Vole redesigns our Office space

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Product: Microsoft Office 2007
Website: OFFICE.MICROSOFT.COM
System Requirements: 500MHz CPU, 256MB RAM, 2GB HDD space, CD/DVD drive, 1024x768 resolution display
Price: £100 - £500, $150 - $650

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ALONG WITH upgrading to the Vole's new operating system, Bill and the boys are hoping that they can entice you with the new Office 2007 as well. But is it worth shelling out more money for something that may just be a shinier version of notepad, or could it be the ‘complete set of desktop and server software that can help streamline the way you and your people do business'?

Box art

The system requirements touted by the Vole are surprisingly low, and although Office may install on a PC with those specs we wouldn't want to try putting it to the test. Also if you read the small print the Office Clean-up wizard not available on 64bit OS, 512MB RAM is needed for Outlook Instant Search and grammar and contextual spelling in Word is not turned on unless the machine has 1GB memory.

As with every iteration of Office it's available in a variety of flavours, and this time it's available in more variations than ever before. To make life a bit easier we've included a picture that shows which packages come with which components so that you can best decide which version suits you best. Account Express 2007 is only available in the US and Office Communicator is only due for release in the second quarter of 2007 which Europeans may want to bear in mind when making their choice.

Comparison table

Once you've gone through the usual installation options and decided what components you're installing then it's simply a case of hitting the start menu and selecting which program to run, nothing new there. The first you open each program you'll normally get an introduction wizard which will introduce you to the new features and give you the option of converting all your old documents to the new version.

As you can see from the comparison table above this version of Office has a long list of potential components. There is the usual Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint and Access, and there are a host of other programs most of which seem to be utter bollocks and will only be used by the type of people who like to leverage synergies on a forward going basis with granularity and blue sky out of the box thinking to create solutions that maximise their importance. Apologies for the use of the dreaded 'S' word, but there was no avoiding it. We're not going to go into each individual component because this is a first inqpression and if you don't know what each bit does you either probably don't need it or you'll want to check it out in more detail for yourself. Surprisingly FrontPage makes an appearance, which we thought was dead and buried.

Word 2007

Consistency has always been a watchword in the Office suite, no matter what program you're working in the look and feel remains constant. This is particularly evident in the Vole's new ribbon interface. When we first heard about these dynamically changing menu's we were somewhat perturbed as usually when a computer tries to decide that it knows best it results in the monitor and a brick becoming intimately acquainted. However the new design isn't nearly as obtrusive and overriding as we first thought it would be, rather it offers a more graphic based interface with icons in logical groupings and new options appearing when appropriate. The use of very detailed tooltips is also a welcome sight indeed.

Excel 2007

All in all we were impressed with the look and feel of the new suite and at what it had to offer. But we couldn't find anything so superb that we'd recommend rushing out to the shop to upgrade from a previous version. Of particular note is the new graphs in Excel that Theo is so fond of and which are a cut above anything from the previous iterations of Excel both in terms of looks and ease of use and the new Business Contact Manager available in certain versions of Outlook which may prove very useful to those users who keep a lot of business contacts and are tired of trying to manage them using the 'groups' option in regular Outlook.

Outlook 2007

By using Google's option you sacrifice quite a bit of functionality compared to Office 2007, but if your requirements are fairly basic and it's functionality you wouldn't need anyway, then there really isn't much to that much of an argument to fork out cash for Office 2007 when there are other options that are free. Google's online aspect has pro's and con's, storing your documents online means you can access your data from different machines without the hassle of copy it backwards and forwards, but the drawback is you have to have an internet connection to access your data.

Google docs

If your budget won't stretch to MS Office and your requirements are a bit more intensive or the online requirement doesn't appeal to you, then you may also want to consider OpenOffice, which includes a word processor, spreadsheet, database manipulator, image editor, presentation creator and equation editor. OpenOffice is compatible with documents from all previous versions of Office and an adaptor for Office 2007 documents is in the works.

In Short
We have to give credit where credit is due, the new ribbon interface is attractive and easy to use. It's pretty intuitive, and while ardent users of previous versions of Office may struggle a little at first, but it won't be long before they get to grips with the new layout. The help is often actually quite informative, especially if you are connected to the internet so that you have access to the online and offline help files.

It's hard to define, but the new office suite feels good and is comfortable to use. That said if your requirements don't stretch beyond the normal usage of the odd letter, a spreadsheet to balance your budget and some email then there isn't a lot to recommend forking over cash for Office 2007, when there are several free options out there are increasingly attractive and compatible with Office documents.

The Good
Ribbon interface quite intuitive
Interface is attractive and easy to use

The Bad
Quite expensive
Free applications available that can perform the same tasks
No major improvements over previous versions

The Ugly
Too many components seem solely designed to leverage synergies or something
No option to revert to old interface

Bartender's Report