New Features in Microsoft Office Word 2003

Word 2003 includes a number of new features that improve collaboration and make your work life generally easier. Here s an overview of the major additions and enhancements:

• A New Look Word 2003 now adopts the Microsoft Office Windows XP design, adding color and depth to toolbars , menus, and task panes. New task panes also bring even more help to the Word window, enabling you to carry out tasks without digging through menus or searching for the command you need.

• Reading Layout Word 2003 now includes a new view that can display the document in multipage view, hiding toolbars, and using ClearType technology to present the text as clearly as possible.

• Sharing Documents Now with Word 2003 you can work collaboratively on documents using SharePoint Team Services. The Shared Workspace task pane is built right into Word, so you can track document versions, assign tasks, and contact other team members while you work on the shared document. A shared Web site enables you to share a common area for resource files, contacts, and more.

• Research Task Pane Now you can research topics while you re working on them by using the Research task pane. Enter a phrase and, if you re connected to the Internet, Office goes out and searches the sites and online databases you have set up as resources. The items found that are relevant to your search are displayed in the Search Results task pane.

• Open and Save Documents as XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) support is a big new feature in the Professional Editions of Office System. Now you can open, create, and save data in XML format, which enables you to reuse your data in a variety of ways with many different programs. If you are using a Standard or Small Business Edition of the Office System, you have the capacity to save documents in XML format but you won t be able to perform the higher level XML tasks that are available in the Professional Editions.

  See Also  

  For more about adding editing controls to your Word documents, see Chapter 4, Using the Editing Tools In Microsoft Office Word 2003.

• Editing Controls Another big addition in the Office System is Windows Rights Management, which gives users running Windows Server 2003 the ability to control what s done to a document no matter where it goes or how long it lives. For example, you can disable the printing feature so that others can t print the document you send. Or you can make forwarding a document outside the company impossible . You also can limit the editing a person does to only the section he is responsible for. Pretty slick.