Microsoft Office Home & Student 2010 - 3PC/1User [Download]

I've had an opportunity to use Office 2010 Beta edition for a couple of months now and now that I see the full, final, edition I can say that this is a very worthwhile upgrade. First things first, I am not a techie. I am someone who uses Word, Excel and PowerPoint on a very regular basis, who really liked some of the changes in Office 2007 but who thought some things needed tweaking, so when given the opportunity for the beta edition I jumped on it and have not been disappointed. Office 2010 is to Office 2007 what Windows 7 was to Vista; that is, there are not many breakthrough, drastically different features, but a whole lot of polishing and cleanup to make it easier and more efficient. Overall, the program seems to run faster, incorporates many of the most commonly used options and makes them more accessible (eliminating many dialog boxes and tabs) and allows for more customization.

At first glance it looks very much like its predecessor, the ribbon is back and it is now also found on OneNote. There are plenty of sites that will give you a play-by-play on all the features available in this new version, so I'm just going to mention some of the biggest improvements that I've seen.
1) The biggest change is the addition of the web apps. It may not be a true direct competitor to google docs, but it allows for easier sharing of documents, as well as making your documents more accessible.
2) The ribbon is back and it now includes the "File" option and a new feature called "Backstage view." Backstage view incorporates the most commonly used actions in one place (yay! no more dialog boxes with tabs). You get the usual open, save and print, but you also get several templates for new documents, print layouts and ways to share your work, all without dialog boxes and tabs, everything is much more easily accessible.
3) Another new feature is that the ribbon is now customizable so you can organize it according to your needs.
4) There is a Paste Preview which lets you switch between paste options so you can make sure that your work will be formatted correctly.

Changes in PowerPoint.
You can now edit video directly on PowerPoint. You can trim a video, add effects, fades and even triggers for animations for the presentation. Another new feature is that you can add effects and edit images without the need for third party software.

Changes in Word.
One nifty new feature in Word is called "Navigation pane," which replaces the old document map. It incorporates minor changes in design that make big changes in productivity and ease of use. It allows you to quickly rearrange the document. Take for example a document with several headings/sections. The Navigation pane provides a list of all the headings. The headings are live, so you can drag them up or down, thus rearranging the document. It also incorporates most of the functions that used to be available in the "Find" dialog box but now they are all visible so you don't have to go digging through several menus to find the option that you need.

Changes in Excel.
Most of the changes in Excel deal with very large datasets. There is a new PowerPivot add-in which works great if you are dealing with a very large dataset that does not fit in one Excel spreadsheet. PowerPivot pulls the data from multiple sources (several Excel spreadsheets for instance) to analyze it.

Summary:
Overall this is one well planned and executed upgrade that essentially takes all the promises of Office 2007 and makes them a reality. Yes, some things are different, and it will take some getting used to; but, once you realize the improvement in efficiency you'll agree that the changes are mostly for the positive. The only thing that I truly wish had changed but didn't is that this version does not include Outlook. That is available in the Home and Business version.

This is a worthwhile upgrade for me. I debated whether to do it or not and what version to get. I finally decided on the Home and Student version. I was pleased to see the price actually drop upon shipping. For me the main deal was OneNote 2010 which allows me to print directly into OneNote. In December I bought a new laptop and it has Win7 Pro 64bit. I was very disappointed to find that OneNote 2007 did not include a driver to print directly into it. While MS did provide a work around this much better.

One word of caution when you are installing. My MS Office install is a bit of a collection. I'm using stand alone versions of Outlook and Publisher (both 2007) and Access (2003). I had decided to leave these as is. Upon installing 2010 I was presented with two buttons: "Upgrade" and "Customize". I picked curtain 1 (upgrade). My bad! The install then proceeded to remove Outlook, Publisher and Access. Since the program I was installing did not include these products I think it's pretty bogus for the install process to remove them. I don't know if the "Customize" button would have allowed them to stay. I reinstalled the 3 programs and everything was fine, but I should not have had to waste time doing this.

In my title, I noted that it is "probably" not worth the upgrade. The probably depends upon what you are upgrading from. If you are using Office 2007, stick with 2007. This has a slightly longer load time and not much in the way of usable new features. If you are upgrading from an even earlier version of Office, then this is probably the way to go.

The good: The ribbon bar. I like it and it is still there, with a couple of minor improvements such as adding a file option and incorporating your most commonly used actions into one place (kind of like Office 2003 did). The look is slightly updated to be more in line with Windows 7. There are some nice video editing features for PowerPoint that you may find useful. Also, the true claim to fame of this program is that it nearly catches up to Google Docs with online options. Finally, this is a three computer license, which is nice since so many people buy one and put it on all the computers in the house anyway.

The bad: Slower load time (with a fancier splash screen to make you think you are getting something better). Second, try the online options at Office Live before you buy. I have found that the load times can be unbearable there and the firewall where I work effectively blocks the Office Live features anyway.

The INEXCUSABLE: I didn't want to give this a one star rating for draconian DRM like so many gamers have done lately, but this product does one inexcusable thing on install. I was "upgrading" from Office 2007 Pro to 2010 Home and Student. I was well aware that this version didnt come with Access or Outlook, but I WAS COMPLETELY UNAWARE THAT 2010 WOULD REMOVE MY EXISTING ACCESS 2007 AND OUTLOOK 2007 FROM MY COMPUTER WITHOUT MY PERMISSION! There is no excuse for this type of behavior and it is making me consider re-installing 2007 instead of this junk! (When I have time, I will attempt to re-install Outlook and Access 2007 from that disk and see what happens, but even if that works, this is inexcusable.)