Microsoft Office 2003

Microsoft Office 2003

Clockwise from top-right: Word, Publisher, PowerPoint, Excel, on Windows XP.
Developer(s)	Microsoft
Initial release	October 21, 2003 (2003-10-21)
Stable release	2003 Service Pack 3 (11.0)[1] / September 18, 2007; 4 years ago (2007-09-18)
Operating system	Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 and 4, and Windows XP/Windows Server 2003
Platform	Microsoft Windows
Type	Office suite
License	Proprietary EULA
Website	Microsoft Office Online Home Page

Microsoft Office 2003 is a productivity suite written and distributed by Microsoft for their Windows operating system. Released on October 21, 2003, it was the successor to Office XP and the predecessor to Office 2007.

Overview

A new Office logo as part of a rebranding effort by Microsoft,^[2] as well as two new applications, made their debut in Office 2003: InfoPath 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 style icons and colors.

Office 2003 runs only on recent NT-based versions of Windows (it does not support Windows 98, Windows Me or Windows NT 4.0).

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 over HTTP, and Cached Exchange mode. Another key benefit of Outlook 2003 is the improved junk mail filter. Tablet and pen support was introduced in the productivity applications. Word 2003 introduced a reading layout view, document comparison, better change-tracking and annotation/reviewing, a Research Task Pane, voice comments and an XML-based format among other features. Excel 2003 introduced list commands, some statistical functions and XML data import, analysis and transformation/document customization features. Access 2003 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 such as smart tag Lists, which are defined in XML, by using regular expressions and an extended type library.^[3] Smart tag recognizers were added to PowerPoint and Access. FrontPage 2003 introduced conditional formatting, Find and Replace for HTML elements, new tools for creating and formatting tables and cells, dynamic templates (Dreamweaver), Flash support, WebDAV and SharePoint publishing among other features. Publisher 2003 introduced a Generic Color PostScript printer driver for commercial printing. ^[4] Information 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 add-ins as VSTO solutions was introduced.

Office 2003 is the last version of Office to include several features such as fully customizable toolbars and menus for all of its applications, the Office Assistant, the ability to slipstream service packs 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 tools. It is also the last Office version to support Windows 2000. A new picture organizer with basic editing features, called Microsoft Office Picture Manager replaced Microsoft Photo Editor. Because WinHelp has been deprecated, context-sensitive help (What's This help) is removed in Office 2003.^[5]

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".^[6] 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 and later operating systems. Mainstream support for Office 2003 application ended in April 2009 and extended support ends in April 2014.^[7]

Enterprise features

Office 2003 features broad XML 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 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
• Excel 2003
• PowerPoint 2003
• Outlook 2003 / Outlook with Business Contact Manager
• Access 2003
• Publisher 2003
• InfoPath 2003
• Project 2003
• Visio 2003
• FrontPage 2003
• OneNote 2003

Editions

Office applications	Basic *	Student and Teacher Edition **	Standard	Small Business	Professional Edition
Word	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Excel	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Outlook	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes with Business Contact Manager	Yes with Business Contact Manager
PowerPoint	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Publisher	No	No	No	Yes	Yes
Access	No	No	No	No	Yes
InfoPath	No	No	No	No	Volume edition only
OneNote	No	No	No	No	No
FrontPage	No	No	No	No	No
Visio	No	No	No	No	No
Project	No	No	No	No	No

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
• Microsoft Office XP, the previous version of Microsoft Office for Windows
• Microsoft Office 2007, the next version of Microsoft Office for Windows

References

1. ^ Office 2003 version number
2. ^ "Microsoft rebrands Office for enterprises - CNET News". 2010-01-14. http://news.cnet.com/2100-1012-991694.html. Retrieved 2010-01-14. 
3. ^ Using Smart Tags in Office 2003
4. ^ "Install the Generic Color PS for Commercial Printing printer driver" (in English). Microsoft. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/publisher-help/install-the-generic-color-ps-for-commercial-printing-printer-driver-HP001046429.aspx. Retrieved 31 August 2011. 
5. ^ Deprecating WinHelp
6. ^ The newest feature of Office isn't in the box--it's on the Web
7. ^ Microsoft to limit Office 2003 support, ComputerWorld