Microsoft Word 2003 Upgrade Description:

Microsoft Word 2003 Upgrade review:
5 stars (Justified Upgrade for some, but not all) - Word 2003 is more powerful than ever. Unfortunately, most of the new features are aimed primarily towards large business. As a result, many end-users simply won't need them (or be able to use them). The users who will benefit most from upgrading are corporate users or users purchasing bundles with new PCs. Pros:Instant Messaging support is now integrated with Office applications. However, only MSN messenger is used. Users who predominantly use Yahoo, trillian, jabber, or ICQ will not find any utility in this feature, without signing up for a messenger account. The user interface has changed for the better, and matches the Windows XP interface better. Personally, I like it. Also, fonts are rendered better, and consequently documents will look better on laptops (no more jagged edges). The Reading Layout feature splits the text into a two column format for easier reading (think newspaper). If you have Microsoft Server and SharePoint services installed on your network, you can share and track changes to word documents. Nice feature, but requires a significant investment on server software. When typing an hypertext link, word no longer reformats the font of the URL. Cons:Product activation, which requires network access. All of the Office applications now have a blended help system that first checks help files online first, before getting local help files. XML is useless for end users. Programmers who use Word to write XML will find that Word no longer tries to autocorrect much of the XML, but you will still have the annoying red underline on many of your XML tags because the spellchecker flags them as misspelled. Still, I think it makes a worthy upgrade for 97/2000 users, but XP users will find the expense difficult to justify. More specifically, if you are an end user without a lot of Microsoft back end software installed on your network (Windows 2000/2003 Server, SharePoint services, etc.) I would think very carefully before upgrading.