Gift suggestions
"While Office 2003 offered a refreshed look and some improvements in functionality, the basic structure remained the same. While veteran users were able to easily navigate the familiar menus, it had become increasingly difficult to locate some features (for instance, in Word, would you find "insert new rows" to a table in the "insert" or "table" menu?).
With Office 2007, Microsoft offers the "ribbon", a new and more intuitive way to access features that we used to find in the menus. While the features are basically the same, they are now grouped together according to when and how you would normally use them. These groupings are accessed by clicking on tabs, which are organized in the order you'd use them. The best way to get a better understanding of this change is to check out the screenshots, or download a free trial version of Office from Microsoft. While Office 2007 was released at the same time as Vista, you do not need Vista in order to run it. The program ran fine on my Windows XP laptop, which only had 512 MB of RAM, and it runs even better on my Vista laptop with 2 GB of RAM.
As for which version of Office to buy, this is the third time I've opted for the Home and Student version (which has had other names in previous releases, but is still being sold for $149). I need Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, and this is the most cost-effective way to get those programs. I was disappointed that Microsoft dropped Outlook from the Home and Student version. In order to continue to use Outlook, I installed Outlook 2003 and haven't had any problems.
Instead of Outlook, you get OneNote, a program that uses notebooks and tabs to save and organize all sorts of files and documents. I haven't had much time to play with OneNote yet, but the more I use it, the more impressed I am with it. It looks like one of those programs that you can personalize to meet your own needs and not have to fight with it to get it to do what you want.
This is a significant upgrade and should allow all users, new and experienced, to work more efficiently and quickly."
Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007
Product Features
- Essential software suite for home computer users makes it a pleasure to complete schoolwork and other tasks
- Includes 2007 versions of Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and OneNote
- Intuitive user interface that exposes commonly used commands; updated graphics and formatting galleries help you to easily produce high-quality documents
- Work with confidence and security thanks to the improved automatic Document Recovery tool and the Document Inspector tool, which removes personally identifiable information from your document
- Enhanced Help system includes online tutorials with step-by-step instructions; includes OneNote, a digital notebook that helps you gather, organize, and search many types of information in one place
 The new streamlined workspace and easy-to-browse tabs make program features easier to find and use.View larger. |
 Insert graphics and charts such as these into your documents to make them more appealing. View larger. |
 Use the new diagram and improved charting tools to create rich and stunning visuals and charts. View larger. |
 Quick and easy-to-use table styles help your tables look great and consistent across Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations.View larger. |
 The Document Inspector helps find and remove potentially sensitive "hidden" information from your documents, presentations, and spreadsheets.View larger. |
 Office OneNote 2007 enables you to gather, organize, and search almost any type of information. The powerful search tool is shown here, with results highlighted in yellow. View larger. |
Which edition of Office is right for you? View a comparison of Microsoft Office 2007 editions.
Create High-Quality Documents
Home and Student 2007 gives you access to updated graphics, formatting galleries, and an intuitive user interface that exposes commonly used commands. These features enable you to easily produce high-quality documents that will make you proud. Improved picture, charting, and graphics tools help you produce better-looking documents, spreadsheets, and presentations more quickly, while a large library of standard charts, quick formatting tools, and SmartArt diagrams make it easy to include rich and stunning visuals and charts. The results-oriented user interface makes it easier for you to find and use product features so you can enhance your documents according to your specifications. More stable bullets and numbers, SmartArt diagrams, and graphics and charting galleries provide you with a wealth of other formatting choices. Meanwhile, document themes help ensure a consistent appearance among the documents you create in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, to make working across the programs you use most more convenient. PowerPoint also features context-sensitive tabs and easy-to-use galleries that make it simple for you to include tables and other graphics in your documents.
Enhanced Reliability and Security Features
With an improved automatic Document Recovery tool and the new Document Inspector tool for removing personally identifiable information from your documents, Home and Student 2007 helps you work with more confidence and security. Thanks to these two features, you'll never have to worry about losing documents after a system failure or exposing your personal identification information or unwanted comments to others before sharing your documents.
 Formatting galleries make it easier to find and apply formatting changes. View larger. |
Packed with innovative features and improvements, Home and Student 2007 has a streamlined interface and an enhanced Help system, including online tutorials with step-by-step instructions, so you can quickly learn the product and find the answers to your questions. In addition, command tabs on the results-oriented Ribbon reveal commonly used commands that previously appeared only in lengthy drop-down menus. The Help system also offers a smooth transition between the Help menu in the Microsoft Office system and Help on the Internet (when connected). Larger, more informative ScreenTips provide help concerning commands, and the command tabs themselves are context-sensitive, changing automatically depending upon the task that you are trying to complete, so you won't waste time figuring out the appropriate command. When you need more guidance, online tutorials provide step-by-step instructions for common tasks.
Organize Notes and Information
Home and Student 2007 includes OneNote, a digital notebook that helps you gather, organize, and search many types of information in one place. This means you can consolidate typed text, images, audio and video recordings, digital handwritten notes, Web clippings, and more on the same page. OneNote also provides flexible note-taking tools to help you organize information the way you want. Categorize important projects or information in a way that makes sense to you, using an easy-to-use layout of notebooks, sections, and pages. Type or organize content anywhere on the page and track important items with customizable note tags. To help keep you on track, the powerful Instant Search feature helps you to find information you are looking for quickly. With it you can even search handwritten notes, the text in images and scanned documents, and spoken words in audio recordings.
Preview Changes and Spot Trends
Home and Student 2007 saves you time by making it easier to format your Office documents with Live Preview. This tool lets you quickly preview proposed changes to your document while you're working on it without having to repeatedly search through layers of menus. Taking a look at your proposed formatting before committing to it lets you experiment without risk and can help minimize future edits. Excel features highly visual conditional formatting with new data bars, more colorful gradients, and icons that you can use to format data based on specific rules, so you can more easily identify key data trends, which can help you study and prepare written papers or reports.
Create and Save Custom Slide Layouts
PowerPoint lets you create presentations with ease using prebuilt and user-defined custom slide layouts. With the custom layout feature you can quickly create the precise layout you envision without being bound by one of the prepackaged, standard layouts. You can then save your custom layout for use in future presentations.
Broader Distribution of Your Documents
Home and Student 2007's features aren't limited to the work you do at home; they extend to broader distribution of your documents and presentations. New support for Portable Document Format (PDF) and XML Paper Specification (XPS) file formats helps ensure increased distribution and sharing of your documents with users on any platform. This is particularly ideal for either sharing documents with friends and families, or for presenting information and assignments in a computer-integrated class.
Product Description
May be installed on up to three non-commercial home computers.
My Best Friend Jerry: Gift Suggestions and Birthday Deals
What to give Jerry? He lives in an apartment by himself, a bachelor with too much space around him and too much time in his hands, but he really isn’t that much into sports or rock music or video games like most guys in our neighborhood his age are. Well, he does love alcohol – but I am not going to spend on cases of beer or box of expensive wine for that guy! (I like to promote good habits, you see.)
Anyway, I am thinking of getting him a one-year subscription to a men’s magazine, like Esquire or Men’s Health or GQ. He can read the tips in there on how to keep fit, maintain a bachelor pad, tie a necktie, shave against the grain, and date successfully. Do you think he’ll get the hint and take offense? The truth is, he needs a bit of motivation right now to make his life more active, more productive, more worthwhile. And nothing motivates more than a magazine with, say, a picture of Tyra Banks on the cover.
Or maybe I ought to get him a stainless steel kitchenware set. I saw one on the Web that’s on sale – from a thousand bucks to five hundred, as long as you use the store’s online coupon codes. It comes with a cooker, a countertop oven, a coffee maker, a 3-speed blender, and a chopper. (Pretty good deal, I tell you.) Anyway, I think that this gift will teach Jerry the rudiments of preparing a home-cooked meal; he can even invite a date over to his house for some roast potatoes and fried buttermilk chicken. He won’t have to go to McDonald’s all the time; he won’t have to stuff his mouth with cheeseburgers and high-cholesterol snacks. He can watch his weight, his diet, his health. (I am such a thoughtful friend.)
Speaking of watching, I have one more birthday gift idea for Jerry. He loves movies: action flicks, romance comedies, sci-fi films, critically acclaimed dramas, classics from the fifties, what-have-you. (In fact, our love of movies is one thing we have in common.) Should I present him with tickets or a free membership to an online DVD rental store? I am still not sure, but at least Blockbuster rental store has wisely made available at their website all sorts of gift cards and online coupon codes. The sweet part about this deal is that it can be shared with family and friends. I can come over to his apartment anytime to chill out and enjoy a Star Wars marathon or something.
Or maybe I should just get him a Kobe Bryant Olympics Edition Team USA jersey.
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