Microsoft Office 2007 RTM

Microsoft has finalised the code of Microsoft Office 2007, and corporate customers will be able to get their hands on the new productivity suite around 30 November. But you can't buy and install Office 2007 for your personal computer this holiday season; the retail editions of Office 2007 are expected to hit stores early next year, in step with the Vista operating system.

We've examined the RTM version of Office 2007, which has been released to computer manufacturers bundling their notebooks and desktops with Microsoft's new software. For more than a year, we've been following the development of Microsoft Office 2007 with pre-release reviews, slide shows and videos, test-driving various rough-draft versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and companion applications.

Installation of Office 2007 RTM took us about 10 minutes on a Windows XP computer. You're allowed to install Office 2007 software on two computers for your personal use. The user license agreement makes you agree that you will download updates whenever Microsoft deems necessary. Also at any time, Microsoft may verify your license key to make sure that you're not using pirated software.

Once you open the applications, you'll be greeted by a drastically new interface. Office 2007's major programs each organise features into tabs rather than drop-down menus and dialogue boxes. The fresh face of Office takes some time to get used to, but it also surfaces long-buried tools.

The new applications within Office 2007 emphasise visual effects more than in the past, so you can create documents with snazzier pictures, graphs and flowcharts.

Another big change to Office are its new XML-based files, which squeeze more data into fewer kilobytes. However, as with the release of Office 1997, you won't be able to open a file in the new format immediately when using earlier versions of the programs. This could cause grief if you have the new software but need to share work with people who haven't upgraded. The 2007 applications let you save backward-compatible files, but not by default. Those running, say, Word 2003 who need to open a Word 2007 DOCX file will first have to download a one-time Compatibility Pack. We're glad that you'll be able to run all of your familiar Office 2003 programs side by side with the new Office 2007 applications, with the exception of Outlook, on the same hard drive. This would be useful if you want to compare, say, how a macro was created in 2003; it'll have to be reconstructed in 2007.

Office 2007's other notable features include a strong emphasis on style templates, with the ability to preview changes to fonts and graphics on the fly. There are more options for dressing up documents with the sorts of charts, diagrams and pictures usually offered by desktop publishing software. New shortcuts for analysing information within Excel let you display patterns of data as a colourful heat map, for instance. There's new support for blogging within Word, Outlook gets deeper search and task management abilities in addition to SMS text messaging, and Office 2007 features easier-to-manage overall document security.

By default, the 2007 applications will save your documents in the new, XML-based file formats. You'll have to take extra steps to open these documents in Office 2003 software and earlier.

Oddly, however, Microsoft won't let you easily access, author or edit those letters, reports, spreadsheets and presentations within a web browser. Microsoft and Google are battling to win over small-business users with free, web-based services. But there is no Microsoft equivalent to the online Google Docs & Spreadsheets, just as Google's productivity services don't match the depth of features within Microsoft Office software.

Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook will make up the $399 (~£210) Office Standard package, while Office Home and Student for $149 (~£78) will come with the same core applications, trading Outlook for OneNote. The $449 (~£236) Office Small Business, $499 (~£262) Professional and $679 (~£357) Ultimate editions will throw in more services for businesses, including Outlook with Business Contact Manager, Publisher and Access. Office 2007 is supposed to work the same whether running on Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 or Vista. In the meantime, you can continue to download the beta edition of Office 2007, which will expire early next year on the release of the final retail version.

Microsoft is set to ship Office 2007 to larger businesses within the next month and to the general public early next year. Here's a summary of the radical changes just around the corner.