Microsoft Office 2007

A couple of late-breaking first lines from my friend Judy Baer:

A girl could get killed on a job like this. From BE MY NEAT-HEART .

and

My name is Whitney Blake and not only is today my birthday, but it's also the day I outgrew my fat pants. From THE WHITNEY CHRONICLES.

Aren't those great? I love the fat pants . . . and can completely relate.

The other day I downloaded the Beta 2 version of Microsoft Office, which includes the programs I use most--Excel, Publisher, Outlook, and of course, Word.

I haven't noticed any major differences in Excel, and I haven't had a chance to play around with Publisher, but I really like the changes in Outlook and Word. Word has two things that really rocked my world--the first is a "publish to blog" option that takes your document and zaps it onto your blog with one click. Amazing.

They've also just come out with a Creative Commons license add-in, useful for material that you want to be passed around, with proper attribution, of course. (Perfect for blogs.) One click and the license is applied. Perfecto!

Another feature I discovered when I was working on one of my school papers. Instead of the usual "references" feature (footnotes or endnotes), there's a new "citation" feature which puts your source in the text in the format you choose (APA, Chicago, etc.) Amazing again!

There are some really cool graphic headers in the new Word, too. I'm purely using it as I work--haven't had time to play around for the sake of exploration--but I really like what I'm seeing and have no major complaints. Can't wait for the final versions to come out!

~~Angie