Outlook 2007, when installed as part of the Office 2007 suite, uses Word 2007 as the editor and is a full-featured email client. You'll won't be able to send documents as email (Send to mail recipient) using a feature known as "wordmail". This, along with spell check as you type, was often cited when Outlook and Word versions did not match, but there are other features missing.
When only Outlook is installed, previous versions could only use the "Outlook editor", which offered different signature and less powerful spell check options. In Outlook 2007, there is no "Outlook editor", Outlook 2007 uses only Word as the editor. If Word 2007 is not installed, Outlook 2007 uses a Word dll to provide the editing capabilities. There are more Word features available than with the old "Outlook editor", but there are still some things that won't work or are disabled.
Signatures work the same way they do in Outlook 2003 with the Word editor – you can right click on the signature and select a different signature.
Missing Features
- Themes – Found on the Options tab in the compose message window and in Tools, Options, Mail Format, Stationery and Fonts, is disabled. Page Color is the only theme feature available. Actions, New Message using is also disabled.
- AutoCorrect – Only feature available is Replace as you type (ie, ot becomes to). Some of the predefined symbols won't replace.
- Spell check as you type is not available
- Grammar checking is not available
Notes
If you open the Tools, Options, Spelling tab, Spelling and Autocorrect Options button when a form is open, most of the options are grayed out. If you open this dialog when only the main Outlook window is open, all of these options are 'live'. However, even though you can enable them, they won't work.
Whenever possible you should upgrade all Office versions. The cost of the upgrade version of the Office Standard suite is about twice the cost of buying just Outlook alone (which is not available in an Upgrade version) and you get two or more of the newest Office applications.
The Student and Home Office does not include Outlook – but in most cases, the cost of this suite and Outlook 2007 is less than buying Office Standard. While the S&HO suite includes licenses for 3 computers, Outlook is a single license. S&HO users should have many (but not all) of the editor features found in the full suites, such as spell check as you type and autocorrect. If you think you are missing features and installed Outlook last, reinstall Student and Home Office. If this doesn’t help, the feature can’t be enabled. You will not be able to use themes (stationery) – that is disabled completely in standalone Outlook.
More Information
To replace Stationery and themes, create Outlook templates. Either save them in your My Documents folder for easy access or copy them to a folder in Outlook.
Impact of deploying Outlook 2007 without Word 2007 (TechNet)
Using Outlook 2007 with or without Word 2007 installed (Office Online)
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Last reviewed on Dec 3, 2011
I saw your response to the query re attach files not working in Outlook 2007 and yo recommended removing the update KB2412171
I checked re the update you mentioned but this was not in any of my windows updates so I wondered why it stopped working. I was attaching files/photos/documents with no problem until about 2 weeks ago? Now the button does not respond at all. I have tried restarting but no luck..
I would appreciate any tips.
Thanks
Denise
That update was probably rolled into a later update – i show a bunch of updates installed on the 12th. I have no idea which one might be causing your problems (or if an office update is even the problem).
The button that is causing your problems is the insert button on any outlook form, correct, not the Send to command in other applications or in Windows explorer?
Oh and one more thing – are you using mapped drives? We know that in some circumstances, using mapped drives is an issue when attaching files to messages.