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September 28, 2007
Office, Sweet
Dear Larry,
I guess I should have spoken to you before ordering my new
computer because it shipped without Word. I thought that was part of Windows and
would come automatically. Anyway, now that I have to purchase Microsoft Office,
I find there are a lot of different versions. What version do you recommend?
L. N.
Dear L. N.,
Microsoft Office is a distinctly different product from
Microsoft Windows and therefore doesn’t ship on new computers automatically. The
Office suite, which now garners roughly 94% of the market, has become the de
facto standard when it comes to everyday software. Microsoft Word (for DOS) was
first introduced in 1983. Excel (for numeric spreadsheets) followed in 1987 as a
challenge to Lotus 1-2-3 and started outselling it in 1988. In 1990, PowerPoint
(for slide presentations) debuted, and Outlook (for e-mail, calendar, and
contact management) followed in 1997. While these programs represent the
mainstream products of Microsoft Office, other software has been bundled in the
suite over the years including Access (for database management), Visio (for
diagramming and flowcharting), Project (for managing projects), Publisher (for
desktop publishing), and others.
The current version of Office is 2007 and represents a radical
departure from previous versions with its introduction of the “ribbon” interface
(see
www.accentoncomputers.com/logon/2007/20070223.htm). While this new
interface—which, for the most part, replaces menus with a series of toolbars—may
be beneficial for newcomers to Office, users of older Office products might find
themselves completely lost in the confusing mélange of buttons. Fortunately,
it’s still possible to find older versions of Office such as Office 2000 and
Office 2003 on the Internet.
Which Office suite you purchase all depends on what products
you need. Here’s a rundown:
• Office Basic 2007 includes—that’s right—just the basics: Word, Excel, and
Outlook.
• Office Standard 2007 does the Basic version one better by adding PowerPoint.
• Office Home and Student 2007 includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote
(for note taking) and sells at a reduced academic price.
• Office Small Business 2007 bundles Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook,
Publisher, and Accounting Express (which competes with the popular QuickBooks).
• Office Professional is the same as the Small Business version but also adds
Access to the list of included products.
• There are other versions of Office as well, such as Professional Plus and
Enterprise, which bundle even more products.
Of course, Microsoft Office isn’t your only choice. There’s
also the distant second, Corel Office suite, which centers around WordPerfect
(the reigning king of years gone by) and competes mostly on price.
On the other hand, if you want all of this software
capability, but don’t want to pay any money for it, you can consider
OpenOffice.org. OpenOffice.org is a free (and compatible) suite of programs
designed “to create, as a community, the leading international office suite that
will run on all major platforms and provide access to all functionality and
data.” You can download the free suite by visiting
www.openoffice.org.
This is Larry Schneider, logging off.
