Microsoft Office XP Professional With FrontPage Corporate, SP3 Integrated

Overall New Office Features

One of the key Microsoft Office XP goals was to make the whole suite fit to most user’s needs. Base on studies that show customers use less than 20% of the full potential of each Microsoft software included in the whole suite, Microsoft has further simplified things to make Office easier to use. If ease of use was a key goal during the development stage of the suite, Microsoft has also focused on compatibility, that way Microsoft Office XP keeps a high compatibility level with its predecessor Office 2000. Some of the new features are:

* Smart Tags - Microsoft Office Smart Tags are a set of buttons that are shared across the Office applications. These buttons appear when the user needs them (such as when a user makes an error in an Excel formula, when Word automatically corrects a user’s action, or when a user pastes some data) and gives the user the options they need to change the given action or error.

* Task Panes - Office applications give you easy access to their important tasks in a single integrated view. From the Task Pane, which appears on the right side of the screen, you can perform searches, open or start a new document, view the contents of the clipboard, format their documents and presentations, or even access translation and template services via the Web. Let’s take Word for example; when you open it, the task pane will show several links to open existing documents, folders, search files, etc. This view also displays the contents of the clipboard or formatting options for the text your mouse cursor is on. This major new feature will become soon unavoidable for every Office users and thanks to Microsoft every application of the suite from Outlook to Publisher contains the task pane.

* Paste Options Smart Tags – There was a time having a clipboard that can contain several items at a glance was just a dream or was very hard to get even when using some third party utility. Since Windows 98 & Office 2000 were introduced the dream really came true. Microsoft Office XP adds some cool new features to the Multiple Paste feature. New options allow you to decide whether they want to paste their data as they originally copied it, change the style so that it fits the style of the document they are pasting the data into, or apply specific characteristics to the data, based on the content.

* AutoCorrect Options Smart Tags - This feature provides an easy mechanism for you to control and modify automatic behavior that takes place within the Office applications. You can undo an auto correction, choose to not have that correction take place in the future, or access the AutoCorrect Options dialog box without needing to search for it under the Tools menu: this is great especially for novice users that usually fight office applications to know why they auto correct things that they don’t want to!

* Speech – Hey here it is! Microsoft Office XP finally includes the long awaited and promised speech feature! Unlike Corel WordPerfect or Lotus SmartSuite, the speech feature of Office is really included in the suite and doesn’t use a third party supplementary speech software like ViaVoice or so. The speech feature is entirely based on the work of the Belgium corporate Lernout & Hauspie ensuring users have the most powerful dictating system. Speech recognition increases user productivity by supplementing traditional mouse and keyboard execution with voice commands: what is more natural than voice? Many managers had to dictate texts to their secretary because they can’t type letters on the road: now they’ll be able to create easily their own document themselves with their voice. With Office XP, you can dictate text, make direct formatting changes, and navigate menus using speech and voice commands. This is classed as a very big new part of the Office XP suite and thus we have added a special section in our review for it.

* Office Document Imaging – Now that PhotoDraw isn’t included in Microsoft Office XP, a small but very cool new application has been added! It is the Office Document Imaging applet, This takes advantage of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology, enables you to scan multi-page documents, view those documents, and reuse that text directly in their Office applications. In combination with a scanner, Office XP lets you scan and use text contained in your documents easily than with every specialized separate OCR software that can be very complex to use: It is a good enhancement that adds value to the suite. Furthermore, you can locate their imaged documents at a later time using the full text search capabilities built into Office.

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