Microsoft Office Standard Edition 2003 Description:

Microsoft Office Standard Edition 2003 review:
4 stars (Microsoft Office Standard Edition 2003) - The price was the best I could find. Ordering was hassle free and delivery was fast.
5 stars (Comprehensively Useful) - There is no other product which compares to the Microsoft Office suite. "Microsoft Office Standard Edition" is the place to get started. And it is the place you'll probably stay.



You do need Word and Excel, and occasionally, PowerPoint. Learn basic word processing and spreadsheet usage. Shine in meetings with PowerPoint.



Do you need to upgrade from XP? Not likely. There are no new features I found impressive after having the XP version for years.



It lacks Access, but most people don't need the database strength of it, and will survive nicely with just Excel.



For e-mailing documents and files to coworkers, you can be confident they'll easily open Office files. There is a good chance they use it themselves.



Outlook is one of those highly underrated, but enormously useful applications to help you organize your contacts, schedule and tasks easily. You can use it as an e-mail reader as well, though that feature has been vulnerable to viruses.



Word is a huge program which can do far more than you'll need, but it will allow you versatility and simplicity that WordPerfect has yet to pull off.



Excel is a basic spreadsheet with incredible math functionality. I don't need most of the math tools, other than minor budgets and such. I find it handy for tracking my poetry submissions; I can see which magazine I sent which piece to when, and how and when they replied.



PowerPoint makes those cool slideshows with the text that can be animated on the screen. With the templates, you can look good without requiring a graphic design degree.



I fully recommend "Microsoft Office Standard Edition." It is the business and home office standard. You need it, it is easy to learn, and the price is right.



Anthony Trendl

editor, HungarianBookstore.com
1 stars (Don't even think about upgrading) - You need to get out more. Just the fact that you are looking at this page and are thinking of upgrading your Microsoft Office makes it clear that you have a problem. Don't believe the Microsoft advertisement featuring dinosaurs to announce "Microsoft Office Has Evolved." It hasn't. This is a mature product. It doesn't matter if you use Office 1997, 2000 or 2003. They are all the same. The good, the bad and the ugly. It is all still here. Maybe a few bugs have been fixed. Most haven't, and ther are always new bugs. If Microsoft took the time to really improve the software, that would be one thing. But they don't.



Here is an example. You are in Outlook. You call up a contact and want to send that person a letter. You need to print an envelope, but there is no command to do so. There is no button to click. You can't right click anywhere to print an envelope. I am not making this up. Outlook has been out for almost ten years and multiple upgrades, and Microsoft still hasn't gotten around to implementing functionality to print a single envelope. Your only option (the on-line support confirms this) is to perform a mail merge. This is an elaborate process that is designed for printing thousands of envelopes for a bulk mailing. It involves opening multiple windows and setting all sorts of settings. You have to go through the ENTIRE PROCESS just to print a single envelope! What is more, the mail merge feature has bugs in it. It leaves blank lines in addresses that look atrocious, and it drops country names from addresses. It gives you options as to how you want country names treaed in addresses, but these all do nothing. Whatever option you select, Outlook leaves countries out of addresses when it prints envelopes.



I could go on, but I won't. If you are using Office 2000 or even Office 1997, you aren't missing out on anything. There is absolutely no reason to shell out $300 for new software that does all the same things in all the same ways with mostly the same bugs.