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Office 2003: For the Simple People
I'd be curious to see a survey of how many
people use the different versions of Microsoft Office. My parents use Office
97. At work I use Office 2000. At school I use Office XP (2002). Now Office
2003 is slated to hit the shelves late this summer. I've been able to obtain
a prerelease version and have been using it for more than a month.~~Chad K. Welch There are already plenty of reviews out there for the newest version. This article simply adds to that heap. I haven't seen any articles written for us simple people who use Office at home, school or small offices. I think that most changes and enhancements in Office 2003 are geared towards corporations and large organizations, so the reviewers have been writing about those changes. However, there are plenty of changes that I have been able to test and think will be a hit for all Office users. One thing that you will need to get used to if you make the switch is the phrase "Downloading from Microsoft.com…." I should have started a list of all the times I noticed it was pulling information from the web. This is a great enhancement. The Internet has such a wealth of information; I am excited anytime I see a program checking for updated or more recent information. Some things that use the Internet will still work without a live connection. For example, the Help files are installed on the computer, but it checks for updates on the web. Without an Internet connection you will see a message, "Unable to communicate with the server," but the local Help files will still be displayed. Translation and stock quotes, on the other hand, require a live connection. Speaking of translation, Office 2003 uses WorldLingo.com to translate documents. It is translated using machine translation, so it isn't perfect, but I translated a couple of documents from French and Spanish to English. The grammar was off, but I understood the gist of the documents. In other words, use the tool to translate documents that you receive in a different language, but don't try to translate your original document to a foreign language before sending it to others. For a price, WorldLingo offers to have your document proofread by a human to ensure that it is grammatically correct. Another enhancement that impressed me is the added editing features. Word has added a new view called Reading Layout. It optimizes the text in a document for the resolution of your monitor for easier reading. When I first heard of this, I thought it was hogwash, but I'm now convinced, I can read and review a document quicker when I have the view set for Reading Layout. You can also compare documents side by side. This is a very easy way to take an original document and one that has been changed and compare them. You can scroll both documents at the same time and easily find the changes. Another enhancement that has been getting mixed reviews for the last couple of years is Microsoft's error reporting and customer feedback. I have always believed that feedback by the user to the developer is a great idea. In this version of Office the error reporting is handled the same way (at least the part that we consumers see). Microsoft is now collecting information about hardware and how you use office. They use the information to identify trends and usage patterns. Ideally, they can make more enhancements and upgrades to the parts of Office that are used more often. Of course, participation is optional, but I recommend it. Well, this article is growing long, and I've barely scratched the surface. I'll add to this review next month. As you can tell, I'm excited by the new options available in Office 2003. However, I'm not sure whether the cost to upgrade is worth it or not. Next month I'll explain why. As always, if you have a topic or question that you would like to have addressed in this column send me an email with "Idea for ABC" in the subject line. If you are the first to send me the idea and I use it, I'll send you $5.00. Chad K. Welch works as a technician/enabler in
Utah. He is available for
consulting or application programming with Microsoft Office and VBA.
Do you have a question or
tip you’d like to have Chad address in this column? Send an
email to linda |
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