Home Reviews HowTo	XP Office Professional Product Review XP Office Professional has everything any user could want in an Office Suite. I previously used Office 97 and this was a tremendous step up. Microsoft has made Office easier to use and control than I ever thought possible. I found myself creating tasks that needed to be done just so I could play with some of the cool features that this new suite offers. WORD When you first start Word, a New Task pane opens on the right side of the screen allowing you to select recently used word documents, create new word documents, web pages or emails. The task pane will also enable you to create a new document with the contents of an existing document. One of the most useful new tools Microsoft has implemented is smart tags. I often find myself cutting and pasting between documents. In the past, I had to reselect the pasted text and format it to the document that I was pasting to. With smart tags, a tiny icon appears below the pasted text. I simply click on it to display a menu allowing me to keep the original formatting or to use formatting from the current document. If you ignore the icon, it disappears as soon as you start typing.
	Word recognizes when you have typed an address and displays Smart Tags to allow you to add the information to your address book. You no longer have to open a help menu to access help. A fill-in box is always in the top right hand corner for you to type your question in. Very useful when you just want a quick suggestion.
If you turn on track changes, all deleted text will show up in the margin. You can then choose to accept or reject the changes made. EXCEL I’ll admit: Spreadsheets are not my strong suit. I created a basic Income/Outgo spreadsheet and used auto sum to do most of the work for me. When I thought that I was finished, smart tag popped up and by clicking on it, I was able to determine a mistake that I had made and correct it without spending time looking for what I did wrong. After spending my whole life avoiding spreadsheets, I have finally found a way to create a powerful spreadsheet that anyone could be proud of. ACCESS Databases can be fun. New users will appreciate the easy to use wizard to create a powerful database. Unlike the old wizards that seemed to laugh behind your back, the new wizards walk you through setting up a useable database. POWERPOINT I discussed a topic on buying a digital camera at our monthly Computer User’s Group. I used PowerPoint to create a presentation. Not only did the software walk me through creating an interesting presentation, when I was finished it actually created the web pages necessary for me to add the presentation to our User Group’s website. This feature alone saved me from having to create a second document for the web. OUTLOOK Outlook is not just an email program. Of course you can use it to send and receive email, but Outlook has made automatic filtering easy. Not only can you use Outlook to organize your contacts, you can easily keep track of appointments, meetings, and ‘to-do’ lists. The Journal is very helpful when you need to know how much time you’ve spent on a particular project. Notes was like having an endless supply of PostIt notepads at my fingertips. SUMMARY Having used Office 97, I didn’t think that I needed anything else - but the new features and wizards in Office XP proved me wrong! Microsoft just keeps making things easier for the end user. My favorite features in Office XP included: The “Ask A Question” box The task pane Voice recognition Smart tags Clip Organizer Some of the features that I wish Microsoft would get rid of include: Office Assistant The convert to HTML   If you would like to post a Book Review on our site, send me the review using the Contact link. You can set the topic if you like, or just let me set it when I go to approve it.