Smart tags, task panes, but no support for Windows 95, as Office XP
is unveiled
Microsoft's new Office productivity suite goes on sale today. The
company has been trumpeting XP for some time through test packages,
and even now a limited-use version is available to those who want
to try before they buy.
Since the launch of Office 2000, Microsoft has been gradually
pruning its original plans for Office XP (XP stands for
experience), but now that the feature set is finalised, all can be
revealed.
The most immediate difference is a face-lift for the interfaces of
each of the applications. The normal work areas have been
supplemented by an optional task pane which proactively offers
formatting and style selections.
The pane is a handy palette of options that can be found elsewhere
in the menus and toolbars but offers faster access and informs the
user of what possibilities are available.
Intelligent hyperlinking, whereby the application automatically
inserted click-on links when e-mail or Web addresses were typed in,
has been replaced by smart tags. These extend the possibilities by
sensing names in the text and underlining them. When the user
clicks on the name a menu is offered as a gateway to other tasks.
This may be, as before, to send an e-mail or find a Web site, but
it can also be to add the person into the address book, pull out
and insert details already in an address book or to link to their
Web site.
Developers will be able to create their own smart tags to access
company-specific features such as Visual Basic routines. This opens
the possibility of malicious use of smart tags.
In Outlook, Microsoft has closed the virus loophole by controlling
application access to the address book so that self-mailing viruses
like Melissa or the Love Bug cannot replicate by e-mailing
themselves to contacts.
However, the company may have created a new source of infection
with smart tags. It claims that the ability to limit these to only
those tags from trusted (digitally signed) sources will make this
unlikely, but tags leading to Visual Basic applications should be
treated warily for a while.
Apart from this, the applications have changed little internally,
other than refining existing features, such as improving data
protection by allowing data to be saved when a crash occurs -
though much has been done to improve reliability. Also,
highlighting multiple blocks of text simultaneously makes editing
and formatting of complex documents easier.
In the wider sphere of collaborative working, Sharepoint Team
Services allows workgroups to quickly put together a temporary Web
site using wizards to construct the template.
This requires access to a Windows 2000 server running Internet
Information Server (IIS) but, once established, the site can be
used to share documents posted there or as a noticeboard or
collaboration point to manage and co-ordinate the group's
activities.
It is also possible for several people to work on the same document
to suggest changes. These suggestions are stored in the margin of
the document and the final edit is made by selecting from these
suggestions. Similarly, documents that need to pass through several
hands can be routed around a group of users.
It is debatable whether this is a new version or just an update to
Office 2000. If Office is a patchwork of applications, then, with
XP, Microsoft has found a way to stitch the fabric together. But,
thankfully, file formats have stayed the same and most changes are
refinements rather than additions to the features.
Notable additions are optical character recognition, to allow
scanned documents to be rendered as text for cutting, pasting and
searching; and the more limited voice and handwriting
recognition.
The main headache for users is that Office XP does not support
Windows 95. Microsoft is withdrawing support for its older
operating system but, despite the company's insistence to the
contrary, there are still many users who will be locked out from
upgrading.
Eric Doyle
eric.doyle@rbi.co.uk
Office XP: minimum requirements
Processor
Pentium 133MHz or higher
Operating System
Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition, Windows Millennium Edition
(Windows Me), Windows NT 4.0 with Service Pack 6 (SP6) or later, or
Windows 2000 or later
Memory
Windows 98: 24Mbytes of Ram plus an
additional 8Mbytes of
Ram for each Office program running simultaneously
Windows Me, or Microsoft Windows NT: 32Mbytes of Ram plus
8Mbytes of Ram for each Office program running
Windows 2000 Professional: 64Mbytes of Ram plus an 8Mbytes
of Ram for each Office program running
Hard disc
245Mbytes of available hard disc space with 115Mbytes on the hard
disc where the operating system is installed
Display
Super VGA (800x600) or higher-resolution, 256
colours
Peripherals Microsoft Mouse, Microsoft Intellimouse, or compatible
pointing device