As part of the final stage of testing, Microsoft has made the beta (test) version of Office 2007 freely available.

Office 2007 has a completely new interface, with a 'ribbon' replacing the toolbars and menus of previous versions. The contents of the ribbon changes depending on the active task; Microsoft claims that it will have the correct icon visible up to 80 per cent of the time.

There are now new file formats for all of the Office members, based on XML technology. Backwards compatibility with previous versions is maintained.

Formatting changes are previewed as the mouse hovers over the different options, even if they radically change the appearance of the document.

The size of the download depends on which parts of Office you choose to download. Users are reminded that since this is a beta version, there is no guarantee of stability and the software will stop working in February 2007.

Note that this is a Technical Refresh of Office 2007 beta 2 and prior to applying this Beta 2 Technical Refresh update, you must have installed the Beta 2 version of the associated 2007 Office system product.