Microsoft Office 2007 is now a few years old but is still in use by many people in business and at home. Individuals and businesses use the office suite for a variety of productivity functions, but did you know just how many collaborative features are integrated into the software, and how more collaborative features are added with each new release of Office? If you already own or are considering purchasing Microsoft Office 2007 and the suite’s collaborative features would be useful for you, read on.
Track Changes
Track Changes is a unique feature of Microsoft Word that keeps track of every change made in a document once turned on. Track Changes also knows which user of Word made the changes, making it easy to keep track of who did what to a certain document. Changes can be accepted or rejected on an individual basis or universally throughout the document.
SharePoint and Groove
Office 2007 incorporated SharePoint, permitting Office users to create, edit and maintain documents, specifically spreadsheets, via a web browser. It introduced Groove, which allowed for peer-to-peer sharing of documents, spreadsheets, and slideshows in a shared workspace, complete with instant messaging. Groove also allows administrators to manage workplace sessions and who can access what projects.
Comments
Comments is one of the best collaborative features of Microsoft Office, as it is simple to use but easy to communicate with. All you have to do is highlight a section you have a comment about, add a new comment, and type in your thoughts. Individual users can be given access to or locked out of making comments or changes to any document. All documents can be password protected for confidentiality. Comments is available for Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Users also have the ability to preview any documents and sign off on the final version.
Compare Different Versions of Documents
Microsoft Word 2007 allows for easy comparison between an original document you have and a different version that might have been sent to you. The feature is under the Review tab and all you have to do is select the document you want compared to the current one. You can also combine two documents and incorporate changes made by everyone into the same document.
E-Mail Integration
While this feature has been around for a long time, it’s worth mentioning. Word, Excel and PowerPoint offer users the ability to send their files over e-mail or fax directly from the program and offer full integration with Outlook.
There are plenty of reasons to buy Microsoft Office 2007, and the software giant’s collaborative features are just one of many reasons why you should have this program. There is a reason Microsoft Office 2007 is still in common use almost ten years after its initial release.