Microsoft Office 2003 Overview
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Q1: Why should a person or company upgrade to Office 2003 editions?

Office 2003 delivers improvements in four areas:

1) Information management and control

2) Business processes

3) Communication and collaboration

4) Personal productivity.

Details on these four improvement areas are covered in the next four questions.

Q2: REASON #1 to upgrade: E-Mail, Information Management and Control.

• MS Office Outlook 2003 has been significantly redesigned to make it easier to read and organize e-mail messages. Highlights include a larger viewing area that fits more of the message and decreases scrolling.

• New Outlook 2003 tools will organize messages by the criteria you choose and compress long threads of e-mail conversations.

• Outlook 2003 includes Intelligent Connectivity and Cached Mode to allow users to check their e-mail on the go, while providing a more consistent experience across the range of today's networks and data connections.

Q3: REASON #2 to upgrade: Business Processes.

• Office 2003 enables XML supported content creation and analysis which can lead to powerful new solutions for improving business processes. This version has both a broader and deeper support for XML and Web Services, allowing more sophisticated use of available data.

• XML in Office 2003 allows for a new level of workflow within documents. It also can be used to simplify day-to-day use and processing of information from multiple sources, thus reducing redundancy and error. Using Office 2003, developers and power users can develop solutions which take advantage of the familiar Office interface and tools. In particular, two new features include the MS Office Excel 2003 visual design tool which enables the creation of XML schemas without code. And Data-bound web parts that allow information from a web site to be displayed in a document.

• XML in this version allows for research in internal and external data sources. Each MS Office application will include a task pane that can search behind a corporate firewall and on the internet, depending on the administrator’s choice.

Q4: REASON #3 to upgrade: Collaboration and Communication

• Office 2003 editions paired with Windows SharePoint Services provides a platform for collaborative document authoring. Each MS Office document will have a task bar on the right that will indicate where to retrieve the document from the SharePoint site, who is working on the document, what still needs to be completed, where to find relevant links and more information. Another great feature is the option to e-mail the document as 'live.' A 'live attachment' allows each author to track the changes of all contributors real-time.

• Instant Messaging throughout the MS Office documents lets users communicate with each other spontaneously, without having to open up Outlook or leave the application currently in use.

• Meeting Workspace, another Windows SharePoint Service, provides a workspace that helps you conduct and then follow up on meetings. The new MS Office allows documents to be placed on the workplace, in order to provide meeting communications and documents, helping to organize, share and archive information.

Q5: REASON #4 to upgrade: Personal Productivity

All new innovations contribute to improved productivity for the individual user. MS Office 2003 continues to improve on ease use and improved functionality throughout all core applications. It also delivers the traditional MS Office standard of reliability, security, and on-the-go use.

Q6: What are the major changes between this version and Office XP?

The new MS Office core programs include many significant changes. Very briefly:

• Broader XML support beyond Excel and Access in Office XP. XML will be available in Word, Excel, Access, and offer schemas you can customize for consuming data, smart documents and programmable task panes and research panes.

• Greater integration with Windows SharePoint Services, with increasing collaboration through team sites, Document Workspaces, SharePoint Task Panes in MS Office documents, and Meeting Workspaces.

• A redesigned version of MS Office Outlook 2003 with an improved reading pane, smart folders, cached memory, e-mail conversation thread condensers, and many more improvements.

Q7: What was the driving force in these advancements?

We listened to and addressed our customers’ productivity obstacles such as inefficient collaboration, fatigue from too much information, lack of business process integration and a common disconnect from the right information when needed. Office 2003 editions were designed to help overcome these barriers, and improve overall productivity and enhance the overall productivity of organizations.

Q8: Who is the primary audience for this version of Microsoft Office?

Individuals and businesses that rely upon finding and accessing information and connecting to people and data will receive the greatest value out of Office 2003 editions.

They will enable people who use information, ranging from nurses and teachers to lawyers and scientists, to be more productive in their daily work-related tasks and companies to make better use of the existing data that may be inaccessible to them now.

Q9: Is there value in Office 2003 editions for a regular consumer?

Any individual in a work environment will find great value in Office 2003 editions. Many of the advancements were geared for not only organizations, small or large, but for individuals and their part in an organization.

Q10: Will I have problems sharing Office 2003 files with people running previous versions of Office?

MS Office 2003 can open documents created by Office XP, Office 2000 and Office 97. Similarly, documents created with MS Office 2003 can be opened by each of these prior versions. (with the exception of MS Access).

Users of Access 2000 or earlier: Access version 2003 will use the Access 2000 file format by default. If you choose to use the updated file format for Access 2003, those files will not work with Access 2000.)

Keep in mind that new features in MS Office 2003 might be available or may look different in earlier versions of Microsoft Office.

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