Word 2003

Word 2003 is Microsoft’s word processing solution. With this new release, the software allows documents to be saved in XML and supports the creation of templates based on customer-defined schemas. Users can use Microsoft Word to create long documents with large areas of text and extensive formatting, such as a customer letter or marketing plan, and retain all of that rich formatting when saving in XML format. In addition, a collection of XML documents can be searched as readily as a database, enabling businesses to unlock the information stored in documents across the organization.

Word also extends the functionality of smart tags to apply to XML elements directly, so actions can be provided for entire sections of documents rather than just a few words, and actions can work on “types” or collections of data rather than relying on recognition of a piece of text. For example, a custom smart tag can be written that appears on fields requiring the user to enter data and offer to pre-populate the data. A smart tag action can also be provided that applies different transforms or views on XML data retrieved via the Research Task Pane described later.

Word is one application I deal with daily. Aside from the complete redesign of icons, there is not much change in the way Word works. But I am fairly pleased by that. Existing Word users (and there is really a lot of existing Word users out there) will not have to relearn the application just to type out the report they have to submit tomorrow to their bosses. One feature I really hope for would be the ability to save Word documents as PDF format, a feature that should have been included years ago.