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| Office 2000: The Parts |
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Office Computing April 1999 • Vol.10 Issue 4 |
Office 2000: The Parts An Overview Of What’s New In Each Application | ||
Jump to first occurrence of: [OFFICE] [2000]  You might be a bit apprehensive to see 1999 slipping away, thanks to all the negative predictions about the possible effects of the Year 2000 (Y2K) bug. The coming months, however, also will bring a more promising event to computer users: Microsoft's release of Office 2000, which is scheduled to predate the dropping of the ball in Times Square by just a few months. If you've already read the previous overview of Office 2000, you're familiar with the most striking changes that affect all the programs, including enhanced support for multiple languages, personalized menus, and tight Web integration. There are also plenty of changes specific to the individual applications that make up the suite. Read on for a summary of what is changing in your favorite applications.  Word  rd, Microsoft's flagship word processing program, has several improvements that truly do help you use the software better. The changes to Word roughly fall into three categories: Web integration, personal productivity tools, and ways to globally use Word. Web tools. Unless your name is Rip Van Winkle, you've probably noticed the dramatic increase in Web (and company intranet) usage during the last few years. To help you keep up with the online revolution, Word 2000 lets you save documents as Hypertext Markup Language (HTML, the Web's programming language) format for use on the Web. Furthermore, Word 2000 includes easy-to-use themes, a set of colors, fonts, and graphics designed to give your document a particular "look." You can base a series of Web (or Word) documents on a theme to make sure they match in style. You also can use pixels or percentages as alternative units of measurement, which is especially handy if you're developing Web documents from within Word. You can use slick-looking Web bullets thanks to Word's built-in picture bullets. Personal productivity features. Remember how frustrating it was when you first used Word and discovered you always had to begin typing in the upper-left corner of a page—no matter where you really wanted to start? The Click-n-Type feature overcomes this problem by letting you double-click anywhere on the page to set the insertion point, then enter text, graphics, or tables. For example, you can center title page text (or insert a table wherever you want), making page layout a snap. You've probably come to count on the office copy machine's ability to enlarge or reduce copies. Now you can duplicate the same process in Word by using Print Zoom, which helps you scale pages to different paper sizes or to print multiple pages on one piece of paper. For example, if you have a long document, you can use this feature to print several screen pages per printed page—saving time, paper, and trees. Word 2000 also repackages the ways you can view your documents. You'll still have your old friends, the Normal and Outline Views. Page Layout View, however, has been renamed Print Layout View because it shows you how the printed document will look. Additionally, the Online Layout View has a new, improved identity as the Web Layout View; it's designed, of course, to help you see how your documents will look on the Web. If you work with Word, you probably depend on the program's Table feature to help you organize your data in neat columns and rows. Word 2000 improves this tried-and-true feature in some major ways by adding support for nested tables and providing new ways to format your tables. A nested table, simply a table within another table, is a slick way to display information or to create a form. To create a nested table, you click in an existing cell, then draw the nested table using the tools on the Tables and Borders toolbar. You also can format your table's text using features such as AutoFit. Word 2000 hands you fresh ways to move and resize your table. You can use the in-table row resizer to adjust a row's height by dragging the row border up or down. It's also easy to move the table on the page by dragging the table's move handle. You can change a table's size (but still maintain the same row and column proportions) by dragging the table's resize handle. Finally, you can wrap document text around a table, which was virtually impossible in previous versions of Word. International usage. What would you do if a large percentage of your customer base was international? Cater to them, of course! Microsoft says 60% of Word users live outside the United States, and the company has made a concerted effort to help international users by including strong support of global features. For example, Word 2000 blends all language versions into a single executable version, so that users everywhere can use features that were previously available only for specific countries. Microsoft also includes the Multi-Language Pack with Office so you can set the language of the user interface and help files without changing how the application works. This lets you go to any machine in the world running Word 2000 and work in a familiar language. Word's traditionally strong proofing tools are spiffed up in this latest version. The Proofing Tools Kit helps you install the proofing tools (such as the spelling and grammar checkers and AutoCorrect) in different languages. To make the entire process even easier, the Language AutoDetect feature automatically figures out which language you're using and applies the correct proofing tools. Excel  om PivotCharts to improved formatting, you're sure to find a new Excel feature to fit your work style and needs. Viewing and editing data. Have you ever had trouble seeing the text in selected cells? That's because previous Excel versions displayed selected cells in inverse video. Excel 2000's new see-through view helps you see your text better because selected cells are only lightly shaded. Additionally, font color (such as red) continues to display using the original color, even when the cell is selected. Finally, Excel expanded the list of available cursors to make entering and editing data easier. Formatting improvements. Excel 2000 helps you work globally by including new number formats for Europe's Euro currency. Additionally Excel accommodates the Y2K problem by including additional number formats with four-digit dates. Working hand-in-hand with this feature are two new administrator settings you can wield to make your Y2K transition more seamless.
Improved charting. Tired of the same old chart types? You'll like Excel 2000's new chart types, including step charts and three dimensional (3-D) combination charts. Microsoft also polished up chart formatting, so you can more effectively use data labels, multilevel category axis and time-scale labeling, and user-definable value axis units. If you want to really expand your horizons, try out the new Pivot-Chart reports covered below. PivotTable reports. If you already rely on PivotTable reports to effectively summarize data from large lists, you'll be happy to know that Microsoft has made them even better and more powerful. For example, instead of having to redisplay a dialog box to lay out your PivotTable, you can modify it right on the worksheet by dragging fields from the toolbar into the PivotTable. You'll probably find the new PivotTables easier to read because of improved formatting options. Specifically, indented formats make huge or complicated PivotTable reports more visually appealing. Additionally, you can use PivotTable AutoFormats to help you set page breaks and repeat row and column labels. You also can display just the information you need because the row and column fields automatically include drop-down list arrows you can use to select data. PivotChart reports. PivotChart reports combine the best features of PivotTables and charts. PivotCharts are interactive charts that give you a visual way to represent data from existing lists, databases, or PivotTable reports. With traditional charts, you're forced to create one chart for each view of the data you want to display. Not so with PivotCharts. Just create a single chart and then view summaries in a variety of ways by clicking the field buttons. You create a PivotChart report much like a traditional PivotTable. If you're an old hand at working with regular charts, you'll also find that most formatting is done pretty much the same way in PivotCharts. So for those who need to analyze data in a variety of ways, Excel offers Pivot-Chart reports as a new, powerful, and relatively intuitive tool. Web integration. Just like the other Office 2000 programs, Excel is designed to work closely with the Web. For example, you can create Web pages by moving Excel data to the Web as an interactive spreadsheet or chart. Perhaps you need to pull up-to-the-minute data, such as financial or marketing material, from the Web. Excel 2000 includes a feature that helps you create and run queries so you can perform these kinds of tasks. To help you get the hang of the feature, Excel includes several sample Web queries. Just double-click a query in the Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\ Queries folder to open it in a worksheet. Connect to the Web, and Excel pulls in current information from the appropriate Web site. PowerPoint  you're a typical PowerPoint user, you spend less time creating presentations than you do working with either Word or Excel, but the presentation work always comes with a deadline hanging over your head. Because of this, Microsoft added ease-of-use features to PowerPoint as well as the usual Web integration and information-sharing tools. Normal view. When you're tired of switching among Slide, Notes Pages, and Outline view try PowerPoint 2000's new Normal view, a tri-pane view that combines the best of each. Using Normal view, you can simultaneously display a slide pane (so you can add or modify graphics or text), an outline pane (to check for overall flow and content, or to revise text), and a notes pane (to add supporting speaker notes for the slide). This combination setup makes it a snap to work with your presentations. Fans of the traditional PowerPoint views, such as Slide and Notes Page, can still use their favorites in PowerPoint 2000. AutoFit. Most users have entered too much text in a slide's placeholder, only to have it "fall off" the edge of the slide. Most people resort to fixing the problem by manually changing line spacing and font size. You'll be pleased to find that PowerPoint 2000 does most of the work for you by automatically resizing text and changing line spacing so your text fits neatly within the placeholder.
Portable integration. If you've used a portable PC to give presentations, you may have had the heart-stopping experience of watching the screen suddenly go blank in the middle of a talk. This commonly happens when a portable PC's low-power screen mode (or perhaps a Windows screen saver) starts after n inactive period. PowerPoint 2000 automatically disables these features while you're giving a presentation—preventing moments of panic and letting you concentrate on delivering a smooth talk. Tables and graphic features. Previous PowerPoint versions forced you to use Word to create a table as an embedded object on a slide. Now, you can create and format tables within PowerPoint by using tools on the Tables and Borders toolbar. Anyone addicted to Word's ability to maintain the correct order in a numbered list—no matter how many times you rearrange the items—will be thrilled at PowerPoint 2000's capability to do the same. When you remove, add, or rearrange paragraphs, PowerPoint automatically keeps the correct numbering sequence. Another impressive new feature is graphic bullets, which lets you use any picture as a bullet. For example, you can rely on PowerPoint's built-in images as bullets or use your own pictures (such as the logo for your company). PowerPoint 2000 includes new design templates with the same graphical elements as Word 2000's themes. You can continue to rely on the traditional PowerPoint templates or use the new "theme" templates to create presentations and Web pages that have a look consistent with the other Office programs. Voice narration. Many presentations could benefit from a sound track that automatically plays whenever the presentation is given. You can use PowerPoint 2000's voice narration feature to create such a sound track. This proves especially helpful if you're creating custom presentations to be used for training or helping employees brush up on procedures. Presentation broadcast. You now can schedule and broadcast a presentation, including video and audio, over the Internet or your company's intranet. This is handy when you want to give the presentation to a large or remote audience. Better yet, if someone misses the first broadcast, you can record it and save it on a Web server so it can be conveniently played back. Finally, PowerPoint 2000 includes tools so you can develop macros and use Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), providing program customization abilities you didn't have previously. Access  e Access database application, always a heavyweight performer in the Office suite, includes a number of improvements. The following are some of the most noteworthy. Database window improvements. Microsoft gave the Database window a facelift so you can more easily view and manipulate database objects. For example, you can use the new Database window toolbar to quickly execute commands. Also new is the Objects bar, a vertical column of database objects that appears on the left side of the Database window. When you click an object type (such as Forms) on the bar, the associated items display on an objects list on the right side of the window. You also can create a customized group of objects to keep them handy. For example, you can bunch the forms and reports you use most often into a group (with a name you assign such as Projects), then quickly display a listing of these objects in the Database window by clicking the group icon that represents them. If you're a keyboard buff, you can quickly find and select a database object by typing its name. For example, you can view the table list in the Database window, then select the Products table by typing Pr. Subdatasheets. Access 2000 can display subdatasheets, which are datasheets nested within a table or query that includes related or joined information. Subdatasheets are handy because they help you quickly see and analyze one-to-many relationships within your database. For example, if you have a table with business contacts, you can use a subdatasheet to display all the calls (located in another table) made by one of your contacts. Automation features. Access includes some new automation features to help you work more effectively with your databases. One common problem, for example, is renaming a field and accidentally causing problems throughout your database. That happens because when you rename a field in a table, the objects based on the field may not display the field's data. To prevent this type of problem, Access 2000 includes Name AutoCorrect. Here's how this helpful feature works: Whenever you open a form (or other object) Access automatically examines it and fixes any problems you inadvertently caused by renaming the field. Access also can use the new AutoCompact feature to automatically repair and compact your database each time you close it. This helps save space on your drive and makes sending databases faster via E-mail. Formatting and reports. Like Excel, Access offers tools for formatting information in your reports and forms based on criteria. This helps you quickly scan and interpret data because it's visually coded. For example, you can display low inventory items in red and other items in a different color. You can distribute Snapshot reports electronically to people who don't even have Access, saving you time and money over printing and mailing reports the old-fashioned way. Just export an Access report to snapshot file format (the .snp file extension). The file includes a copy of each page of an Access report. You then can use Snapshot Viewer to distribute the report electronically by E-mail or publish it using a Web browser. Web integration. Like the rest of Office 2000, Access includes new features designed to get you up and running on the Internet. For example, you can create a data access page (interactive Web pages that maintain a live link to a host database) to add, edit, view, or manipulate information from your database on an intranet or the Internet. You even can send a data access page via E-mail. Data access pages are great for interactive reporting, analyzing data, or data entry. You can use NetMeeting via an intranet or the Internet to share Access database information with other members of your team, even if they're at distant locations. Creating applications. For application developers, Access 2000 supports a new type of Access file, Microsoft Access Project, which you can use to create client/server applications. This type of file provides access to a Microsoft SQL Server database via a pipeline called the OLE DB component architecture. This provides efficient network (and Internet) access to various types of data. Outlook  u may already be familiar with Outlook 2000, Microsoft's messaging and personal information program for organizing and managing appointments, contacts, E-mail messages, and tasks. Outlook works hand-in-hand with your other applications because Microsoft integrated E-mail and a mail header toolbar into each program. This makes it easy to send a file as a message from within an Office program instead of as an attachment. You also can choose to use Word as your default E-mail editor. Additionally, you can spiff up your mail messages by choosing a mail format, such as plain text, HTML, or Microsoft Outlook Rich Text. When you're unsure which choice you want, just use Outlook's new capability for switching your E-mail editor or mail formats on-the-fly. Finally, to jazz up your E-mail messages, you can use Outlook's electronic stationery, fonts, colors, and pictures. Preview Pane and AutoPreview. Outlook's new Preview Pane saves you from opening E-mail messages just to see their contents. Now you can quickly view E-mail messages in a separate pane without actually opening them. If you turn on AutoPreview you can quickly scan the first three lines of your E-mail messages or Calendar entries.
New organizational tools. The Rules Wizard was available in Outlook 97 as an add-in feature, but now it's built into the program. You use this handy feature to tell Outlook how to manage your messages. You can set up rules by using the Rules Wizard or by clicking the new Organize tool on the toolbar. For example, you can set up a rule so Outlook places all messages from a contact into a folder—making it a snap to find the contact's messages when you need them. Outlook 2000 also includes a Quick Find Contact feature that quickly locates contact information anywhere within Outlook. Just type the contact's name (or a part of the name, such as Sarah B.) in a box on the toolbar and press Enter to display information related to the contact.
Finally, you can track and view all E-mail messages, tasks, and meetings related to a contact. For example, if you're currently working on a project with a team member, you can see all items (including messages and tasks) related to the person. This overview of Office's new features, though lengthy, is not exhaustive. The package's applications include more new features we couldn't cover because of space. You can find more details about Office 2000's components at Microsoft's Office 2000 Preview Web site at http://office.microsoft.com/office/preview/default.htm. If you're interested in upgrading just one application from the suite, stay tuned for upcoming details on pricing and availability. PowerPoint 2000 has been scheduled for a March 26 release. The details on when the rest of Office will arrive are hazy, but it's clear that this new package holds a lot of promise for loyal Office users.  by Linda Bird |
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