Page #213 (Microsoft Office XP Inside Out,An Office XP Overview,A Rundown on Office XP)

If you're not sure where to start with Office, you can use Table 1-1 to select the best Office application to use for creating the type of document you want or for performing the task you need to complete.

For a more detailed rundown on an Office XP application, see the first chapter in the part of the book that covers that application.

Table 1-1. The Best Office XP Application to Use for Performing Specific Tasks

Office XP Application to Use	Task
Word	Create general printed or online documents of all kinds—for example, memos, letters, faxes, reports, contracts, r sum s, manuals, theses, and books. Enter and organize research notes, outlines, and other types of free-form text information. Generate form letters, envelopes, labels, and other mail-merge documents (see Figure 1-4). Print individual labels and envelopes. Create general-purpose, relatively simple Web pages, which can include almost any Word document element, plus movies, sounds, forms, frames, visual themes, navigation bars, and components for accessing information on a SharePoint team Web site. Use templates to create personal Web pages and other types of pages or use the Web Page Wizard to create simple Web sites.
Excel	Save, organize, calculate, analyze, and chart numeric business or personal data in a spreadsheet (row and column) format. For example, balance checking accounts, prepare invoices, plan budgets, trackorders, or maintain general accounting ledgers. Store relatively simple text or numeric data in lists that organize the information into records (rows) and fields (columns)—for example, a product inventory or descriptions of members of your ski racing team. Sort, find, filter, automatically fill, summarize, group, outline, or subtotal data. Display data in varying combinations using pivot tables or pivot charts. Publish static or interactive spreadsheets, charts, or pivot tables, for displaying numeric, text, or graphic information on the Web. Publish forms on the Web for collecting data in lists or other databases.
PowerPoint	Create multimedia presentations consisting of sets of slides to teach, sell, communicate, or persuade. Include text, graphics, animations, sound, and video in your presentations. Present multimedia information using 35 mm slides, transparencies for overhead projectors, speaker notes, printed handouts, or live slide shows on a computer or computer projector. Publish presentations on the Web that consist of a series of multimedia slides displaying text, graphics, animations, sounds, or videos.
Outlook	Send, receive, and organize e-mail messages. Exchange instant Internet messages. Store and manage personal information (appointments, names and addresses, to-do lists, journal entries, or free-form notes). Communicate and coordinate with members of your workgroup (schedule meetings, manage group projects, and share information and files). Access files on local or network disks and explore Web sites. Publish snapshots of your calendar on the Web.
FrontPage	Create entire Web sites using templates or wizards—such as a site for establishing a corporate presence, displaying personal information, conducting an online discussion, managing a project, or accessing shared information stored on a SharePoint team Web site (see Figure 1-5). Use visual themes to apply consistent formatting to all pages in your site. Manage your Web site (maintain files and folders, display reports, create and update hyperlinks, track tasks, publish your site, or control the source in workgroups). Create a Web page quickly using a template or wizard (for example, a page containing a bibliography, a feedback form, or a table of contents). Create or edit a Web page using a full-featured HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) editor, which supports all standard Web page elements and provides ready-to-use Web-page components (date and time stamps, comments, hover buttons and other dynamic effects, forms for searching the site, spreadsheets and charts, hit counters, galleries of photos, included files, link bars, tables of contents, site usage statistics, views of information stored on a SharePoint team Web site, and controls that display information from Web sites such as MSN).
Access	Store, organize, select, and present data in a relational database, which allows you to easily manage large amounts of complex or interrelated data and to divide data into separate, related tables to maximize storage efficiency. Publish an interactive form on an intranet that allows users to view or update information from a database.
Publisher	Use wizards to create brochures, flyers, signs, greeting cards, business cards, menus, catalogs, newsletters, and other relatively short documents that have precise page layouts integrating text and graphics. Create coordinated sets of publications (business cards, letterheads, envelopes, fax cover sheets, and so on). Use wizards to create graphical Web pages.

Figure 1-4. Word's new Mail Merge task pane makes it easy to create and print form letters, envelopes, labels, and other mail-merge documents.

Figure 1-5. In FrontPage you can create a new team Web site on a Web server running SharePoint Team Services from Microsoft. This figure shows the home page of a newly created team site.