Review: Office XP Professional - Part 2

In his second look at Microsoft's latest office suite, Dave Cook checks out the five main modules, beginning with Word 2002...

Product	Office XP Professional
Company	Microsoft
Web	www.microsoft.com/office/xp
Price	£519 inc VAT
We like	Almost everyone uses it. Better integration between applications.
We don't like	Product Activation is inconvenient. Expensive.
Rating	9/10
Requirements

When it comes to upgrading software, even huge companies like Microsoft sometimes get it wrong. Take Word's multiple-document user interface, for example. In its wisdom, Microsoft excluded multiple-documents from Word 2000, but due to the outcry that followed, Office XP's Word 2002 includes it as an option.

We discussed Smart Tags and Task Panes in our first look at Office XP. When enabled, Document Maps can also assist productivity. Simply clicking a heading in the Document Map enables Word to jump to the corresponding heading in the document. Not much use for letter writing, perhaps, but invaluable if you're composing a large manuscript.

Text selection is also easier, with the ability to select multiple passages using the Control key. On the other hand, while you can change text formatting on the fly, you can't preview the changes as you can in Corel WordPerfect Office 2002.

Drawing in Word is now much easier thanks to the drawing canvas. There's support for optical character recognition, while speech and handwriting recognition software are also provided. Among a host of other new features, Word will let you access professionally designed templates from the Web, along with other media such as animation, sounds, clip art, and photos.

Excel

Unless you're a whiz at spreadsheets, you'll probably never use more than a fraction of Excel's capabilities. Which explains why, in Office XP, Microsoft has mostly taken the enhancement route. The idea is to make Excel 2002 easier to use, rather than adding yet more complicated features to the module. For example, automatic screen-tips now advise you how to complete a formula, saving you from going through the Help system.

Excel 2002 also handles Web-based data far better than its predecessor, with a revamp of the Web Query facility, plus the ability to create Web Parts - a kind of digital dashboard. The popular AutoSum feature has also been expanded.

Access

Access 2002 also receives a dose of simplicity, with a number of Wizard-controlled templates to help make the setting up of data structures easier than ever. The program includes PivotTable and PivotChart views for tables, queries, functions, forms, and so forth, adding a number of extra analysis options to your work.

Somewhat surprisingly, files created with Access 2002 are saved in a new format. Although they still carry the .MDB extension, Access 97 files, for example, will need to go through a conversion process before use. Meanwhile, thanks to XML (eXtensible Markup Language) support, applications are able to share information better than ever.

Outlook/PowerPoint

Outlook 2002 makes for an excellent communication tool - that is, if you can stand the threat from viruses. Enhancements include Instant Messaging buddy lists, along with support for many of Word's superior editing functions.

PowerPoint also borrows some of Word 2002's enhancements, including new comment and review features. Slides can be viewed before printing, and you can now determine how objects will animate themselves on and off a slide using predetermined paths.

Conclusion

So how does Office XP compare to Corel's WordPerfect Office 2002 Professional, for example? Arguably, the latter offers you more for your hard-earned money, since it also provides a neat VXI PARROT headset and translator for superior voice recognition, plus the very able Oxford University Press dictionary.

Yet the majority of users prefer Microsoft office suites and for one very good reason: it's the most powerful office suite there is (even though only a small percentage of its capabilities are ever used). In Office XP, the world's most used office suite is not only more powerful than ever, it's also easier to use.

Read Part 1 of this review

 

Dave Cook