Office At Work : Office trial

Top tips for using Office 2007 on your netbook

StephB — Tue, 19 May 2009 11:34:54 GMT

I wanted to share this article which my colleague in Mexico, Adriana, recently published. Hope you find it useful :). Thanks Adriana!

First things first: Everything you need to know about installing Office 2007 on your netbook

Most netbooks come with a free 60-day trial of Office 2007 pre-installed, so if you want to try Office 2007 before you buy, you can activate the trial by double-clicking the ’60-day trial’ icon on the desktop.

When you decide to buy, you simply convert the pre-installed trial by following the links you will receive in follow-up emails. Alternatively, you can buy a boxed copy of your chosen Office suite from a local or online retailer. You just enter the product key that comes with the box to convert the trial to a fully licensed version.

Not all netbooks have a CD/DVD drive. If yours doesn’t, don’t worry, you can buy and download a copy of Office 2007 from Microsoft Store. You can also download the Office trial from Office Online.

Read more about how to get Office 2007 on your netbook

Performance

You do need to take into account the capacity and technical specification of your netbook. The netbook I tested had 512Mb RAM memory and 60GB hard drive. The ‘official’ minimum specification for Office 2007 is here. I installed Office Home and Student 2007.

Overall the experience with Office 2007 was good, and the applications all functioned well. After a few days of testing, the only slowness I noticed was when I has several applications with several windows each running, so it’s a good idea to remember to save and close documents as you go (a good habit anyway!).

The best thing come in small packages

Netbooks are - by their nature - smaller than standard laptops. This is great for portability but also means you might want to adopt a couple of tricks to make the most of the smaller screen area.

Zoom is your friend

Use the zoom function to view a smaller amount of your document at one time, for easier editing. You can also save zoom settings to suit your preferences.

Using the zoom function

Minimise the Office menu (Ribbon)

This function gives you a larger working area. To minimise or reset the menu (ribbon) just press Ctrl+F1.

You can also save time by becoming familiar with the Quick Access Toolbar

Save documents online and save space on your PC

Office Live Workspace is your No. 1 ally here. Don’t clog up your hard drive with documents and photos. Set up an Office Live Workspace instead. You can upload all your files so you can access them anytime over the internet, whether you’re using your netbook, work PC or an internet café on holiday. You can also choose to give access to some areas of your workspace, so friends or colleagues can download, edit and upload documents too.

What are you waiting for?

After you’ve installed Office 2007 on your netbook, visit our training portal to learn everything you need to get started with Office 2007, completely free, with our interactive training courses. If it’s the first time you’ve used Microsoft Office programs, don’t worry, I have something for you too. Learn how to take the first steps with Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook 2007 here.

Have you started (or are trying to start) Office from a new PC?

StephB — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:33:59 GMT

If you have recently bought a laptop computer (PC) you may have a copy of Office 2007 pre-loaded on it. You can tell if you have one of these computers because there will be an icon on the computer desktop like this and you will be able to see the Microsoft Office programs like Word when you open the 'Programs' menu.

The idea of these computers is that you can try Office out and then buy it later. So, even though you can see the Microsoft Office applications like Word and Powerpoint, you have not actually bought Microsoft Office 2007 yet. The cost of Office is not part of the cost of the PC.

How to tell if you have Office pre-loaded on your laptop

If you have one of these PCs you will be able to see and open Microsoft Office applications like Word, Excel and Powerpoint, even though you don't have a licence for Office yet. When you open the applications you will get a pop-up box that asks for your product key. It looks like this;

At this stage your trial is NOT activated. To activate the trial you need to get a product key using the trial activation wizard (see below). Do not try to enter a product key from any of the following sources - they will not work;

Sticker on bottom of your PC
Product key from old Office software*
Product key from Vista or any other non-Office software

Just to confuse matters (if you aren't confused already) you can use the programs (eg. Word) 25 times before you HAVE to enter a product key. My advice is, don't wait this long! If you wait until the product locks up (a.k.a. 'reduced functionality mode') you may run into some other problems activating the trial.

Instead, go through the trial activation process described below now. Don't worry, you do not have to pay anything yet :).

*If you do have a box of old Office software you may be entitled to use it on your new machine. However, this box is not the place to enter the key. Instead, go to the activation wizard (see below) and press the red ‘Activate Now’ button instead of the yellow ‘Try Now’ button. Enter the key there.

Trial activation wizard

If you have a PC with Office pre-loaded onto it you should also be able to see an icon on the desktop which looks like this;

Important: The easiest way to set up the Office trial is to double-click on this icon. Double-clicking on the icon should open a wizard (a pop-up box) on the screen which looks similar to this;

Follow the steps in the wizard like this;

1) Click the yellow 'Try Now' button

2) Enter your email address

2) Press the green 'submit' button

3) You should now see a product key in the box on the right (see below).

4) Copy this product key

5) Click on the link above the product key box

6) This will open MS Word on your computer. The product key box will appear (this may take a little time)

6) Paste the product key into the 'Enter your Product Key' box and press the submit button

7) You should now see the 'Install' screen. It looks like this;

7) When your trial is successfully installed you will see this screen

8) You then need to accept the license terms by pressing the Accept button on the next screen

9) Keep the default options on the next screen (these are just some questions about how you get help content for your programs. You can change these later if you want).

9) Your trial should now be activated and you will be able to use all the Office applications like Word and Powerpoint with full functionality.

!Important: You can now use Office for 60 days in full functionality. At any time during these 60 days you can convert the trial by buying a full Office product key. Even though you have entered a product key to activate the trial you have still not bought Office, as you have not parted with any cash!

The next post in this series will be about the different ways you can buy Office, converting your trial to the full version of Office...in one sentence either buy a boxed copy from your local retailer or follow the instructions on your PC to buy online.

Having problems with Office trial? Can't find your product key?

StephB — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:26:00 GMT

Hi. I can't help noticing that one or two of you seem to be having a few problems with product keys and Office trials (!) so I'd really like to offer some tips in the hope it might help some of you out.

I understand that the process can be a little confusing, as can some of the help pages you're sent to during the trial activation process. I'm working on getting this fixed but in the mean time I'm posting few quick pointers.

I'll be posting tips for the following scenarios;

Have you started (or are trying to start) Office from a new PC?
Have you bought a boxed copy of Office 2007 which you now want to install over a trial version of Microsoft Office 2007?
Have you been using a trial version of Microsoft Office and are now unsure about how to convert it?

Check back soon!