Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word is a word processing application that can create documents. Users can type, format, and save documents, as well as, copy and paste content while maintaining previous formatting from other applications. For professional documents, spelling and grammar checks are helpful features. Other menu items, such as, paragraph align, and indents are commonly used by students. For creative writing, Word offers drawing tools, clip art and tables to esthetically shape documents for long list of data bullet and number points are a good option. As word is a processing application, its functionality is not susceptible to data mining like excel and access counterparts.
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Word is a spreadsheet great for data organization, with a wealth of features centered around performing mathematical calculations ranging in all complexities with precision and efficiency. Many third-party applications download reporting information into an excel format as the functions and visual graphics make it a desirable application for data interpretation. Outside of the standard data organization techniques offered in excel, additional programming languages can be used to create Macros for more difficult data manipulation. While data visualization can be achieved using Microsoft excel charts, the limitations of adding content to those visualization leave room for desire, that can be addressed using other application like PowerPoint
Microsoft PowerPoint
Microsoft PowerPoint is a presentation software, equipped with design templates, custom animation, and timing options. Its primary uses are seminars, meetings, sales pitches, and any occasion where visual representation would be of service to a presenter to present ideas. A great deal of custom visuals can be added to presentations, newer versions of the software generate ideas for professional styling of slides and content. PowerPoint is highly compatible with other applications such as word and excel, allowing users the ability to embed tables, charts, and graphs into slides. While compatible with other application, managing charts and tables is not the strong suit for PowerPoint, data records are better managed using Microsoft Access.
Microsoft Access
Microsoft Access is a relational database management application where data can be stored. One of its greatest benefits is the collaboration feature that can be used simultaneously by multiple users. The only limitation to the feature is at a record level, where one record can be updated at a time. Unlike other Microsoft applications, a level of specialty is needed for efficiency in access. Most power users will be proficient in some programming language, mainly SQL and Visual basics. Making this application different from the rest, where their benefits lie in the turnkey experience.
Day in the Life Observations
In terms of jotting down tasks and visibility of time spent, I would say excel was the most appropriate for documenting. The trifecta of content, calculation, and visualization made for effective storytelling, eliminating the need for a verbose or elaborate document. Industry wide, excel is commonly used for “to-do” list, project management often use excel workbooks to manage tasks, priority, and work in progress for the multitude of activities involved in a project.
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