Microsoft Office 2003
Encyclopedia
Microsoft Office 2003 is a productivity suite
Office suite
In computing, an office suite, sometimes called an office software suite or productivity suite is a collection of programs intended to be used by knowledge workers...

 written and distributed by Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

 for their Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

 operating system. Released on October 21, 2003, it was the successor to Office XP
Microsoft Office XP
Microsoft Office XP is a productivity suite written and distributed by Microsoft for their Windows operating system. Released on March 5, 2001, it is the successor to Office 2000 and the predecessor to Office 2003, and was known as Office 10 in the early stages of its development cycle...

 and the predecessor to Office 2007
Microsoft Office 2007
Microsoft Office 2007 is a Windows version of the Microsoft Office System, Microsoft's productivity suite. Formerly known as Office 12 in the initial stages of its beta cycle, it was released to volume license customers on November 30, 2006 and made available to retail customers on January 30, 2007...

.

Overview

A new Office logo as part of a rebranding effort by Microsoft, as well as two new applications, made their debut in Office 2003: InfoPath
Microsoft InfoPath
Microsoft Office InfoPath is a software application for designing, distributing, filling and submitting electronic forms containing structured data...

 and OneNote. OneNote is a note-taking and organizing application for text, handwritten notes or diagrams, recorded audio and graphics. Office 2003 is the first version to use Windows XP
Windows XP
Windows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base...

 style icons and colors.

Office 2003 runs only on recent NT-based versions of Windows (it does not support Windows 98
Windows 98
Windows 98 is a graphical operating system by Microsoft. It is the second major release in the Windows 9x line of operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on 15 May 1998 and to retail on 25 June 1998. Windows 98 is the successor to Windows 95. Like its predecessor, it is a hybrid...

, Windows Me
Windows Me
Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows Me , is a graphical operating system released on September 14, 2000 by Microsoft, and was the last operating system released in the Windows 9x series. Support for Windows Me ended on July 11, 2006....

 or Windows NT 4.0
Windows NT 4.0
Windows NT 4.0 is a preemptive, graphical and business-oriented operating system designed to work with either uniprocessor or symmetric multi-processor computers. It was the next release of Microsoft's Windows NT line of operating systems and was released to manufacturing on 31 July 1996...

).

Features

The core applications, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access have only minor improvements, however Outlook 2003 received a significant "facelift" and improved functionality in many areas, including better email and calendar sharing and information display, search folders, colored flags, Kerberos authentication, RPC
Remote procedure call
In computer science, a remote procedure call is an inter-process communication that allows a computer program to cause a subroutine or procedure to execute in another address space without the programmer explicitly coding the details for this remote interaction...

 over HTTP, and Cached Exchange mode. Another key benefit of Outlook 2003
Microsoft Outlook
Microsoft Outlook is a personal information manager from Microsoft, available both as a separate application as well as a part of the Microsoft Office suite...

 is the improved junk mail
Junk mail
Junk mail may refer to:* Junk Mail Publishing* Advertising mail* Spam , unsolicited electronic mail* Junk Mail * "The Junk Mail", an episode from the TV series Seinfeld...

 filter. Tablet
Graphics tablet
A graphics tablet is a computer input device that enables a user to hand-draw images and graphics, similar to the way a person draws images with a pencil and paper. These tablets may also be used to capture data or handwritten signatures...

 and pen support was introduced in the productivity applications. Word 2003
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word is a word processor designed by Microsoft. It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS , the Apple Macintosh , the AT&T Unix PC , Atari ST , SCO UNIX,...

 introduced a reading layout view, document comparison, better change-tracking and annotation/reviewing, a Research Task Pane, voice comments and an XML-based format
Microsoft Office XML formats
The Microsoft Office XML formats are XML-based document formats introduced in versions of Microsoft Office prior to Office 2007...

 among other features. Excel 2003
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Excel is a proprietary commercial spreadsheet application written and distributed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications...

 introduced list commands, some statistical functions and XML data import, analysis and transformation/document customization features. Access 2003
Microsoft Access
Microsoft Office Access, previously known as Microsoft Access, is a relational database management system from Microsoft that combines the relational Microsoft Jet Database Engine with a graphical user interface and software-development tools. It is a member of the Microsoft Office suite of...

 introduced a backup command, the ability to view object dependencies, error checking in forms and reports among other features.

Office 2003 features improvements to smart tags
Smart tag (Microsoft)
Smart tags are an early selection-based search feature found in later versions of Microsoft Word, and beta versions of the Internet Explorer 6 web browser by which the application recognizes certain words or types of data and converts it to a hyperlink. Selection-based search allows a user to...

 such as smart tag Lists, which are defined in XML, by using regular expressions and an extended type library. Smart tag recognizers were added to PowerPoint
Microsoft PowerPoint
Microsoft PowerPoint, usually just called PowerPoint, is a non-free commercial presentation program developed by Microsoft. It is part of the Microsoft Office suite, and runs on Microsoft Windows and Apple's Mac OS X operating system...

 and Access
Microsoft Access
Microsoft Office Access, previously known as Microsoft Access, is a relational database management system from Microsoft that combines the relational Microsoft Jet Database Engine with a graphical user interface and software-development tools. It is a member of the Microsoft Office suite of...

. FrontPage 2003
Microsoft FrontPage
Microsoft FrontPage was a WYSIWYG HTML editor and web site administration tool from Microsoft for the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems. It was branded as part of the Microsoft Office suite from 1997 to 2003...

 introduced conditional formatting, Find and Replace for HTML elements, new tools for creating and formatting tables and cells, dynamic templates (Dreamweaver), Flash
Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast...

 support, WebDAV
WebDAV
Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning is a set of methods based on the Hypertext Transfer Protocol that facilitates collaboration between users in editing and managing documents and files stored on World Wide Web servers...

 and SharePoint publishing among other features. Publisher 2003 introduced a Generic Color PostScript printer driver for commercial printing. Information Rights Management
Information Rights Management
Information Rights Management is a term that applies to a technology which protects sensitive information from unauthorised access. It is sometimes referred to as or Enterprise Digital Rights Management...

 capabilities were introduced in document productivity applications to limit access to a set of users and/or restrict types of actions that users could perform. Support for managed code
Managed code
Managed code is a term coined by Microsoft to identify computer program code that requires and will only execute under the "management" of a Common Language Runtime virtual machine ....

 add-ins as VSTO
Visual Studio Tools for Office
Visual Studio Tools for Office is a set of development tools available in the form of a Visual Studio add-in and a runtime that allows Microsoft Office 2003 and later versions of Office applications to host the .NET Framework Common Language Runtime to expose their functionality via the .NET...

 solutions was introduced.

Office 2003 is the last version of Office
Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office is a non-free commercial office suite of inter-related desktop applications, servers and services for the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems, introduced by Microsoft in August 1, 1989. Initially a marketing term for a bundled set of applications, the first version of...

 to include several features such as fully customizable toolbar
Toolbar
In a graphical user interface, on a computer monitor, a toolbar is a GUI widget on which on-screen buttons, icons, menus, or other input or output elements are placed. Toolbars are seen in office suites, graphics editors, and web browsers...

s and menus for all of its applications, the Office Assistant
Office Assistant
The Office Assistant was a Microsoft Office feature to assist users by way of an interactive animated character, which interfaced with the Office help content. It used technology initially from Microsoft Bob and later Microsoft Agent, offering advice based on Bayesian algorithms...

, the ability to slipstream
Slipstream (computing)
In computer jargon, to slipstream updates, patches or service packs means to integrate them into the installation files of their original software, so that the resulting files will allow a direct installation of the updated software....

 service pack
Service pack
A service pack is a collection of updates, fixes or enhancements to a software program delivered in the form of a single installable package. Many companies, such as Microsoft or Autodesk, typically release a service pack when the number of individual patches to a given program reaches a certain ...

s into the original setup files, Office Web Components, Save My Settings Wizard, allowing users to choose whether to keep a locally cached copy of installation source files and several utility resource kit
Resource Kit
Resource Kit is a term used by Microsoft for a set of software resources and documentation released for their software products, but which is not part of that product...

 tools. It is also the last Office version to support Windows 2000
Windows 2000
Windows 2000 is a line of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, business desktops, laptops, and servers. Windows 2000 was released to manufacturing on 15 December 1999 and launched to retail on 17 February 2000. It is the successor to Windows NT 4.0, and is the...

. A new picture organizer with basic editing features, called Microsoft Office Picture Manager
Microsoft Office Picture Manager
Microsoft Office Picture Manager is a software program included with Microsoft Office suite starting with version 2003. It is a basic image editing and image management program...

 replaced Microsoft Photo Editor
Microsoft Photo Editor
Microsoft Photo Editor is an image-editing application found in Microsoft Office 97–XP versions for Windows, classified as one of Microsoft Office Tools...

. Because WinHelp
WinHelp
Microsoft WinHelp is a proprietary format for online help files that can be displayed by the Microsoft Help browser winhelp.exe or winhlp32.exe. The file format is based on Rich Text Format . It remained a popular Help platform from Windows 3.0 platform through Windows XP...

 has been deprecated, context-sensitive help (What's This help) is removed in Office 2003.

Only basic clipart and templates were included on the disc media, with most content hosted online and downloadable from within the Office application. Microsoft advertised Office Online as a major Office 2003 feature "outside the box". Office Online provides how-to articles, tips, training courses, templates, clip art, stock photos and media and downloads (including Microsoft and third-party extensibility add-ins for Microsoft Office programs).

The last cumulative update for Office 2003, Service Pack 3 resolves several compatibility and stability issues with Windows Vista
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...

 and later operating systems. Mainstream support for Office 2003 application ended in April 2009 and extended support ends in April 2014.

Enterprise features

Office 2003 features broad XML
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....

 integration (designing customized XML schemas, importing and transforming XML data) throughout resulting in a far more data-centric model (instead of a document-based one). The MSXML
MSXML
Microsoft XML Core Services is a set of services that allow applications written in JScript, VBScript, and Microsoft development tools to build Windows-native XML-based applications...

 5 library was introduced specifically for Office's XML integration. Office 2003 also has tight SharePoint integration to facilitate data exchange, collaborated workflow and publishing. InfoPath was introduced for collecting data in XML-based forms and templates based on information from databases.

Applications

  • Word 2003
    Microsoft Word
    Microsoft Word is a word processor designed by Microsoft. It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS , the Apple Macintosh , the AT&T Unix PC , Atari ST , SCO UNIX,...

  • Excel 2003
    Microsoft Excel
    Microsoft Excel is a proprietary commercial spreadsheet application written and distributed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications...

  • PowerPoint 2003
    Microsoft PowerPoint
    Microsoft PowerPoint, usually just called PowerPoint, is a non-free commercial presentation program developed by Microsoft. It is part of the Microsoft Office suite, and runs on Microsoft Windows and Apple's Mac OS X operating system...

  • Outlook 2003
    Microsoft Outlook
    Microsoft Outlook is a personal information manager from Microsoft, available both as a separate application as well as a part of the Microsoft Office suite...

     / Outlook with Business Contact Manager
  • Access 2003
    Microsoft Access
    Microsoft Office Access, previously known as Microsoft Access, is a relational database management system from Microsoft that combines the relational Microsoft Jet Database Engine with a graphical user interface and software-development tools. It is a member of the Microsoft Office suite of...

  • Publisher 2003
    Microsoft Publisher
    Microsoft Publisher is a desktop publishing application from Microsoft. It is an entry-level application, differing from Microsoft Word in that the emphasis is placed on page layout and design rather than text composition and proofing...

  • InfoPath 2003
    Microsoft InfoPath
    Microsoft Office InfoPath is a software application for designing, distributing, filling and submitting electronic forms containing structured data...

  • Project 2003
    Microsoft Project
    Microsoft Project is a project management software program, developed and sold by Microsoft, which is designed to assist a project manager in developing a plan, assigning resources to tasks, tracking progress, managing the budget, and analyzing workloads.The application creates critical path...

  • Visio 2003
    Microsoft Visio
    Microsoft Visio , formerly known as Microsoft Office Visio, is a commercial diagramming program for Microsoft Windows that uses vector graphics to create diagrams.- Features :...

  • FrontPage 2003
    Microsoft FrontPage
    Microsoft FrontPage was a WYSIWYG HTML editor and web site administration tool from Microsoft for the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems. It was branded as part of the Microsoft Office suite from 1997 to 2003...

  • OneNote 2003

Editions

Office
applications
Basic * Student and
Teacher Edition **
Standard Small Business Professional Edition
Word
Excel
Outlook
PowerPoint
Publisher
Access
InfoPath
OneNote
FrontPage
Visio
Project


Notes:
  • * Available only in OEM installs (typically in new computers)
  • ** Eligible for academic pricing

See also

  • Comparison of office suites
  • List of office suites
  • List of Microsoft Office programs
  • History of Microsoft Office
    History of Microsoft Office
    - Mac versions :- Timeline :- Office 4.x :- Office 95 :- Office 97 :- Office 2000 :- Office XP :- Office 2003 :OneNote 2003 was not included in any of the Office 2003 editions...

  • Microsoft Office XP
    Microsoft Office XP
    Microsoft Office XP is a productivity suite written and distributed by Microsoft for their Windows operating system. Released on March 5, 2001, it is the successor to Office 2000 and the predecessor to Office 2003, and was known as Office 10 in the early stages of its development cycle...

    , the previous version of Microsoft Office for Windows
  • Microsoft Office 2007
    Microsoft Office 2007
    Microsoft Office 2007 is a Windows version of the Microsoft Office System, Microsoft's productivity suite. Formerly known as Office 12 in the initial stages of its beta cycle, it was released to volume license customers on November 30, 2006 and made available to retail customers on January 30, 2007...

    , the next version of Microsoft Office for Windows
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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