First Look Microsoft Office 2003

Support for XML in Microsoft Office 2003 goes beyond the progressive new features in Microsoft Office Word, Excel, and Access 2003; Office 2003 also includes new and enhanced tools that significantly improve the way organizations make use of their data-on legacy systems as well as in current applications. Chapter 5 provided an overview of XML in Office 2003 and described how the new application-centered features can be of benefit to both businesses and developers. This chapter focuses on three specific areas in which XML support-as well as other improvements-can make a huge difference in the way information workers capture, use, and manage data in their day-to-day tasks. You'll get a first look at smart documents, smart tags, and Microsoft Office InfoPath 2003, and we'll explore both developer and end-user possibilities for each technology.

A Comparison: Smart Documents, Smart Tags, and InfoPath

If you're familiar with these potentially powerful new tools, you might know about the individual features and applications of each one. All of these tools have something in common, beyond their use of XML: opportunities for developers. Each tool provides new areas for developers to explore creating solutions specific to businesses across a wide range of industries. This section gives you a quick comparison to summarize the details you'll be reading about in this chapter.

• Smart documents are customized Word or Excel templates created by developers to add information, resources, or functionality to common business operations. A smart document might display in the task pane specific format-related information, links to additional resources, or information about routing the document to the next person in an approval process.

• Smart tags are context-sensitive tags that appear when a particular data item is recognized in the text, offering workers a menu of options related to their current task. Smart tags enable information workers to do additional research, fill in text with data retrieved from a database, apply a special format, or perform any number of customized actions designed by solutions developers.

• InfoPath is an all-new technology that mixes dynamic form-creation with text-editing features in the familiar Office interface. InfoPath enables businesses to capture-in industry-standard XML format- bits of information that are often hard to gather and apply in a useful way; data from status reports, meeting agendas, memos, financial projections, and more. InfoPath includes two views-one for filling in a form and another for designing a form. Opportunities exist for developers in creating customized XML schemas for specific industries and in designing methods for incorporating current forms into InfoPath.