| Customer Reviews: Average Rating: 2.0 out of 5 |
| Significant improvements in usability: Rating: 4 out of 5 |
Having been a long time user of Office I was an early adopter of Office 2007. The look and feel took quite a bit of getting used to but I am now a complete convert. The ribbon concept in particular is a major step forward and for me reduces the number of keystrokes needed, increased as one reviewer said.
In Excel 2007 the increase in the number of rows from 64k to millions is worth the price of the upgrade alone. Excel becomes a serious data analysis tool with this upgrade.
Outlook 2007 however I have found to be buggy and am underwhelmed by. It is this the takes the review down to 4 stars. |
| A real let down!: Rating: 1 out of 5 |
| I've ended up reverting to Office 2003. It's a nightmare for someone who is used to the earlier version(s), I can't understand why they have changed it so much it certainly doesn't seem to have improved things. It MIGHT be ok for someone who has never used Office before but I'm not convinced. |
| Really poor effort. Not worth the money: Rating: 1 out of 5 |
Doesn't do anything significant that 2003 couldn't do.
New user interface is incredibly annoying for experienced users. Can't be customised. Things that previously done with 1 click now take 2-3 clicks (or even 4 sometimes). Commonly used functions are buried.
Only a limited amount of customisation of the interface is possible using the single "quick access toolbar". the "ribbon" can't be customised at all and occupies a lot of space. If you hide the ribbon then you have to double click to bring it back. things that could be done from the keyboard now require the mouse. Slower to do and annoying.
Colour schemes are limited and unclear. Some items are highlighted in a sort of orange/yellow colour (often difficult to spot) others in pink or red. Tab colours on Excel are also not very good.
Macros are not as easy to set up as 2003 and what is really annoying is the ability to customise the macro button having assigned it. This really annoys me since I had all my commonly used functions set up as Macros with custom macro buttons so that 95% of what I wanted only needed a single click. As a result my productivity is well down.
This is the perfect example of a program written by developers for looks rather than in consideration of the user. I cannot seriously recommend Office 2007. Some of the very cheap competitors now offer better and more useable word processors and spreadsheets.
I am planning to revert to offce 2003 ASAP. |
