Microsoft Project Version 2002 Inside Out (Inside Out (Microsoft))

The following sections briefly describe many of the new features and enhancements found in Office XP. (Office XP has so many new features and enhancements that it would be difficult to list them all!)

New Common Office XP Features

Each of the following new features is available in most—or many—of the main Office XP applications.

• Task panes In Office applications you can now carry out certain operations or choose selected options using a new alternative to a dialog box known as a task pane. A task pane is a Web-style command area that you can dock along the right or left edge of the window or float anywhere on the screen. Most Office applications provide the following common task panes: New Document (the name varies with the specific application), Clipboard, and Search. (For examples of task panes, see Figures 1-2 and 1-4.)
• Search feature Office XP includes a new search feature that you can use to locate files on local disks, network drives, or Web sites or to find items in Outlook folders. You can run the search feature in the Search task pane (see Figure 1-2), or in a dialog box that you display from the Open or Open Office Document dialog box.
• Document recovery Office XP provides many new features to help you recover your data in the event of a program crash. For example, Office applications attempt to save your document when a crash occurs, and, on restarting, provide a Document Recovery task pane to help you restore your document. Also, you can use the new Office Application Recovery utility to break into a hung application so it can save your data. And you can use the Open And Repair option in the Open dialog box to attempt to repair a corrupted document.
• Speech recognition In Office XP applications you can now dictate text rather than type it, and you can issue basic commands by speaking them rather than by using the mouse or keyboard.
• Handwriting interface Office XP applications now let you enter text into a document using an electronic tablet and pen or (with difficulty) an ordinary mouse. You can either insert handwritten characters (such as your signature), or you can have Office recognize your handwritten characters and convert them to regular text.
• Smart tags Office XP applications can now recognize a wide range of different data types entered into a document (such as names, dates, addresses, and stock ticker symbols). The application converts each recognized piece of data into a smart tag, and you can then use a menu attached to the smart tag to perform useful actions on that data, automatically invoking the required Windows program.
• AutoCorrect Options button After the Office AutoCorrect feature makes a change, you can modify the correction using the new AutoCorrect Options button.
• Paste Options button When you paste data into an Office XP document, a Paste Options button appears, allowing you to select the desired format of the pasted data and to switch among different formats to determine the one you want.
• XML (Extensible Markup Language) support Excel and Access 2002 can now import and export data from and to XML documents. Also, you can have FrontPage 2002 apply XML formatting rules when generating the HTML source for the Web pages you create.
• Diagrams In Office XP applications you can now get a head start in building a conceptual drawing—such as an organization chart or a Venn diagram—by inserting a ready-made Office diagram. (See Figure 1-3.)
• Windows in Taskbar option You can now display documents in top-level windows with buttons in the Windows Taskbar (as in Office 2000), or you can display them in child windows within a single top-level application window without displaying a toolbar button for each document window (as in Office 97 and earlier).
• New From Existing command You can now create a new document based on an existing document as an alternative to using a template.
• SharePoint access In Office XP applications you can now open or save documents stored on a SharePoint team Web site, you can participate in online discussions hosted by the site, and in some types of Office documents you can insert Web components that allow you to view and modify shared information stored on a team site. (A team Web site is hosted by a Web server that runs SharePoint Team Services, and it provides collaboration features that allow workgroups to share documents and exchange information. See Figure 1-5.)

New Word Features

• New formatting features Word 2002 now saves and lets you reapply directly assigned formatting features as an alternative to using styles. In addition to character and paragraph styles, Word provides table and list styles for applying predefined formatting features to tables and to multilevel lists. To find out what formatting and style (or styles) have been applied to characters in your document, you can use the new Reveal Formatting task pane. To remove all formatting from text, you can use the new Clear Formatting command. To find text that's inconsistently formatted with the rest of the document, you can use Word's new formatting consistency checker. To select all text that has the same style or saved format as the current selection, you can use the new Select All command. And you can simultaneously select multiple blocks of text or graphics in a document so that you can format or edit all of them at once.
• Change tracking The change tracking feature has been completely revamped—for example, you can have Word mark changes using margin balloons without disturbing the line and page breaks in the document.
• Comments In Word 2002, comments have also been extensively redesigned—for instance, you can have Word display comment text in margin balloons, making it easy to insert, view, or edit the comment text.
• Document security Document security has been enhanced—for example, the Options dialog box provides a new Security tab, and you can attach a digital signature to a document.
• Document statistics You can display the number of words, characters, lines, pages, or paragraphs in the current document using the new Word Count toolbar.
• Text translation You can use Word's new Translate task pane to translate into a different language either a word, or—by means of a translation service on the Web—a phrase, a block of text, or an entire document.
• Watermarks Word's new Printed Watermark command makes it easy to add a document watermark, which consists of faint text or graphics displayed across every page in the document or in a document section.
• Booklet printing Word provides new page setup and printing options that make it easy to directly print a booklet or even a book.
• Mail Merge Wizard Word's new Mail Merge Wizard, which runs in the Mail Merge task pane, makes it easy to create form letters, envelopes, labels and other mail-merge documents. (See Figure 1-4.)
• New Web page formats Word now lets you save a Web page in the Web Archive (*.mht, *.mhtml) format, which saves everything in a single Web archive file. You can also filter a Web page when you save it, which generates a smaller and "cleaner" HTML file by preserving only the essential document information (but with the possible loss of document features).

New Excel Features

• Unlocking data A number of new tools make it easier to find, analyze, and publish data associated with worksheets in Excel 2002. Web queries make it easier to link to data on the Web. Web Page AutoRepublish automatically keeps Web pages in sync every time you save your document. Copy Paste Web Query automatically links to data on the Web when you paste it from a Web page. Import Data allows you to easily find and share data sources.
• Improved pivot tables Pivot tables have been improved with drop-down menus and other user interface enhancements. The automatic GetPivotData formula streamlines the analysis of pivot table data.
• Access to more data Excel 2002 works with more data types, including common data sources on the Web. XML is supported as a data interchange format, and worksheets can be linked directly to XML data on the Web. The new real-time data (RTD) function brings real-time data into Excel for analysis.
• Command and feature enhancements Numerous menu command and product feature enhancements make Excel even easier to use in fundamental areas, including link management, Find and Replace searches, hyperlink navigation, sorting, drawing borders, inserting international number formats, editing cells vertically, error checking, and customizing headers and footers with graphics and additional information. The IntelliPrint feature eliminates the printing of blank pages, an enhancement designed to conserve your printing and paper resources.

New PowerPoint Features

• Collaboration Several tools make it easier to edit and review PowerPoint 2002 presentations in workgroup environments. You can now save presentations with password protection, so that reviewers can view presentations in PowerPoint but not edit or save them. Web broadcasting is now easier to use. Authors can now attach digital signatures to their presentations to increase security and reviewer confidence. Presentation review cycles in workgroups have been made easier through routing and reconciliation features, which manage change requests from multiple reviewers. Comments have been revised so that in addition to allowing reviewers the chance to insert "hidden" notes in presentations, they can be compared to one another, merged together, and printed in a new way.
• Animation You can now apply a combination of animation and transition schemes to your whole presentation at once—a significant time saver. New slide transition effects include Comb, Fade Smoothly, Newsflash, Push, Shape, Wedge, and Wheel. Custom animation effects are easier and more impressive now that PowerPoint lets you control exit animations, path animations, and timed/simultaneous animations.
• Everyday tasks made easy The Copy and Paste commands are better able to handle inserting different content types and a larger volume of information. Print Preview allows you to determine how a presentation prints and lets you make fine-tuning adjustments. Slide formatting is easier with "one-click" formatting. You can apply more than one design template to the same presentation. Thumbnail views of your slides are now available in Normal View.

New Outlook Features

• Single configuration Outlook 2002 no longer has the separate Corporate Or Workgroup and Internet Only configurations. The features of both these configurations are combined in a unified configuration.
• Enhanced Preview pane If you select an item in the Calendar, Contacts, or Journal folder, the Preview pane now displays the item within its form (that is, within the form used to display the item when you open it).
• Outlook item search You can search for Outlook items, as well as disk files, by using the new Search task pane in Office applications. (See Figure 1-2.)
• Account groups If you have more than one e-mail account, you can now set up account groups to control exactly which accounts Outlook uses to send and receive e-mail when you initiate a send and receive operation and also to have Outlook automatically send and receive e-mail at fixed intervals using specific accounts.
• Easier management of e-mail headers Outlook provides an easier interface for downloading and screening e-mail message headers before you download the full content of your messages.
• Mailbox Cleanup You can use the new Mailbox Cleanup dialog box to weed out messages when your Inbox starts growing out of control.
• Appointment color coding You can now tag your appointments using colors—for example, red for an important appointment, blue for a business appointment, green for a personal appointment, and so on.
• Alternative meeting times When you use Outlook to plan a meeting, an attendee can now reply by proposing a new meeting time, rather than simply accepting or declining the invitation.
• Enhanced meeting planner You can now consult the meeting planner whenever the Calendar folder is open, without actually scheduling a meeting.
• Unified Reminders dialog box All pending appointment reminders are now displayed in a single Reminders dialog box, so you don't have to view and close a separate dialog box for each one.
• Instant Messaging You can now use Instant Messaging to communicate from Outlook in real time.
• Address Bar You can use the new Address Bar to explore Web pages within the Outlook window.

New FrontPage Features

• Customization of SharePoint Web sites You can now create or customize a SharePoint team Web site. You can add new custom document libraries, surveys, and other types of lists to a team site. You can view team site usage statistics. You can add a Document Library View or List View Web component to a page, which allows you to view the contents of a document library or a list on a team site. And you can create a custom form for adding, editing, or displaying items in a document library or other type of team site list. (See Figure 1-5.)
• Navigation pane You can view a web's navigation structure in Page view by opening the new Navigation pane.
• Report publishing You can now copy a web report to a Web page, so that you can publish the report on the Web.
• Enhanced Web publishing The Web publishing feature has been completely revamped. For instance, you can publish individual files that belong to a web. And when you publish, the Web Publish dialog box letsyou select exactly which files to publish and enables you to manage files in the local web as well as files on the destination server (you can cut, copy, paste, rename, or delete files, or copy files between the source and the destination).
• Tabs in Page view You can now quickly switch between pages opened in Page view by clicking the tabs at the top of the window.
• Language formatting You can now mark foreign text contained in a Web page so that Outlook uses the correct dictionary for checking its spelling and looking up synonyms.
• Added graphics features You can now quickly add and arrange a collection of images by inserting a Photo Gallery Web component. You can create drawings within FrontPage using AutoShapes and the Drawing toolbar. And you can add decorative text by inserting a WordArt object.
• Automatic table fill If you've added text to one table cell, you can now have FrontPage automatically copy that text to other cells.
• Enhanced shared borders You can now assign a separate background color or picture to an individual shared border as well as to the main part of a page.
• Collapsible outlines You can now convert a simple list to a multilevel outline that the page visitor can collapse or expand.
• Inline frames As an alternative to creating a frames page to view multiple pages, you can now insert an inline frame, which is a rectangular element that displays another page and lets you scroll through it.
• New Web components FrontPage provides new Web components, including new types of custom link bars, components that let you display information from the MSN or MSNBC Web sites, and components for SharePoint team Web sites (mentioned previously in this list). You can also download additional Web components from the Web.

New Access Features

• New database format Access 2002 provides a new database file format that offers better performance for larger databases. You can open and save databases in either the old format or the new one, and you can easily convert databases between formats.
• Enhanced spelling checker You can modify the way the spelling checker works by using the new Spelling tab in the Options dialog box.
• Convert objects to data access pages You can now convert a table, query, form, or report to a data access page.
• XML support You can now import or export data from or to XML documents.

New Publisher Features

• Prepress preparation Publisher 2002 offers enhanced commercial printing functionality, including support for up to 12 "spot colors" in a single publication and the ability to combine process and spot colors in the same publication. Publisher also includes a new version of the EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) filter, which provides improved handling and previews of text, as well as improved handling of named colors to properly separate EPS graphics in spot-color publications.
• Common features and improvements Font schemes make it easy to give your publication a new look. Choose one of 25 coordinated font sets, and it will be consistently applied to your publication. Publisher now makes it easy to prepare Word documents with great-looking professional designs by using the Word Import Wizard. Fifteen new Design Sets aimed at producing streamlined, professional-quality business publications have been added to Publisher. Many Publisher features—wizards, designs, and color schemes—have been redesigned for easy access in the task pane. Publisher includes a style inspector that describes the properties of the current style, allowing you to make better use of styles. Now you can save and open documents in HTML file format. The new mail-merge feature in Publisher is more like mail merge in Word, making it easier to use.
• Drawing tool Publisher 2002 uses the same drawing tools, including AutoShapes, used by other Office applications. You can now move objects inline with text in text frames. Once moved inline, graphics flow with text in frames. Publisher now supports cyan-magenta-yellow-black (CMYK) TIFFs internally. You're no longer required to link to externally stored TIFFs. Publisher can separate vector and bitmap red-green-blue (RGB) images. Publisher supports print previews of the current publication, using the characteristics of the current printer to render the preview. If you're using either process or spot color, print preview can display both a composite preview and previews of individual ink plates. Printing is easier now that the Print Setup and Page Setup dialog boxes have been merged into a single dialog box.
• International support Publisher 2002 now includes support for complex scripts and bidirectional languages, such as Arabic and Hebrew. Publisher uses Office "word-breaking" technology to detect word breaks in Japanese and Chinese text for easy selection and editing of your text. Publisher now supports the Office Language Settings tool to let users enable language-specific editing features and the language used in online Help.