Chris Alexander
21st October, 2009
Office 2007 is the latest release of Microsoft’s flagship office productivity suite. But inside the huge feature set (including all the new stuff), how exactly can it help you get the best out of your studies?
I’ve taken a look at the whole suite of applications, and come up with a list of features that are remarkably useful for students to get stuff done faster.
What’s even better is you can get Office 2007 for only £40 from The Ultimate Steal!
The primary applications in Office 2007 (Word, PowerPoint, Excel etc.) have a new method of navigating among the multitude of settings, and its called the Ribbon.
Many people have said to me that this may be all well and good, but it is difficult to use. Initially the Ribbon can take a lot of getting used to, and finding settings you just know exist but not quite where, but once you’re used to it the Ribbon makes navigating to the features you want quick and simple, and a lot less stressful than the old menu!
If you’re on any kind of Mathematics, Engineering or Computer Science degree, inserting equations into documents is a daily necessity. Previously, plugins were the best way of doing this. But with Word 2007, inserting complex equations into your document is simple. Inserting a new equation is as simple as selecting the Insert tab, then the Equation button (in the Symbols box on the far right). Then the Equation Tool Design contextual tab will appear, giving you a whole range of options to quickly and simply enter your equation. You can even type in equations using parenthesis, symbols and more, and it will convert it to the formatted version for you automatically.
I don’t know about you, but I always found Bibliographies / lists of references / citations easily the most tedious and error-prone parts of writing a document for University - especially late the night before deadline day!!
Word makes it simple to add references as you go, and automatically update all locations of them in one go - finally!
It doesn’t come with support installed, but at last you can export your Office 2007 documents as PDFs. You can download the plugin from Microsoft’s website.
New in Excel 2007, you can now view your Excel spreadsheets how they will appear when they are printed with the Page Layout View. So how is this different to Print Preview? Well you can actually edit the data while in this view, which is really useful if you’re managing charts you’re about to print. The option is available in the View tab, second button on the left.
PowerPoint 2007 comes with some excellent Themes for your presentations, so you can make yours stand out from the rest with a single click in the Ribbon. It is also incredibly easy to edit the themes, which then update all of the slides in your current deck. If you hover your mouse over a theme in the Ribbon, it also gives you a Live Preview on your slides so you can check it out before you decide to change. You can find the themes in the Design tab of PowerPoint 2007.
Ever find you’re browsing the web and come across the perfect webpage you may need for your project? Now you can easily send that page to your OneNote notebook with one click from Internet Explorer. Simply select the option “Send to OneNote” from the Tools menu in IE.
This is a small one to finish, but now you have all that great research in OneNote, why not make it easy to find things? You can add hyperlinks to different slides in OneNote. Simply right click on a tab and select Copy Hyperlink. Then, paste it into a new note. Voila!
So there are just some of the great tips and features available to students in Office 2007. Have your own to share? Post it in the comments so students all over the world can benefit!
Don’t forget if you’re a UK student, you can get Office 2007 for only £40 from here.