Office Basic 2007 provides software essentials for new personal computers, helping both home and small business users to get tasks done more quickly and easily. You can create great-looking documents and spreadsheets, and manage your e-mail, calendar, and contacts.

Find packaging information on the 2007 Microsoft Office system packaging page.

Four major areas of innovation distinguish the 2007 release of Office Basic. These areas of innovation work together to help home computer users and small businesses get things done more quickly and easily. The innovation areas help you:

• Easily find commands and help to get you started. Office Basic 2007 has the Microsoft Office Fluent user interface and an enhanced Help system, including online tutorials with step-by-step instructions, to help you quickly learn the software and find the answers to your questions. The Office Fluent user interface makes it easier for you to deliver better results faster by simplifying the way the 2007 Microsoft Office system programs work. It organizes program features according to the tasks you want to accomplish, reveals additional features when needed, and shows you previews of formatting and editing changes as you browse and select options.
• Create high-quality documents you can be proud of. Office Basic 2007 has new graphics features, formatting galleries, and the Ribbon, a new device that exposes commonly used commands, helping you produce high-quality documents you can be proud of.
• Organize your time and communications. Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 is now an even more complete and easy-to-use e-mail and time manager, which leaves you more time to do the things you want. You can quickly search your e-mail, share your calendar with the people you care about, and get the latest news from your favorite Web sites by using Really Simple Syndication (RSS). (Please note: Fee-based RSS subscription required.)
• Get tasks done with enhanced confidence and security. With an improved junk e-mail filter, automatic document recovery, and the Document Inspector for removing personally identifiable information from your documents, Office Basic 2007 helps you work with more confidence and enhanced security.

As we’ve added more and more features and functionality to the applications, it has become more challenging for people to find the things they want to do with the software. For example, Microsoft Word 1.0 only had about 100 commands; you could easily browse through the menus and find everything you could do. In comparison, Microsoft Office Word 2003 has more than 1,500 commands, many of which are admittedly difficult to find. Helping people quickly find the commands and options they need is the key benefit of the Office Fluent user interface.

We wanted to deliver new capabilities that empower people to get the results they want, faster. We had four major design goals:

• Make it easier for people to find and use product features.
• Reduce design clutter and interruptions.
• Make it easier for people to discover the capabilities they need.
• Support the creation of great-looking documents.

The 2007 versions of Microsoft Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and the authoring part of Outlook — your calendar, your mail notes, and your contacts — have the Office Fluent user interface.

The Microsoft Office system comes in a variety of different suites and provides full-featured productivity applications for both home and business users. Microsoft Works is an attractively priced alternative to a full-featured Microsoft Office suite. Microsoft Works is a nicely integrated productivity package designed specifically for home users and families with computing beginners.

Find pricing and licensing information on the 2007 Microsoft Office system pricing page.

Office Basic 2007 is only promoted by computer manufacturers in conjunction with a new computer purchase and is preinstalled.

No. Office Basic 2007 is a preinstall option only, and comes preinstalled by computer manufacturers in conjunction with a new computer purchase.

Because Office Basic 2007 is available as a preinstall option only with new computers, the various computer manufacturers will ensure that each system meets the minimum system requirements. See the system requirements for the 2007 Microsoft Office release.

No. Office Basic 2007 will not run on Windows 98 and is only available with the purchase of a new computer.

Yes. Office Basic 2007 expands on the Open XML support in Microsoft Office 2003 and Microsoft Office XP by using the Ecma Office 2003 Open XML schemas as the default format for creating and saving documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.

The Ecma Office Open XML Formats will offer some key improvements over the binary file formats in use today within Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Because these new file formats are compressed, the resulting document sizes will be much smaller — between 50 and 75 percent smaller in some cases. The file formats' architecture also improves data recovery of damaged or corrupted files.

Yes. The Office Basic 2007 programs can be configured to save files in the earlier Microsoft Office file formats (.doc, .xls, and .ppt). When configured this way, the Microsoft Office system programs will operate in a Compatibility Mode, which will enforce compatibility between releases of Microsoft Office by disabling functionality that is incompatible with prior Microsoft Office releases.

Yes. Office Basic 2007 introduces the new Ecma Office XML Formats, which are compact, robust file formats that facilitate improved integration with external data sources and systems. These formats are compatible with Microsoft Office 2003, Microsoft Office XP, and Microsoft Office 2000 with the addition of a file format converter patch, which will be available from Office Online and Microsoft Update. Users of Office 2003, Office XP, and Office 2000 can open, edit, and save files by using the new Ecma Office Open XML Formats.

Yes. You can convert Word documents and Excel spreadsheets to Portable Document Format (PDF) documents directly from within Office Basic 2007.¹ You can save your work as a PDF file by using the Save As command from within one of these Microsoft Office system programs. Instead of printing the document to fax it or send it by overnight mail, customers can save a PDF and electronically distribute a read-only, "as printed" representation of the document.

To facilitate creating accessible PDF documents, Office Basic 2007 will support the PDF 1.4 specification, which helps to ensure compatibility with Adobe Acrobat 5.0 or later.

Microsoft is committed to responding to customer requests and to the adoption of open document formats for content sharing, publishing, and archiving needs. With the support in Office Basic 2007 for XML Paper Specification (XPS) file creation and PDF, as well as existing support for the native formats of Microsoft Office system products, HTML, and Open XML Formats, customers will have a rich variety of choices when it comes to sharing, publishing, and archiving their documents