Office 2007 Beta 2: MS Word

I had been working on an article and the editor asked me to use track changes in Word. My Office 2000 Word Track Changes functionality didn't seem terribly robust, and so I downloaded Office 2007 Beta 2.

I really like it and it seems to be a major upgrade. I've only been using it a few days but already I've very much appreciated the rich Review functionality. Redmond has also moved away from menu based options toward what they call "The Ribbon." The wikipedia article puts it well:

"These applications have been selected for the UI overhaul, because those applications center around document authoring and present a multitude of options to the same regard."

You can now blog from within Word, though that functionality has been available as an add-in for a while now.

It costs $1.50 to download Office 2007 Beta 2 and the product will cease functioning on 1 Feb 2007.

I definitely intend to upgrade.