#18 - Word? ew, no.

Word: Ugh. That sums up my first impressions of MS Word 2007—like Vista, it seemed at first glance like an ill-intentioned attempt to fix that which ain’t broke. (After the second, third and fortieth glances, nothing has changed.) Colorful comments made during the first two minutes of exploring Word included:

“Where is my File menu?”
“Why is everything in tabs now?”
“Ew, they’re ugly!”
“What, I can’t Save As?”
“Why the hell is this over here now?”
"What’s wrong with where it was before?”
“#*$&*%#@$” [abridged].

For me, the proliferation of cryptic buttons laying out all the features of a particular tab (Home, Insert, Page Layout, etc) right in front of you doesn’t seem particularly organized, nor is it strikingly user friendly. And it sure as heck can’t be efficient if I can’t tell what these hieroglyphs mean at a glance (check out the ‘Clear Formatting’ button… an Aa festooned with what looks like a white marshmallow speedbump? What?).

Otherwise, it seems like Word with plenty of new features along with all the old ones. ONLY NOW YOU CAN’T FIND ANY OF THEM.

Outlook: On the other hand, the new Outlook email wrangler seems very nice. I like the horizontal window layout as opposed to the old vertical one. And unlike Word, all your basic necessities for life are easily laid out with both icons and text, and in a fashion that does not take up half the screen, omg. The Find feature is a particularly welcome addition, as is the ability to quickly export your emails or contact list to a folder on your hard drive.