I have worked with Office for the last 4 years, and have never ceased to amaze at how vast this software is...and how efficient!
Microsoft Office comprises of five main components, each useful for a different purpose, and each one functionally distinct from the other. Although most of you who are reading this would probably have worked on MS-Office, for the benefit of those who do not have a clear idea about these 5 components, here is a small summary...
MS-WORD:
This is the word processing package, and is probably one of the most used pieces of software. Of all the packages comprising of MS-Office, this one is probably the most widely used one too. It can be used for generating letters, making documents, creating formatted text for newsletters etc. The Mail Merge feature of Word, probably one of the most used and liked features of this word-processing package, helps you to send a common letter to several different people whose names are there in a database/table. The letter can also be customized depending on whom it is sent to. For example, for all the customers in Mumbai, a particular line can be included, while for the rest, a different line can be inserted. There are several such features in Word that can be used to create effective documents efficiently.
MS-EXCEL:
This is the spreadsheet component of MS-Office. This is generally used by the HR persons in a company, and more extensively by the Accounts departments. Here, data can be entered and stored in a tabular manner. Formulae can be applied so that the values in the rows, columns, or specific cells can be manipulated to obtain a necessary value. For example, values in adjoining cells can be added, and their total as well as average can be found. This can also be used by a housewife for keeping a record of the monthly expenditure. (I use it at home for this purpose! I even have it show me a graph indicating what items I spend most on every month.) Several such, and even more complex calculations can be performed on the data in the spreadsheet. Excel also contains a Charts and graphs component that enables you to create charts and graphs based on data in the spreadsheet.
MS-POWERPOINT:
One of my personal favourites, MS-PowerPoint is used by fewer people. This software can be used to create slides, such as those presented by speakers at seminars and conferences. While, these slides can be prepared using the fonts, and styles provided by PowerPoint, and a printout of these can be taken on Transparencies and the same displayed using an Over Head Projector (OHP), PowerPoint’s ’’power’’ lies in creating online presentations--those that will be shown to an audience through some kind of an LCD projector. With PowerPoint, you can add effects to text and other objects, so that these appear in an animated manner one after the other, or together! In the same manner, a transition effect can be added to the different slides, so that when navigating from one slide to the other in the course of the presentation, a smooth and attractive transition occurs. The charts component can also be used here.
MS-OUTLOOK:
This is the email client that is included with MS-Office. While its primary role is to help you send and receive mail, it has several other functionalities too. For example, you can schedule tasks for a particular time of a specific day. Outlook reminds you by popping up a message regarding the task. Similarly, notes can also be written, and appointments maintained. Addresses can also be maintained using an Address Book, which can be accessed across all the Office components.
MS-ACCESS:
This is the database component of MS-Office. It can be used to store data, as well as to create an application, complete with forms and all. While in ways it seems much like Excel, it is capable of much more. Lots of information can be stored here in a much more organized manner. Searching for information, sorting the same, and manipulating it in different ways is made so much easier by MS-Access.
MS-FRONTPAGE:
While this component is considered to be part of the Office package, I think the standard package does not include FrontPage. However, this component is used for creating web pages as well as for publishing them to a website. FrontPage has several features that help build attractive and efficient web sites.
Each of these components together comprise Microsoft Office. And with this package, office work is certainly made more efficient and effective. Each component is so packed with features that only about 30% of its features are probably used by average users. For those who love to dabble in a little bit of programming, Office allows you to write VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) code too. For example, I had once created a form in Access that allows me to type the body of a letter in a text box in Access, and when a button is pressed, a Mail Merge is performed, and the letter made out for all the people whose addresses were present in a particular table in the same database.
Several features are common across the different Office components as well.
With all these features packed into these components that together comprise this package called MS-Office, it is no wonder that a huge percentage of offices worldwide use MS-Office. And it is no wonder that most people today are at home with Office!!!