The Small Print Project                                       

A collaborative document of experiences with agreements in the digital age as they are designed and encountered.

January 24, 2007

Microsoft Office 2007

Posted to EULAs by Andy Sternberg

The long-awaited MS Office 2007 is here but is it worth it? The NYTimes’ David Pogue says, why hell yes: “After a radical redesign, Word, Excel and PowerPoint are almost totally new programs.”

It may help MSFT that the apps are finally online, in keeping up with Google, but history says that most companies/enterprises will be slow to upgrade to 007, and perhaps for good reason. In fact, there really may be no good reason to upgrade…

As Elsa found:

Product: Microsoft Office Standard 2007 (trial)
URLProduct: http://office.microsoft.com/office/eula
Lowpoints: Lots of vague language about “Internet Based Services” without explaining what that means. There are three separate EULAs without explaining that the RFF terms are the ones to pay attention to if you bought Office in a store. I installed without being connected to the Internet. Then when running Office, Microsoft kept prompting me to install things such as a desktop search for Outlook.

Highpoints: This doesn’t have to do with the EULA, but installation was faster than in the past. And by default, Microsoft offers the least-intrusive installation options. You’ll have to mark a radio button if you want Microsoft to see how you use Office for its customer experience program, for instance.

View Comments

  • "Hi Andy, this is something great. Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2007 is a complete suite of productivity and database software that will help you save time and stay organized. Its Powerful contact management features help you manage all customer and prospect information in one place. Also its edition 2007 develops professional marketing materials for print, e-mail, and the Web, and produce effective marketing campaigns in-house. It helps building databases with no prior experience or technical staff. It is an absolute demand.
    "
  • Nick - The print button is actually located under the "office" button that is located in the top left hand corner. Once you click it, a drop down menu comes up containing all the print functions.
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  • John Crews
    great blog and article
  • My experience has been that people don't really like change all that much so they will be slow to adopt the 2007 version. Unfortunately, my office workstation was targeted as a beta so I had to switch. Here are my initial impressions:

    While 2007 is visually appealing (at least for me), the functions have been grouped into specific tabs which don't mimic the old locations in Word, Excel, Access, etc. As such, there is a learning curve to "re-learn" where those features and functions are now located.

    I like the overall layout and new feature set, but don't partuclar care for the tabbed design. Having to find the correct tab (design, format, edit, etc.) seems slower to me that working off a single toolbar.

    It looks like I'm stuck with it, so I'll have to adapt. Personally, I was completely happy with the prior version I had.
  • Nick
    Please help...

    I got this product with a new machine and I am just trying to print a Word document from an old machine. I can open the document OK, but I can't find a print button. How do you print a document?
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