Which office software suite works best for you?

Here’s a question for you Microsoft Office users – and you’re not allowed to peek. What version are you using? We suspect that in most cases, the answer will be 'um...'

Microsoft’s monster suite reached maturity with version 4.3 back in 1994, and with the exception of Outlook in 1997, a casual observer might wonder whether there were any real differences between Office 2003 and its predecessors. That must have driven Microsoft bonkers. Its own research showed that, of the millions of users worldwide, most of them used a tiny fraction of the programs’ features. Enter Microsoft Office Standard 2007 – dramatically different from any suite you’ve ever used – and also Tesco Complete Office, which is familiar and exceptionally cheap. So which is the best?

If the contest were on looks and power alone, Office 2007 would be the shoo-in winner. It introduces a new file format that’s smaller and more secure than previous versions, and the new interface – the Fluent – is gorgeous. The Fluent shows the features you might need, and hides the ones you don’t. When you’re formatting, the Fluent shows useful formatting things; when you’re editing, the Fluent shows editing things, and so on.

Similarly when you right-click on something, the right-click menu is supplemented with a relevant toolbar – so if you rightclick on text you’ll get the rightclick menu and a formatting toolbar for easier editing.

It’s particularly impressive in Word 2007, providing access to powerful features such as complex table formatting without being intimidating. It takes a bit of getting used to, but it really speeds up common tasks, and within days you’ll wonder how you lived without it.

Old School - Compared to premium software, Complete Office looks antediluvian

Outlook 2007 adds support for RSS news feeds, better email handling and a new To Do Bar that combines your Calendar for easy task management. Category and flags are handier, and Outlook 2007’s Calendar is designed to be shared online or via email. It boasts a superb search system that finds important emails no matter where they reside. The addition of the suite-wide graphics engine means more impressive PowerPoint 2007 presentations, embedded graphs, charts and other eye candy.

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Tesco Complete Office can’t produce documents to the high standards of Office 2007, it’s prone to the odd crash and there’s no email program, but if you need an Office 97 clone, it isn’t bad. It’s got the old Office interface and while you don’t get the document collaboration features of Word 2007, you do get mail merge, tables, text effects, data filters and basic charting. It can open and save the older Microsoft Office files, but it isn’t compatible with the Office 2007 file formats. Corporate users will find it hopelessly underpowered, but it will bash out letters and keep track of the family finances.

Microsoft Makeover - The new Office incarnation makes documents look great

So which is for you? If you’re already using Microsoft Office for business, upgrading will make life easier – provided you’ve got a decent PC. If you don’t have an Office suite and you’ve a more modest PC, you may prefer the Tesco route. While Office Standard 2007 is £349 (or £119 for the Home and Student Edition), Tesco’s suite is £19.97 and needs just 64MB of RAM. As Grazia might put it, Office 2007 is for the minted while Tesco’s offering is for the skinted.

Our Verdict

Tesco Complete Office

Buy if... You need a cheap office suite that covers the basics and doesn’t require a monster PC.

Don’t buy if... You need a serious office suite for number crunching, collaboration and producing impressive documents.

Microsoft Office Standard 2007

Buy if... You're using an older version of Microsoft Office and want to work smarter.

Don’t buy if... Your PC already struggles to run Windows Vista; you're short of cash.

The bottom line: Tesco Office is fine for bashing out the odd letter, but it's underpowered and it shows. Office 2007 is pretty, practical and powerful, and while its hardware requirements are more demanding, the results are far more impressive.

Gary Marshall is a freelance journalist who writes about technology, the Internet and pop culture. His website can be found at www.bigmouthstrikesagain.com.

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