed.
• The Insert Ribbon menu does a great job of replacing the Insert menu from Word 2003. The combination of the easy to read Ribbon and the live preview means I can see how big of a table I can insert before knocking off text or what exactly my footer will look like. I think that Insert really shows why we needed this new menu system. Now there is just one logical place to look when you want to insert objects into a document.
• The References ribbon menu should be welcomed by anyone who has ever had to do citations in a paper. Word’s citation system has been great for many years, but this just makes it that much easier to use. If I actually cared enough to cite my sources, I would surely put this to use! APA, Chicago and other formats that I haven’t even heard of are available.
• The Mailings ribbon menu will save me many hours of headaches. In previous versions of Word, the Letters and Mailings wizard was buried under the Tools menu for some reason. Now mail merge is right there, front and center, as it should be. This is one of the most powerful features of Word, and as much as it is used, it is under used. Not only are the tools front and center, they are easier to use.
• The Review ribbon menu brings everything together that you need to review your document. Again, this is another great example of why The Ribbon is so wonderful. Not only do you find your comments and tracking tools here, but Spelling, Grammar, Research, and Thesaurus are all together here. The comment system has been beefed up a bit, as has the changes tracker. If you have ever had to work with someone else on a single document, you will find these tools to be a life saver. However, like many aspects of Word, if you don’t care about them, they are out of your way.
• Although most of the view settings can be controlled by the view section in the Status Bar, the View ribbon menu lets you add things like Rulers and Gridlines. New features such as viewing multiple documents side by side (and synchronous scrolling) help greatly in viewing Word documents.
• The Add-Ins menu helps collect all those different Add-Ins that would tend to clutter up previous versions of Word. It is a simple catch all but it also helps keep Word looking much cleaner.

Outside of those default options, I think there are a few things worth mentioning.

• Word 2007 supports a new document format, with the extension of .docx. This new format uses XML as well as Zip compression. I renamed this review to a .zip file and opened it up in winrar. Different parts of the document, such as styles and settings are saved as different .xml documents. The document itself is saved as Document.xml. All of the formatting is handled via special .xml codes, but the text itself can be read in a normal text editor. I don’t follow XML standards as much as I would like to, but looking through the files leads me to believe that this format should be fairly open and easy to work with. The old fashioned .doc formats are available for saving for cross compatibility. There have been rumors that there will be a download from Microsoft to allow Word 2003 to open .docx documents or some kind of converter will exist.
• Word 2007 also supports saving to .PDF and XPS (XML Paper Specification). So, sharing Word documents just got a lot easier.
• When you highlight text in Word, a handy little toolbar fades in near your highlighted text (and fades out as you mouse away). This box allows you to quickly change the font, highlight the text, indent, turn it into a bulleted list, and more. I found it not to be the most responsive tool, but I like it all the same.
• The new Tables tools are just great. Not only is it easy to insert a table, but changing the format on the fly is great. Word contains many templates for many different objects, tables included. Adding nice looking tables to your document will now only take a few seconds.
• The pictures tools are also much improved. I found that working with Pictures in Word is now easier then it has ever been. There are also some fancy image templates that I am sure will become over used very quickly.
• Changing Font options has never been easier. I absolutely hated trying to do things like Strikeout in previous versions of Word. I can now get to these features a lot easier then I could before.
• There is a new feature called “Smart Art.” Think of what you can do graphically with text lists in HTML with CSS. This is the exact same idea. You can type a bulleted list and turn it into some of this Smart Art very quickly and easily. Then changing the actual of the style through the Ribbon is just as easy. I included a few examples below.
• In the Insert menu are two new features called Text Box and Quick Parts. Although Text Boxes have been around for awhile, these new features allow you to quickly insert objects into documents that are used over and over again. For example, if your company has you writing letters that always contain the same disclaimer at the end of the letter, these features are for you. A few quick clicks and your text is in the document for you. Creating and adding these building blocks is very easy.

All in all, this is a great upgrade. I don’t care what version of Word you have, this is worth the update. From Word 97 to 2003 (especially between 2000, 2002 and 2003), not a whole lot changed. Certainly there were certain pinpoint features that certain people in certain areas cared about. In Word 2007, things are clean and simple, but still very robust. The bottom line is that if you use Word more than once a month, Word 2007 is for you.

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