Office 2003 offers a few worthy upgrades
By MIKE BERMAN
Scripps Howard News Service
February 04, 2004

To many, it's just another pretty face, a vamp designed to lure and tempt us to take it home from the store. But to others, it's a much-needed makeover that was the logical next step in its evolution.

Microsoft Office 2003 ($399-499 depending on which version you buy) is the latest offering from Uncle Bill and the Boys from Redmond and, truthfully, the average user may see few new features that will make him say "I've gotta have it."

The most obvious change is the office suite's new look. Heavy on graphics - which tend to slow it down - all of Office 2003's applications sport a fancy new interface, but remember it's what lies under all that makeup that's important!

To me the biggest change is that it now only runs on computers using Windows 2000 or XP operating systems. So, if you're still in the ancient world of Windows 95, 98 or NT, you're forced to upgrade to use it - or you can stay with older versions of the product.

As with previous versions, Office 2003 comes in four flavors: Standard ($399), which contains Word 2003, Outlook 2003, Excel 2003 and PowerPoint; Student and Teacher Edition ($149), which has the same applications as Standard but allows you to install them on up to three computers; Small Business ($499), which adds Publisher 2003 to the package; and Professional ($499), which includes all the above plus Access 2003. Unfortunately other Microsoft business applications such as Visio 2003, InfoPath 2003, FrontPage 2003, Project 2003 and OneNote 2003 must be purchased separately.

The annoying product activation system is still there, which means you have to "activate" Office before you can use it. But, truthfully, it was painless and took just seconds to complete the process.

The most significant changes for the average users can be found in Outlook, which now boasts a spam filter, a larger preview pane (allowing you to look at e-mail messages before opening them), e-mail alerts that let you know when new messages have been downloaded and the ability to quick-flag messages for later follow-up. Also, it no longer automatically downloads images from the Web, basically protecting you from spammers cluttering machines with offensive materials.

Is this enough to make you go out and buy the complete suite? Probably not, although I really like the new Outlook, especially since the product can be purchased separately for $109.

Of course Uncle Bill has made a few other changes, but the jury is still out as to their benefit to mankind. They include:

• The ability to create custom slide shows in PowerPoint and burn them to a CD. There are also more multimedia options available, including streaming audio and video.
• Support in all applications for Smart Tags.
• Access to the new Research Library from all applications, which displays free information on any word in your document. All you have to do is right click on a word and choose the "Look Up" option and a research pane opens alongside your document window giving you definitions, synonyms, translations, etc.
• You can compare two documents side-by-side in Word and Excel.
• Word now features a new Reading Mode, which shows you how the document is going to look once it's printed. Unlike Print Preview, you can also edit text.
• You can assign "rights" to a file or e-mail, giving specific members of a workgroup permission to edit files, forward e-mails or pass along attachments.

More information on Microsoft Office 2003 can be found at www.microsoft.com/office2003.

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