New Features in Office 2007 (Windows)

Word

• New style sheets (quick styles) and ability to switch easily among them.
• Word count listed by default in the status bar. The word count dynamically updates as you type.
• New contextual spell checker, signified by a wavy blue underline analogous to the traditional wavy red underline for misspellings and wavy green underline for grammar errors, sometimes catches incorrect usage of correctly spelled words, such as in "I think we will loose this battle".
• Translation tool tip option available for English (U.S.), French (France), and Spanish (International Sort). When selected, hovering the mouse cursor over a word will display its translation in the particular language. Non-English versions have different sets of languages. Other languages can be added by using a separate multilingual pack.
• Automated generation of citations and bibliographies according to defined style rules, including APA, Chicago, and MLA. Changing style updates all references automatically. Connect to web services to access online reference databases.
• Rearchitected native mathematical equation support with TeX-like linear input/edit language or GUI interface. Also supports the Unicode Plain Text Encoding of Mathematics.
• Preset gallery of cover pages with fields for Author, Title, Date, Abstract, etc. Cover pages follow the theme of the document (found under the Page Layout tab).
• Document comparison engine updated to support moves, differences in tables, and also easy to follow tri-pane view of original document, new document, and differences.
• Full screen reading layout that shows two pages at a time with maximal screen usage, plus a few critical tools for reviewing.
• Document Inspector which strips Word documents of information such as author name and comments and other "metadata".
• Building Blocks, which lets one save frequently used content, so that they are easily accessible for further use. Building blocks can have data mapped controls in them to allow for form building or structured document authoring.
• The ability to save multiple versions of a document (which had existed since Word 97) has been removed.
• Blog entries can be authored in Word itself and uploaded directly to a blog. Supported blogging sites include Windows Live Spaces, WordPress, SharePoint, Blogger, Community Server etc.

Excel

• Support up to 1,048,576 rows and 16,384 columns in a single worksheet, with 32,767 characters in a single cell (17,179,869,184 cells in a worksheet, 562,932,773,552,128 characters in a worksheet)
• Conditional Formatting introduces support for three new features — Color Scales, Icon Sets and Data Bars
• Color Scales, which automatically color the background of a group of cells with different colors according to the values.
• Icon sets, which precede the text in a cell with an icon that represent some aspect of the value of the cell with respect to other values in a group of cells, can also be applied. Icons can be conditionally applied to show up only when certain criteria is met, such as a cross showing up on an invalid value, where the condition for invalidity can be specified by the user.
• Data Bars show as a gradient bar in the background of a cell the contribution of the cell value in the group.
• Column titles can optionally show options to control the layout of the column.
• Multithreaded calculation of formulae, to speed up large calculations, especially on multi-core/multi-processor systems.
• User Defined Functions (UDF), which are custom functions written to supplement Excel's set of built-in functions, supports the increased number of cells and columns. UDFs now can also be multithreaded. Server side UDFs are based on the .NET Managed code.
• Importing data from external sources, such as a database, has been upgraded. Data can also be imported from formatted tables and reports, which do not have a regular grid structure.
• Formula Autocomplete, automatically suggests function names, arguments and named ranges, and automatically completing them if desired, based on the characters entered. Formulae can refer to a table as well.
• CUBE functions which allow importing data, including set aggregated data, from data analysis services, such as SQL Server Analysis Services.
• Page Layout view, to author spreadsheets in a way that mirrors the formatting that will be applied when printed.
• PivotTables, which are used to create analysis reports out of sets of data, can now support hierarchical data by displaying a row in the table with a "+" icon, which, when clicked, shows more rows regarding it, which can also be hierarchical. PivotTables can also be sorted and filtered independently, and conditional formatting used to highlight trends in the data.
• Filters, now includes a Quick filter option allowing the selection of multiple items from a drop down list of items in the column. The option to filter based on color has been added to the choices available.
• Excel features a new charting engine, which supports advanced formatting, including 3D rendering, transparencies and shadows. Chart layouts can also be customized to highlight various trends in the data.

Powerpoint

• Improvements to text rendering to support text based graphics.
• Rendering of 3D graphics.
• Support for many more sound file formats such as .mp3 and .wma.
• Support for tables and enhanced support for table pasting from Excel.
• Slide Library, which lets you reuse any slide or presentation as a template. Any presentation or slide can be published to the Slide Library.
• Any custom-designed slide library can be saved.
• Presentations can be digitally signed.
• Improved Presenter View.
• Added support for widescreen slides.
• Allows addition of custom placeholders.

Source:  Wikipedia