Microsoft’s powerhouse productivity suite needs no introduction. Microsoft Office is used everywhere from the New York offices of Fortune 500 companies high up in skyscrapers all the way down to rural elementary school classrooms. The popularity of Microsoft Office is no accident—since its inception, Microsoft has aimed to marry professional functionality with usability when it comes to productivity software. Microsoft Office Professional is the winner of our “TopTenREVIEWS Silver Award” in the category of office software because the familiar program retains its user-friendly approach and introduces a wide range of advanced features well suited to the varied needs of the modern professional.
• Word processor, spreadsheet editor, slideshow presentation program, email client and other essential productivity programs
• Business Contact Manager address book feature works across all Office programs
• Large library of document, spreadsheet and presentation templates online
• Database templates and configuration with Office Access
Microsoft Office Professional features programs familiar to every workplace. Thanks to their ubiquity, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook are a part of the everyday vernacular both at the office and at home. In terms of usability, we’re so accustomed to Microsoft Office that it often feels like second nature. Whether we acknowledge it or not, most of us think about the productivity work we do using the language of Microsoft. Happily, Microsoft Office Professional preserves the intuitive user interface of previous versions while managing to add a wealth of new features. Anyone who has used previous versions of Microsoft Office will feel right at home on the latest version.
Microsoft Office Professional will cost you more than Standard or Home and Student. Compared to the pared down versions however, Professional includes Microsoft Publisher and Microsoft Access. Publisher is desktop publishing software ideal for managing and developing marketing campaigns. Thanks to effective integration with Outlook, Microsoft Publisher makes distributing and sharing materials to professional contacts as simple as opening your address book.
Another valuable tool for the project oriented workplace included with Microsoft Office Professional is Microsoft Access. Microsoft Access assists with creating and maintaining a database. We were impressed with the relative ease of configuring a database and coordinating activity across a network. Even for novices, managing a database shouldn’t be a problem with the help of Microsoft Access.

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