Word 2007 Tackles Academics, Forms

Users are getting a first look at Word 2007 with the release of Office 2007 Beta 2. The upcoming version of Microsoft’s word processor delivers many of the same user interface and formatting improvements coming in Excel and PowerPoint. However, Word 2007 also has specific improvements to its document proofing and analysis, and adds specialized features for academic writing, blogging, and software development. While Word 2007 won’t make or break upgrade decisions to Office 2007, organizations that do upgrade might want to take advantage of some new Word features.

All of Word 2007’s improvements will also show up while editing messages in Outlook 2007, which will use Word 2007 as its only editor. Microsoft says it has improved the performance and reliability of Word when used within Outlook to make this feasible.

User Interface, Graphics Improvements

Like Excel and PowerPoint 2007, Word 2007 will deliver a new user interface to help users find commands more easily, and a new XML file format to reduce file sizes and simplify access to data from applications other than Office. Notable improvements that Word 2007 shares with Excel and PowerPoint 2007 include the following: