Images: Word 2007 beta 2

If you're among the 2 percent of Word devotees that Microsoft considers power users, then you might be inclined to right-click your mouse on a chosen feature to add it to the Quick Access menu. Here, we've added the Paste Special function.

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The magnification slider bar in the lower-right corner of Word's interface lets you instantly enlarge a document up to 500 percent or shrink it down to 10 percent.

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Another use of the bottom edge of the interface, especially for writers and students, is its display of a running word count.

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The View tab clusters options for viewing your document in myriad ways--such as adding gridlines--a ruler and thumbnails of all your pages.

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A floating Mini Toolbar appears near your mouse to anticipate formatting changes you might make. You can also bring up the Mini Toolbar and commonly used functions by right-clicking the mouse.

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The Office 2007 system makes playing with images extremely intuitive. The Ribbon's Format tab provides features found in basic image-editing apps. You can preview changes, such as this 3D rotation, by mousing over a tool before you choose to apply it to an image.

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We added a beveled effect to an image with two clicks, then rotated it by clicking and holding down on the picture's attached green circle.

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While there is no way to revert to the Classic mode of Word 2003's dialog boxes, you can hide the dynamic Ribbon by clicking Ctrl-F1.

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The applications within Office 2007 support the same Alt-keyboard shortcuts as in the past. To jog your memory, hit the Alt key to mark functions with a badge displaying the letter or number needed to press in conjunction with the Alt key. We find this handy, though it may bewilder butterfingers who accidentally hit the Alt key--and the badges are too tiny for people with vision problems.

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You can create attractive page layouts with a few clicks through Word's graphical galleries--especially helpful if your work demands making custom presentations, such as newsletters. Unfortunately, we expect some users to find the Galleries confusing.

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From the References tab, you can add citations and a bibliography in styles from APA to Turabian, but we couldn't find an option for adding abstracts of research studies.

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Legal professionals can add a Table of Authorites from the References tab.

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Resizing a document window compresses the Ribbon's tabs to save screen real estate.

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Shrink a document window down to 250 pixels across, and all the functions of the Ribbon disappear to conserve space.

Read CNET Reviews' First Take and slide shows of the beta 2 versions of Microsoft Excel 2007, PowerPoint 2007 and Outlook 2007.

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