| Vikki Dawson July 1, 2001 |  | Microsoft Office XP Professional is the next generation and what a generation it is! Included in the Microsoft Office XP Professional suite is Microsoft Word 2002, Microsoft Excel 2002, Microsoft PowerPoint 2002, Microsoft Outlook 2002 and Microsoft Access 2002. Youll also get the Microsoft Office Tools including a Clip Organizer and Office Document Imaging. 
Office Tools
Before I get into my special diatribe I want to mention that installing Office XP was painless. It took just a few minutes and although I had the full Office 2000 installation I didn't lose anything that was not included in Office XP. For example, Office XP Professional does not include Publisher or FrontPage but the install did not remove those as I had feared it might. I also lost no settings or data in the applications that were upgraded. I was very pleased with the process.
There is an item included in Microsoft Office XP Professional that can be considered in several ways. One is its an awesome tool and an absolutely concrete productivity tool. That tool is the voice recognition tool. Im going to write the full Office XP review, or rather, Im going to speak the full Office XP review with the voice recognition tool. For those of you who have tried other voice recognition tools and have been disappointed you will find the voice recognition tool in Microsoft Office XP Professional be to be more accurate, to be quicker to train and much easier to use.
The first and most important consideration in the voice recognition tool is your system specs. Below is a list of my system specs to give you an idea of what I am using with the voice recognition tool.
Pentium III 450
256 mg RAM
Lab Tech AM-242 NCat desktop microphone
Windows 2000
For voice recognition the minimum system requirements are:
Pentium II 400 mhz or higher processor
128 MB of RAM or more
Close-talk microphone and audio output device
OK, I have to admit that when I first loaded Microsoft Office XP Professional the first tool I played with was the voice recognition tool. You have got to know that talking to your computer instead of typing is a lot of fun. However, once you get past the novelty of voice recognition you began to realize just how valuable a tool it is.
Once you have done the basic training you will notice that you can get much more work done much faster. No matter how fast you type, I dont think you can type faster than you can think and talk.
Microsoft Office XP Professional comes equipped with a training tool. It is very simple to use and consists of about eight training sessions that allow you to train the computer to recognize your voice. Once you complete the training sessions you can use any of the Microsoft office XP products to train with. For instance, I have set Microsoft Word to learn from the document Im creating, so that while I write this review the voice recognition tool is learning new words and its accuracy increases. It actually isn't learning as I speak, but, it is creating a list of the words it doesn't recognize and by clicking the "Learn from Document" option on the Voice Recognition tool palette I can train it to learn the words it doesn't recognize.
I very seldom have to touch my keyboard for corrections and when I want Microsoft Word to learn from my document I simply use the tools option and select "learn from document". As I work through a document theres a floating tool palette at the top of the screen, and with my voice I can change the options on that pallet. When I need to use any of the Microsoft Word menus I simply say "Voice Command".
For instance, I save a document quite regularly as I work. I never have to use my mouse. I never have to use my keyboard. I simply speak into my microphone and say, "voice command", "file", "save".
You are by now probably getting the idea of how it easy it is to work using voice recognition so lets talk about the advantages of using voice recognition and how it will increase your productivity as well as communication.
In the short period of time that Ive been using the Microsoft Voice Recognition tool I have found that I can produce more, more quickly, more concisely, with more detail and with a lot less effort.
I can produce more, more quickly because I can speak faster than I can type. Your written word becomes more concise because youre more concentrated on your thoughts than on your typing. While I am typing my mind is racing ahead and my fingers cannot keep up, therefore, I end up typing less and sometimes you can lose in the translation or you can totally miss something even though you thought about it while you were typing.
So, now that I have my computer trained to recognize my voice I can be even more productive using all of the office tools with voice recognition and get my work done more quickly and with much more detail. New Overall Features - New look and feel
- All apps can save files in HTML format
- Task Panes (cool stuff)
- Speech Command and Control
- AutoCorrect Options Buttons
- Office Clipboard expanded
- Collaboration features
- Updated search engine
- Save on Crash
- Timed recovery
- Application Recovery
New Word Features - Document Collaboration (multiple users on the same document at the same time)
- Drawing Canvas
- Format Checker
- Improved printing options
- Improved Document Recovery
- Improved AutoCorrect for international environments
New Excel Features - Web Page AutoRepublish
- Web Queries
- Copy/Paste Web Query
- Import Data
- Smart Tag
- XML supported as data exchange format
- RTD (Real-Time Data) function
- Intelliprint (eliminates the printing of blank pages)
New PowerPoint Features -
Password Protection -
Web broadcasting -
Digital signatures -
Routing and Reconciliation -
Improved Comments -
Combine animation and transition schemes -
New slide transition effects -
Custom animation effects -
Improved Copy and Paste -
Print Preview -
Improved Slide Formatting -
Apply more than one design template to a single presentation -
Thumbnails available in Normal view New Outlook Features New Access Features -
New file format -
New undo feature -
Pivot Chart views -
PivotTable views -
Improved compact and repair feature -
XML support -
Improved Multilingual text -
New objects, properties and methods -
Programmatically pass a password when opening a database These and more new and improved features are included in Microsoft Office XP Professional. Ill break this review into parts so that I can cover each application. As youre reading through all of the reviews keep in mind that Im speaking the reviews and not typing them. So picture me with my favorite beverage sitting back in my office chair contemplating and speaking to you about this terrific application suite. Simply click on a link below to read a review of any of the applications included in the Microsoft Office XP Professional suite. Below is a screen shot of the Microsoft Word 2002 interface. One of the major changes to the interface is the task pane. As you can see your recent documents, options for creating new documents, choosing existing documents and creating documents from templates is all available in the new task pane. At the bottom of the task pane you’ll notice that you can set it up to show at start up. 
From the Microsoft Word task pane you can access several other options including starting a new document, the clipboard, a search and insert clip art. 
You can select styles and formatting, reveal the background formatting of the page, create mail merge documents and translate pages. The following four screen shots give you an idea of what those task panes look like.  
 
The Microsoft Word templates and wizards allow you to get going fast in creating your documents. There’s a larger variety of templates to choose from. There are those that are included with Microsoft Word, templates you can get from your websites if you've created some and templates you can get directly from Microsoft.com.
Although not a new feature, using Microsoft Word to create web pages is easy. You simply save the file as a web page instead of a Word document. You can also save existing Word documents as web pages. You can also set Microsoft Word to disable features that are not available or supported by different browsers.
You can change the way your documents are displayed in Microsoft Word. The options are normal, web layout, print layout, outline and print preview.
In normal view documents are shown in the general purpose format i.e., No margins, headers or footers are shown.
In when layout mode text is shown without page breaks and background for images are shown.
In print layout mode text and graphics are shown exactly as they will appear on the printed page showing all margins, headers and footers. Microsoft Word runs a little slower in this mode and scrolling is not a smooth.
Outline mode shows the organization of the document.
Print preview is an image of what your entire printed page will look like.
Microsoft Word allows you to quickly repeat blocks of text in your document using the Repeat command, the AutoText feature and the auto text tab.
Microsoft Word includes an AutoFormat option. When you use the AutoFormat option it applies consistent formatting to the text in the document.
Using the voice recognition tool in Microsoft Word, you can get your work done quickly and easily. This document was dictated in Word, copied to Notepad and pasted into my review template in FrontPage 2000. I could have opened my FrontPage template in Word and dictated directly into it, however, I didn't because of the extra formatting that Word adds to web pages created in it. Some new features -
Multiple users can edit the same document at the same time -
Improved compare and merge -
Open document management API -
Document tracking -
Multi document interface -
Select multiple areas -
Improved find and replace dialog -
Streamlined mail merge -
Drawing canvas -
Format checker -
Print news and feature -
Improved HTML editing -
Microsoft active accessibility -
Improved power management -
Improved document recovery -
Improved auto correct for international versions -
Extended unicode support -
And more… Excel has been improved to support XML and RTD (real-time data function). Below is a screenshot of the Excel 2002 interface. Excel is the ultimate spreadsheet software. 
Among the many things that Excel allows you to do to make your work easier, it allows you to create a custom number format. If you use non standard number formats being able to create a custom format that Excel can recognize is a big plus. If you're not a database guru, you can use Excel to create a spreadsheet and then have Access convert it to a database for you. Having a suite of tools that work together without a lot of problems and a without big learning curve is a powerful suite of tools. Save your Excel files as web pages. Update your Excel files from data received from the web automatically. Automatically update your files with the AutoRepublish option. Excel has a function wizard that houses hundreds of functions for you to use when creating your work sheets. Excel includes a Clipboard task pane that allows you to copy up to 24 items to the Office clipboard for pasting into Excel. You can preview the contents of this clipboard and don't have to go between programs anymore for copying and pasting. Many improvements have been made to Excel that makes it even easier to use than ever before. Some New and Improved Features My first insecurity about installing Office XP was whether I would lose all my email settings, emails, etc when I installed Office XP. The installation was painless. I was amazed. Since I had Office 2000 I wasn't quite sure what was going to happen but, within minutes of inserting the CD into my CD ROM drive I was up and running as if I hadn't changed a thing. Well, with the exception of the improved interface in Outlook and some new features I wouldn't have known I'd done anything. 
All my emails, folders, etc were still intact after the upgrade. Some things had moved around and I had to get used to that. The mail progress dialog is a little different as well as the mail Send/Receive message you see in the Outlook task bar. Searching for emails and messages couldn't be easier. As with the other Office XP products, the improved interface is less clunky than the 2000 interface. Mail send and receive seem to work faster and more efficiently than ever before also. This is one awesome email application. Voice recognition is also available in Outlook. From simply receiving email to setting reminders to scheduling meetings, events and appointments, Outlook 2002 does it all better. Set up all your email accounts in Outlook 2002. The new preview pane allows you to follow hyperlinks and display the properties of an email message without opening it. Outlook 2002 is the ultimate in time organization and messaging. Some New Features and Improvements -
New storage architecture -
Improved account configuration -
Cancelable progress dialog boxes -
New synchronization architecture -
AutoComplete -
New InfoBar -
Hotmail support -
Calendar conditional formatting -
Improved meeting planner -
Instant messaging support for the Contact list -
Block file types that may contain viruses Below is a screenshot of the Microsoft Access 2002 interface. As with the rest of the 2002 product line included in Office XP, the interface is lighter and less clunky looking. Options are at your fingertips or if using voice commands right in front of you so you can speak out what you want to do. For instance, when I want to open a file, say "clickcount.mdb" I simply speak into my microphone the name of the file and it opens for me. I don't have to touch the keyboard at all. I can work using voice recognition which allows me to concentrate on the work I want to do and relieves me from having to be tied to my keyboard. This can come in handy when you are just learning Access or any of the Office XP products. Your hands are free to hold the manual instead of trying to read around the paper weight that is holding the manual open so you have your hands free to type. 
For the most part Access really hasn't changed that much. It appears to run more efficiently on my machine and it does have some new features - the task pane of course being one that is universal in the 2002 product line. For those of you who have never used Microsoft Access or any database software you will find Access to be easy to learn and easy to use. With Access you can do more than just store data. You can present it in a format that is organized and easily readable. You can create your own forms and reports for data entry and retrieval. You can also create Macros and also have access to the complete VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) language. Access includes wizards and templates that you can use to streamline your work load. Take the drudgery out of creating by using wizards and templates to help you do the work. Or, make your database application totally unique and create it in design view. Although the manual that comes with Office XP Professional looks small, it is packed with information to get you started creating your own databases and customizing them to fit your needs. If the manual doesn't have the information you are looking for, the online help is terrific and appears complete. I like the option to just type my question into the help box on the top right of the interface. Call me lazy but it just makes things easier than going to the Help menu and starting from there. Save your forms and reports as data access pages for viewing and editing from the web in a browser. Although Access 2000 was also not hard to use, it seems Microsoft has improved Access in version 2002 to make working even easier. Some New Features -
New file format -
Multiple undo and redo -
PivotChart views -
PivotTable views -
Improved compact and repair -
XML support -
Improved display of multilingual text (Asian, English and complex script) -
New spelling tab -
For VBA, new objects, properties and methods -
Pass passwords to databases programmatically Microsoft PowerPoint 2002 is the presentation software to have. Microsoft has added many new and many, many improved features. The new Task Pane gives us access to many options. The Slide Design Task Pane has design templates, color schemes, and animation schemes. The Animation Schemes Task Pane give you access to many professionally designed animations to use in your presentations. You can now create multiple masters in one file. Built in diagrams make creating charts simple and easy. PowerPoint can be set to optimize images. PowerPoint supports insertion of animation, sound, narration, embedded documents, video, buttons, running external applications, establish an internet connection, drawing graphic objects and more. 
At the bottom of the interface you can see the drawing tools. These allow you to draw graphics within PowerPoint. There are so many new and improved things in PowerPoint I think I better just list them. New and Improved Features -
Slide Design Task Pane -
Animation Schemes Task Pane -
Custom Animation Task Pane -
Multiple Masters -
Presenter tools -
Automatic layout -
Print Preview -
Thumbnails in normal view -
Diagrams -
Image Optimization -
Image Rotation -
Visible Grid -
Improved AutoFit -
Improved GDI -
Document Recovery -
Application Error reporting -
Password Encryption -
Improved presentation broadcasting (Web) -
And much more.... Of all the improvements to Microsoft Office, which are all terrific, I think the addition of Speech Recognition is by far the most productive tool for me. While working on this review I visited the Microsoft web site to read a little more about Office XP. While I was reading about the Voice Recognition tool included with Office XP I was surprised to see an article mentioning that typists would not probably find it all that valuable except where "Voice Command" enters into the picture. Of course, I'm not a professional typist, however, I do type in excess of 60 words a minute without error. I couldn't have been more relieved when I got the speech training over with and had rarely a need to use the keyboard. That's not to say that it takes a long time to train. For all 8 of the training sessions I think it took me about an hour. I then worked in Microsoft Word for a bit. For the most part I can get through a document without too many recognition errors. Usually when I get them I have forgotten that I am speaking to my computer and either am speaking too slowly, too fast or too softly. I also may be getting lazy with pronunciation. A couple of errors and I'm on guard again. The reason for this is probably because I can now get engulfed in thought processes more and with coordination less. Being hands free and able to get all my thoughts down without having to worry about typing is a big relief. Once I got used to speaking and switching between "Voice Command" and "Dictation" I was set. 
Since the floating tool palette for speech recognition is "always on top" I was not able to get screen shots of everything. However, you can get a great idea of what it's like by visiting this site. It takes awhile to load but it is worth the wait. You will find three short presentations there that are worth watching. The first thing you have to do to use speech recognition is to train the software to your voice. More than one person can train the software. 
You train the software to begin with by using the built-in training exercises. You can do this as often as you like to increase accuracy. I did all the sessions once and then used Microsoft Word to continue the training. It's not the same when you use Microsoft Word. You create a document and then from the "Tools" option on the language palette you choose "Learn from this Document". New words that are not already recognized by the software can then be added. A list of words is presented to you and as you click each word to add it, you will hear a playback of yourself saying the word and then it is added. 
You can also add words manually from the "Tools" option on the language palette. 
Set up properties from the "Options" option from the "Tools" option on the language palette. You are not restricted to voice alone or keyboard alone. You can combine the two. With voice recognition my work is done faster and with much more detail. I don't want to imagine working without voice ever again. I feel that all the new additions and the improvements to the Office suite are very important and very valuable, but by far the most valuable to me is the voice recognition. Note!: A word to the wise. I always see the phrase "but we all keep regular backups of our data so...." Erm, well, sometimes I do and I'm sporadic at it at best. Just because I had no problems with my upgrade does not mean that you might not. Systems are different, configurations are different, sometimes it's rainy, sometimes it's sunny. It is always wise, and I did it too, to back up your data files before installing or upgrading any software. | Pricing $579.00 (US) Professional | System Requirements Office XP Professional Pentium 133 MHz or higher processor (PIII recommended)
Windows 98, Windows 98 SE, Windows ME, Windows NT 4.0 w/SP 6 or later (requires IE 4.01 or later w/SP1), Windows2000 Professional or later For Windows98 and 98SE
24 MB RAM for the operating system and 8 MB RAM for each application running For Windows Me, Windows NT
32 MB RAM for the operating system and 8 MB RAM for each application running For Windows2000 Professional
64 MB RAM(128 Recommended) for the operating system and 8 MB RAM for each application running For all
245 MB available hard disk space with 115 MB on the hard disk where the operating system is installed; users without Windows 2000, Windows Me, or Office 2000 SR-1 require an extra 50 MB for System Files Update CD-ROM drive
Super VGA(800x600) or higher resolution monitor with 256 colors
Mouse or pointing device Check the MS web site for Additional items or services required to use certain features | Copyright 2001, Vikki Dawson, All Rights Reserved |