We have been running the latest version of Microsoft Office, Office 2007, which was released in November 2006 for a few months, and I must say that the new Office 2007 experience is worth the upgrade.

All of the applications in the new Office 2007 suite have a new menu and toolbar design called the “Ribbon” which is designed to help you find the most common buttons and functions more easily than in previous versions of Office.

At first it took me a little longer than normal to find my way around this new “Ribbon” interface, but after using it for only a few days I definitely agree that it is easier to use for the tasks most people do in Word (formatting, header styles, bullets and lists, etc).

Another powerful feature introduced in Word 2007 is called “SmartArt.” This feature provides a significant number of attractive and professional looking graphics that you can insert into your documents to enhance their visual appeal and understanding. We have made extensive use of Word 2007 SmartArt in our presentations and proposals to add some visual style to what would normally be boring lists and bullet points.


Word 2007 contains a lot of other updates and enhancements that make it superior to previous versions of Word. The built-in styles for Headings, Titles, and Subtitles are much nicer than before, and the default “Calibri” font is very appealing to the eye both on screen and in print. The changes to the user interface make it feel less cluttered than before, which makes it easier to focus on actually writing your document instead of staring or digging through menus that you never use.

Word 2007 has helped us to create more professional looking documents with relative ease.  The Ribbon toolbar, SmartArt graphics, and simplified user interface make this the best version of Word to date.