Office 2007- Worth It

Oman

Is Microsoft Office 2007 Worth It (I Have 2003 Pro By The Way) And If It Is Does Anyone Know The Cheapest Place To Get It

kaimera

imo yes.

The new UI makes doing anything much faster. I find it incredibly difficult and irritating to go back to pre-07 versions.

Not sure where's the cheapest to buy.

ethernet

I'm using a trial ATM. I really admire how you can preview changes, such as themes, colours, fonts, etc. to a document without actually having to apply them first, as was the case in prior versions.

The new design is most welcome. You'll find tools you rarely used before now.

Regarding purchasing it at the cheapest price, you may like to consider buying an upgrade version of Office 2007 Pro or [URL="hthttp://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=331544"]SBE[/URL] to shave off a good few Euro.

Capt'n Midnight

ethernet wrote:

Regarding purchasing it at the cheapest price, you may like to consider buying an upgrade version of Office 2007 Pro or [URL="hthttp://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=331544"]SBE[/URL] to shave off a good few Euro.

Don't forget that if you upgrade an OEM then your license will be stuck on that machine

Getting a non-OEM copy of works and upgrading it is cheaper than buying the retail version. Go Figure.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/FX101754511033.aspx
Qualifying Products for Upgrade
Microsoft Works 6.0–10; Microsoft Works suite 2000–2006 or later; any 2000–2007 Microsoft Office program or suite; any Microsoft Office XP suite except Office XP Student and Teacher.

easkey1

Oman wrote:

Is Microsoft Office 2007 Worth It (I Have 2003 Pro By The Way) And If It Is Does Anyone Know The Cheapest Place To Get It

If you get office 07 for free then its worth upgrading, otherwise the answer is a big NO.
You still have to input the info into office 07

BostonB

Oman wrote:

Is Microsoft Office 2007 Worth It (I Have 2003 Pro By The Way) And If It Is Does Anyone Know The Cheapest Place To Get It

Depends what you use it for. Most people use about 5% of Office.

aidan_walsh

easkey1 wrote:

If you get office 07 for free then its worth upgrading, otherwise the answer is a big NO.
You still have to input the info into office 07

I don't know what thats supposed to mean...

Depends what you use it for. Most people use about 5% of Office.

Partly because many people have no need for some of the business orientated tools it provides, mainly because the old menu system was so horrible it was neigh on impossible to find something you didn't know was there anyway. The new Ribbon changes that drastically. It'll be interesting to see how new studies conducted over the next few years will see the percieved usage of Office functions change.

aidan_walsh

#Elites wrote:

no idea why it doesnt have outlook..

Outlook is massively business orientated. Everything the typical home user would need Outlook for, Vista's Windows Mail will take care of.

Capt'n Midnight

Oman what do you use office for ?

Simple or advanced stuff ?
what features do you use

How many hours a day do you use it ?
you loose a few hours productivity while getting used to the new interface

dathiultaigh

I would not would buy it tbh u will eventually find somewere online to dl freely.
Also its overkill for the standard home user.

Just get open office its free and is compatable with MS Office products. What Open Office does not do can be found in other tools that are free also. I have never spent money on any office products but have used quite a few in my time.

aidan_walsh

#Elites wrote:

well i dont have Vista..what is this Windows mail?

An inbuilt, lightweight email application.

easkey1

aidan_walsh wrote:

I don't know what thats supposed to mean...

What it means is 03 is good enough for the normal person,
07 may have extra tools but how many times do we use them.
You still have to type in the information into the programs you are using

is_that_so

My initial reaction was why? The trouble with MS Office is that most of the commonly used features have been in it for years, and many of the new features are just tinkering and just add to the impression of "bloatware" (Office 2003 SBE is 457 MB on my machine). Like all software companies Microsoft has a need to release new software.
As Capt'n Midnight pointed out there is the relearning involved, which is fine if you are a proficient user and actively seek out features to use.
However if you are like users in many offices that downtime could prove substantial and then there is the expense of training courses.
As a few other posters have commented there are now some good alternatives, even Office 2003 .

Personally I am more interested to see what Google Apps is going to do.

Mencius

I found it fairly confusing when I switched to 07, some options were tricky enough to find.

But I don't think its worth upgrading, does the same job as 03 but with a fancy looking UI.

kaimera

Once you get over the initial learning, productivity increases because all the common tools are much much easier to access than in previous versions.

No longer are you pissing about trying to find a dialog box of submenu of a submenu.

BostonB

kaimera wrote:

Once you get over the initial learning, productivity increases because all the common tools are much much easier to access than in previous versions.

No longer are you pissing about trying to find a dialog box of submenu of a submenu.

Have to say I've never had that problem. But I don't use a lot of features of Office because I've simply never had too. I think anyone that needs a feature will find it eventually. But most people simply never had a need to. The really question is how much more value will you get out Office 2007 compared to a free alternative. I use VBA a lot so I can't switch but most people they would be better off with the free alternative.

Capt'n Midnight

kaimera wrote:

No longer are you pissing about trying to find a dialog box of submenu of a submenu.

That was the nice thing about Word 2.0, less option.

Also I really despise the "hide unused buttons so people won't see them before they need to use them" option in older versions of office. And the "hide the Underline" default in windows so people won't learn the Alt-shortcuts that are faster and avoid using the mouse.

Duffman

Someone in the UCD forum posted a link to http://www.software4students.ie recently.

They're selling MS Office 2007 Professional Plus for €99 claiming that it has a RRP of €550.

The deal is obviously for students though.

Do you think this could be legitimate? Seems like a too-good-to-be-true price.

Duffman

Duffman wrote:

Do you think this could be legitimate? Seems like a too-good-to-be-true price.

Is backed by microsoft, so it is legit.

Blazer

Check to see if your company has a deal with Microsoft for employees to purchase software.I think it's limited to the software that your company actually uses internally.
I bought Office 2007 Enterprise for the grand sum of €28.44 incl delivery.:)
Sweet Deal :cool:

is_that_so

Duffman wrote:

Someone in the UCD forum posted a link to http://www.software4students.ie recently.

They're selling MS Office 2007 Professional Plus for €99 claiming that it has a RRP of €550.

The deal is obviously for students though.

Do you think this could be legitimate? Seems like a too-good-to-be-true price.

It's legit OK. My brother bought Office Professional for his 10 year old. As long as your college/school is on there you can get it.

Capt'n Midnight

Mathew Reilly wrote:

I bought Office 2007 Enterprise for the grand sum of €28.44 incl delivery.:)
Sweet Deal :cool:

are you sure you haven't just bought the media kit
?
which comes WITHOUT A LICENSE

LFCFan

I got the 2007 Home & Student Edition which is around €140 and allows you to install it on up to 3 PC's in your house. A massive step forward for MS in their Licensing

Peteee

BostonB wrote:

Have to say I've never had that problem. But I don't use a lot of features of Office because I've simply never had too. I think anyone that needs a feature will find it eventually.

Eventually....

Maybe you don't use a lot of Offices features because you never knew they existed?

Like Kaimera, I'm completely hooked on the new UI, and find using older version inefficient and annoying

BostonB

Peteee wrote:

Eventually....

Maybe you don't use a lot of Offices features because you never knew they existed?

...

I doubt it, I've pretty much explored most of the Word object model for VBA projects at one time or another. So I doubt theres much in there I've missed. For my own use, however I just don't use 90% of whats in there most of the time, and neither do most of the users I see using it.