Putting in a good Word
Image: Nobu Tamura and LadyofHats via Wikimedia Commons (cc)
For anyone running a business, buying new software can be something of a double-edged sword. While new features can potentially save time and money, it can be hard to justify the (not insignificant) expense of the upgrade if the benefits aren’t immediately obvious.
At Red Pony, we use Microsoft Word a lot in our work, so we tend to know it pretty well. We also have to maintain the latest versions so we can keep up with clients. When I recently upgraded to a new MacBook Air (okay, I admit I’m pretty excited about my new computer) I took the opportunity to install Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 as well.
My first impressions were very positive. We’ve been using Word 2007 for PC for some time now, so I was already familiar with the ribbon menu, which was just one of a number of significant changes from the 2003 version. In fact, I know of one client who postponed rolling out Office 2007 for 2 years while they worked on a large, business-critical initiative. They felt (not unreasonably) that this new software would likely result in delays to the project as staff adjusted to such a different version of Word.
Many of the things I liked about Word 2007 that had been missing in Office for Mac 2004 have been included in this latest version. Unfortunately, some have inexplicably been omitted. For example, the ability to protect styles and formatting, which prevents users from inadvertently copying across styles from other documents, is still not available, even though it has been included in the PC version since Word 2000. The formatting options for numbered and bulleted lists, as well as for tables, are also more sophisticated and user-friendly in the PC equivalent.
Still, the new features and improvements made the upgrade a worthwhile exercise on the whole. If you are still using Word 2003, or even if you are on 2004 for Mac, you might want to consider moving to the latest version. Just be prepared to spend some time adjusting as you get your head around the differences.
If you are a PC user and already on Word 2007, you might want to check out this handy summary of the differences between Word 2007 and Word 2010 for PC.
