When buying a copy of Microsoft Office, it's important to note that there are dozens of different versions of the product available and it's not always obvious which one to go for. Office has been around for nearly 20 years and has seen many major revisions along the way - from 1989's version 1.0, which was originally only available for Macintosh computers, through Office 95, Office XP and, more recently, Office 2003 and Office 2007.

Though the overall look and feel of the software has changed, its core programs have, by and large, remained the same: Word is the word processor; Excel is the spreadsheet editor; Outlook is the email program and contacts and calendar tool; Powerpoint is the presentation program; and Access is the database application. Other tools have been added along the way, including Publisher (a desktop publishing tool).



To confuse matters further, each new version of Office is released as a number of subtly different 'editions'. Each edition comprises a different selection of Office programs, aimed at a specific type of user. For example, Office 2007 Home and Student Edition includes the essentials that are most suitable for home users - Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Onenote, which automates notetaking. Office 2007 Small Business Edition adds some more businesslike components in the shape of Outlook, Publisher and the fmance application Accounting Express. Naturally, these differences are also reflected in the price; Office 2007 Small Business Edition retails for around Rs. 28,200, for example, but the Home and Student Edition costs Rs. 3,420 at buyoriginalms.com and can be installed on up to three PCs. As such, it makes an ideal choice for families and simple home office setups.

Some Office applications - such as Outlook, Word and Publisher - can be purchased separately, but this doesn't usually work out as being very cost effective. Also, Microsoft Office isn't the only option. Corel OpenWordperfect Office X4 is an alternative that include word processing and spreadsheet tools. If you don't want to spend anything, Openoffice (Two month CD is a completely free, fully fledged office suite that's well worth downloading. [t has many of the same features as Microsoft's suite, though some of the functions work a little differently, so you may not be able to apply the instructions in the Workshops in this magazine directly to Openoffice equivalents.