The first version of Microsoft Office 2007 was made available to retail around three years after the debut of its predecessor. It brought changes just like any other version but the changes on its new design was quite extreme.

Of all the Office’s elements that underwent changes, the ones that were very obvious to users of previous versions would probably be the ribbon and live preview. These two changes are important to understand to use Microsoft Office 2007 to its fullest potential.

Features and Highlights

One quick look at Microsoft Office 2007’s interface is probably all it needs to realize that it has changed significantly. It uses ribbons and there is a big Office button at the top left corner of the interface. The menu bar which displays File, Edit, View, Insert and so on are no longer there.

The ribbon has sparked debates even until today. Many users like it, many others dislike it strongly. The whole idea of this new interface element is to help users getting access to features and options more quickly by presenting them as intuitive as possible, but not every user appreciated the change.

The ribbon consists of a number of commands that change according to what you do in Microsoft Office 2007. For example, inserting a chart into a worksheet will make the ribbon shows the Chart Tools Design options. In short, it shows you the tools that you need the most for completing your current task.

As for the Live Preview, it can be considered as a time saving tool. It allows you to see how a formatting option will affect your document without actually applying the option. For example, try to select text and then select a font size. As you scroll through the font sizes, the Live Preview will automatically change the font size of the text accordingly, but the actual change will only be applied after you click on a font size.

Office Open XML was another improvement introduced in Microsoft Office 2007. The new file format offers several benefits such as smaller file size, less prone to damages, universally accessible, improved data management, and simplified data exchange between enterprise system and Microsoft Office.

Thanks to how it works in managing parts of a file, the new file format makes it possible for Microsoft Office 2007 to recover damaged files with a higher recovery rate. There are many reason of why a file can get corrupted. Therefore, this possibility alone makes it worth it to use Microsoft Office 2007 for users who are still using any of the previous versions.

Microsoft Office 2007 Free Download for Windows

The ribbon introduction in Microsoft Office 2007 sparked a controversy but there are many other features to like from this version. Live Preview that allows you to view changes directly without actually applying them, Contextual Tabs that appear only when they are necessary, Mini Toolbar that provides a set of basic formatting options, SmartArt that offers more than 100 layout templates, and so on. You can click the link below to download Microsoft Office 2007 for Windows: