The footprints of Microsoft’s software empire are visible in nearly every aspect of our lives—from Windows on our desktop computers to Netflix on our Xbox 360 consoles to Bill Gates on our televisions. Our “TopTenREVIEWS Gold Award” winner represents one of Microsoft’s most ubiquitous and widely used programs in the world. You’d have to have been living in a cave for the last two decades to have avoided writing a document or two on Microsoft Word or compiling a budget on Excel. After comparing Microsoft Office Home and Student to other leading home office software suites we can understand why it’s so popular. Microsoft’s home user and student focused edition of Office is the most reliable and feature rich productivity suite we reviewed.
Standout features
- Microsoft Word 2007, Excel 2007 and PowerPoint 2007
- One license is good for installation on three computers
- Hundreds of free document, spreadsheet and slideshow templates available
- Note taking application
- Word Processing Features:
- Microsoft Office Home and Student includes Microsoft Word. Word does not need an introduction—the word processor is running in offices, homes, small businesses and dorm rooms all over the world. Word 2007, however, has been retooled and equipped with new features for the Office 2007 suite. Its interface has been reorganized to be more intuitive and includes useful tools for specific document styles such as letters, academic papers, blogs, etc.In contrast to other word processors, Word’s interface is much more dynamic. The program responds to the look and structure of your document and suggests actions you are likely to need. For example, if you click on the bottom or top margin of the page, you’ll see an option to insert a header or footer pop up. Microsoft Word also has a preview mode running in real time so you can see what formatting changes will look like before you commit to them.One of the most impressive extras included with Microsoft Word is the vast archive of templates available for download directly through Word itself. You can find hundreds of templates for professional grade resumes, cover letters, budget sheets, attendance sheets and just about any other useful document type imaginable.
- Additional Software:
- Microsoft Office Home and Student also includes the well-known spreadsheet and presentation programs, Excel and PowerPoint. Excel and PowerPoint round out the office suite by adding more advanced productivity tools. Excel 2007 is capable of advanced operations typical of the chemistry lab or physics lecture hall. PowerPoint is increasingly used by lecturers and employers to distribute materials. As is the case with Word, Excel and PowerPoint both give users access to a wealth of useful template downloads.Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 does not include the email client Outlook, which is typically not necessary for home or student use anyway. Instead, it offers a useful note taking program called OneNote. OneNote is a generic application that allows you to store and organize useful information of a few different types. You can catalogue text, images, video, audio, links and common files for later retrieval and use with OneNote. Students will be particularly fond of OneNote.
- Compatibility:
- Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 does not support many third party file formats. This is particularly a concern with the increasingly popular OpenOffice format. We can understand the commercial motives for not supporting open source and competing file formats, but find it inconvenient none-the-less. Despite its comparative lack of support for other widely used formats, most users don’t typically deal with other formats for spreadsheets, documents and presentations. The fact that Microsoft has a near monopoly with its DOC, XLS and PPS file formats ultimately means that you won’t have to think about formats much at all. In the event that you need to open and edit items that Microsoft Office does not support, there are free, light weight converters available online.We like working with Microsoft Office 2007 applications simply because there is no hassle opening, editing and saving documents and spreadsheets. The one possible hitch concerns the updated Office 2007 file formats. If you’re sending 2007 formats (DOCX, XLSX, PPSX, etc.) to users that only have Microsoft Office 2003 they’re likely to encounter errors and difficulty. In general, this is a minor concern as Office 2007 formats saturate the market.
- User Support:
- It’s not hard to find complaints about Microsoft’s customer support, but in reality we were impressed with their support staff. There’s really not much reason to contact help staff directly however, because Microsoft Office’s online community and library of FAQs, forums and documentation address every conceivable technical, licensing and user issue. While Microsoft’s support resources are vast and thorough, the fact that updates, add-ons and support often require a Windows Live account can be irritating to new users.
- Summary:
- Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 is a substantial improvement over the 2003 edition. It’s also a great standalone product. We love the interface, templates and usability of the retooled Word, Excel and PowerPoint. The price runs higher than competing office software suites, but given the omnipresence of Microsoft Office, superior functionality and solid customer support included with a purchase, we had no difficulty selecting the renowned set of programs for our top position.
