The new Microsoft Word has emerged with sparkling look and function-rich utilities that make it different from its ancestors. But it is not for everyone. The upgradation has brought several love and hate responses among the users. “Is it for you?” In this article we have tried to help you answer this question.

Few of its NEW and NEVER-SEEN features:

Microsoft Office 2007 offers few tools that are generally found in desktop publishing programs. Preformatted styles and diagrams help you to make the document images sleek and eye-catching. With the help of Microsoft Word 2007 you can
· Create stylish and chic documents
· Share documents effectively and maintain confidentiality
· Create smaller file and increase data coupling
· Recover the documents from abrupt termination effectively

Following are few of the features, worthwhile to know:

Tabbed Ribbon:
When you start Word 2007, you can see several commands embedded in tabbed Ribbon of icons on the top. Basic options like File and Save can be viewed by clicking the Office logo.

Dynamic Tabs and Galleries:
Unless you need a tab, Microsoft Word 2007 keeps it hidden. It appears only when you need it. For e.g., the Picture Tools tab appears only after you select a picture.

Zoom Slider
A zoom slider is available at the lower right corner of Word 2007, which is far more efficient than its predecessor.

Little Undo Icon with lots of undo actions
The Undo icon is available on top left corner of Word 2007 window. Clicking the small arrow next to it shows list of actions that can be undone. Unlike previous versions, now the user can undo action(s) to a specific point just by one click.

Handy Editing options
While typing in Microsoft Word, if you select a word, a tiny formatting toolbar fades near that word. Clicking the right mouse button brings up formatting options. So now your editing options are next to the word you are typing.

Provide a reference
If your book report or thesis is due tomorrow, you can rely on Word's References tab.

Art Gallery
You can preview the changes on the page instead to guessing how the formatting or effect will appear after done. Word 2007 is rich with Styles for page and text formatting, image effects and charts.

Add-Ins
The Add-Ins tab appears within the applications if you have Office 2007-compatible software and plug-ins on your hard drive. Here, Word's Add-Ins tab shows that we have a third-party tool from Zoho. These buttons allow us to upload Word files to a password-protected account for Zoho's free online word processor.

The other side:

Who wants to learn a new tool with lots of options and tags? Traditional forces always oppose change acceptance.

Retraining
The new user interface of Office 2007 requires extensive staff retraining which leads to additional cost.
Retraining cost = (Efforts + Time + Cost)
Lots of New things
Drastic changes in new User interface leads to steep learning curve. The “doc” file is now “docx” file. This new file formats raises compatibility issues.

Conclusion:

If the document editing tool you are using currently gives you all that is needed, stick to it. Word 2007 is one of the best options, if you want to go beyond documents.