Microsoft Office Professional 2003 [OLD VERSION]

Manage e-mail more effectively:

Help protect sensitive documents and e-mail:

Communicate with customers:

The new Reading Layout view in Word 2003 makes it easier to read documents online.

View and organize information in Outlook 2003 for more ease of use. View larger.

View customized XML templates in Excel 2003. View larger.

The Research task pane helps you access online references without leaving PowerPoint 2003. View larger.

Reveal object dependencies and help check for errors in an Access 2003 task pane. View larger.

Seamlessly Connect People with Processes
Office 2003 is designed specifically to streamline communication and collaboration between internal and external team members using the desktop productivity programs that many people rely on every day. The "Document Workspaces" feature, for instance, enable teams to modify, access, and save documents in a central location. In addition, the "Shared Workspace" task pane displays tasks, related documents, links, and member lists that notify you when your team members are online.

When you share documents with Office 2003, you have control over what gets changed. You can choose permission settings and allow co-authors to alter only the sections or formatting that you choose. Office 2003 also helps protect your documents from being unintentionally changed by using formatting and editing restrictions. Simply set permission controls on entire documents or portions of a document to prevent modifications or reformatting. You can also improve the efficiency of your meetings with "Meeting Workspaces," which offer a centralized location for sharing agendas, visual resources, and other documentation. And instant messaging (IM), which can be displayed in most programs in Office 2003 applications, lets you know when your team members are online.

Broader .XML Support
One of the most significant upgrades that's included in Office 2003 is broader XML support. Microsoft Office Word 2003, Microsoft Office Excel 2003, and Microsoft Office Access 2003 each offer XML schemas you can customize for using data, smart documents, and programmable task panes.

With these improvements, you can manipulate, analyze, and format data from your most critical business systems and can customize documents and task panes so that they integrate with XML data sources and outside programs. The enhancements also reduce development time with XML. With Excel 2003, for instance, you can use the visual mapping tool to connect a user-specified XML schema to fields in your spreadsheet, and customize smart tags to bring relevant business information directly into your work. (Access 2003, Outlook 2003, and PowerPoint 2003 each support third-party and customized smart tags.)

The Leading Suite of Applications
Included with Office 2003 Professional edition is Access 2003, Excel 2003, Outlook 2003 with Business Contact Manager, PowerPoint 2003, Publisher 2003, and Word 2003.

Access 2003 provides a powerful set of tools that are sophisticated enough for professional developers, yet easy to learn for new users. With Access 2003, you can create or use powerful database solutions that make organizing, accessing, and sharing information easier than ever. Excel 2003 enables you to turn data into information with powerful tools to analyze, communicate, and share results. Excel 2003 can help you work better in teams, and help protect and control access to your work. In addition, you can work with XML data to make it easier to connect to business processes.

Outlook 2003 provides an integrated solution for managing and organizing e-mail messages, schedules, tasks, notes, contacts, and other information. Outlook 2003 delivers innovations you can use to manage your communications, organize your work, and work better with others -- all from a single location. Outlook 2003 with Business Contact Manager Update is designed to help small businesses manage customer information and sales opportunities within Outlook 2003. The update includes new capabilities for sharing customer information within a PC network, as well as support for synchronizing business contacts with a Microsoft Windows Mobile-based Pocket PC.

PowerPoint 2003 includes new tools to help you create, present, and collaborate on presentations that have more impact. Keeping in touch and communicating with customers is essential for any business. A complete business publishing and marketing materials solution, Publisher 2003 can help you reach out to customers. With Publisher 2003, it's easier than ever to design, create, and publish professional marketing and communication materials in-house. And with Word 2003, the latest version of the best-selling word processor, you can create impressive-looking documents faster than ever before and help you collaborate more efficiently with others.

Word 2003 includes development tools that add dynamic features to documents making them powerful than ever. The power beneath all this is XML, allowing the user to embed components for updating data in documents such as stock quotes. Word 2003 offers simple, familiar yet improved features regular users are accustomed to. Majority of the features in Word 2003 are aimed primarily toward businesses and the Enterprise. But are still necessary for the average user because of the control over information across all the Office applications. Tools such as Information Rights Management (IRM), (this controls the flow of information to specific users), persons can be restricted on how they use your Office files; whether it's printing or sharing, very powerful! Reading view is an enhanced mode of print preview; documents are laid out in virtual pages reducing the need to print. The Task Pane is also improved by offering resources to look up information on a particular topic being typed; this is a feature across the core Office applications. Lots of other great features make Word 2003 a worthy upgrade.

Excel is a XML mammoth because of the integration with the language. The ability to migrate data between different storage sources and extraction of information to make it flexible in different scenarios. Tables can be transferred back and forth between applications such Word with ease. Excel can continually use the tables from documents as a data source for further expandability. It's the flexibility for data exchange that makes Excel 2003 very powerful.

Outlook, is so revamped, this alone is a worthy upgrade. Three panes in Outlook 2003 make e-mail an enjoyable experience. The Mail Pane holds all of the necessary tools found in prior versions of Outlook such as the Outlook Bar, and the different folders such as inbox, calendar, etc. The second pane gives an expanded view of the different items listed in the Mail Pane, like your incoming mail, contacts and calendar, which makes reading these information resources easier on the eye and productive by providing a better view. Reading your e-mail in the third pane (Preview Pane), the user views the message in portrait layout, more content is seen compared to prior versions. Its even better to view e-mails with "Clear Type" turned on for Windows XP users. Other features such as improved Virus and Spam protection makes Outlook 2003 a great upgrade. Outlook is not placed on the desktop by default, it can also be minimized to the system tray in Windows, for users connected to an Exchange Server, this displays all the network settings available.

PowerPoint 2003 offers the same features of version 2002, but what makes it an enticing upgrade is the package to CD feature that allows users to save presentations onto CD-ROMS. The PowerPoint Viewer included with each Package to CD allows it to be played on other computer systems even if PowerPoint is not installed. Windows media integration is also in PowerPoint 2003, which makes watching presentations more fun and exciting. The effects are fantastic when combined with these elements. The ability to integrate videos into Presentations to create home movies has long been a request of users, even if they have a DVD burner. For the PowerPoint 2000 user this is a worthy upgrade that provides simple yet Powerful tools to take presentation graphics to a new level.

This new version of Access is also XML integrated, enhanced features such as extraction of data from multiple tables, Access 2003 also improves Smart Tag integration. The ability to design solutions within the program makes web services a powerful resource for the enterprise; the flawless integration with Microsoft SQL makes information sharing a productive experience. This makes data storing and retrieval an easy way to control how data is implemented across many scenarios using personalized solutions, allowing your information to have a stronger impact across the Enterprise.

Publisher has become a mainstream Office application because of its integration with other Office programs. It connects to product databases; the Mail Merge feature is much improved because it's the same one as Microsoft Word, which offers greater ease of use. The Start Center is awesome, which makes starting publications an organized experience for the user. The interface is less cluttered and more customizable. You can rename pages like Workbooks for better searching, if you are typing large publications. The website features are easier to use; it provides satisfactory integration with FrontPage, for converting websites created in Publisher. With a total of 45 design master sets, users can create attractive e-mails that are fully compatible with many messaging services. The ability to merge data sources using text and images is great. Compatibility goes back to Publisher 2000, which is a draw back for users who might be using Publisher 98 or under.

Outlook Business Contact Manager is an application that offers features for Small Businesses for generating customer reports and e-mailing customers.

Picture Manager has replaced Photo-Editor; it has better image editing tools, more functionality and ease of use.

Office 2003 is a worthy upgrade for many users, especially persons still in an existing Office 97 or 2000 user base. The tools it provides offers a powerful productivity experience that makes information accessible, controllable and connected for you the user.

The suite and all the Office 2003 applications are supported only on Windows 2000 Service Pack 3, Windows XP all editions.


A wonderful (but pricey) Microsoft product.   November 4, 2003
James Duckett (St. George, Utah)
33 out of 36 found this review helpful

I really like this new version of Microsoft Office. Like previous upgrades, there isn't too much of a difference in Excel and Word other than a few things, it is Outlook which has the largest improvements. I really like the new look as it uses "screen real-estate" much more efficiently. The Junk E-Mail filters are better than in previous editions (much better!) and I had no problems working with my previous PST files. Also, the ability to send busy and free times to people not on Exchange is really nice.

However, I do like the changes in Word and Excel, especially as it comes to sharing with other users. It is nice to have control over what is shared and what isn't shared. The improved digital signature is a fantastic benefit as well.

And Access. I use Access all the time for my personal databases. I was really concerned that this might be an upgrade like how 2000 was to 97 where you would need to convert everything over and it wouldn't be backwards compatible. Thank goodness everything is backwards compatible. That is a real life saver. The backup feature is excellent as well!!

My hats off to Microsoft for another great product!!


The best Office suite ever yet!   January 2, 2007
19 out of 19 found this review helpful

Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003 delivers on its title's promise -- it is the ultimate office/productivity suite for the computer professional. Microsoft Office Word 2003 is a great word processor, which can create print documents (the most popular type of document today), web pages (you can save in either HTML or XML format), and much more. With it, you can use tables, columns, mathematical equations (with Microsoft Equation 3), and any other accessories for print documents and web pages. Microsoft Office Excel 2003 is an excellent spreadsheet program, which lets you create spreadsheets, web pages (again, you can work with either HTML ot XML). With it, you can use forms for Web pages, and save information in tablular format. Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003 is a professional presentations application, which can be used to create presentations for print or for viewing on a computer, and save them as print publications or Web sites. With it, you can add tables, columns, hyperlinks, and more for presentations. Microsoft Office Access 2003 is a great database application, which can be used to create professional databases and save information in web pages. With it, you can work with tables, queries, forms, reports and much more for database use. Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 with Business Contact Manager is an excellent comminications/schedules program which can be used for writing and reading e-mail messages, calendars, using schedules and more. With it, you can use advanced formatting with e-mail messages and work with professional schedules and calenders and manage business contacts. Microsoft Office Publisher 2003 is a professional publications application, which can be used to create Web sites and print publications. With it, you can use advanced formatting and scripting with publications. There are also some common features, namely Microsoft Equation 3 and Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) 6.3 for writing scripts and macros. There is a disadvantage, however: Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003 (the best program for creating web sites) is not included in the package (but can be purchased seperately). Otherwise, Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003 is an ultimate Office suite, when used with Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003, which is explained earlier.


Good product -- industry standard   December 4, 2005
TJ Hock (New York, NY United States)
20 out of 21 found this review helpful

I decided to get this office suite after using it recently. I've usually worked on Office 97 and 2000, but the 2003 version has some pretty cool features not found in the older versions. The feature that I really enjoy is the Pivot Report feature in MS Access, which wasn't in MS Access 2000. This is a truly great reporting feature. You can now use Access as a front-end to slice and dice data stored on data warehouses in Oracle, SQL Server, Sybase and other enterprise-type databases. If you're used to creating crosstab reports, you'll definitely like the Pivot Report feature. Crosstabs are limited to 2 dimensions but there's no limitation on the number of dimensions in Pivot Report.

To me, the main drawback is the price. (I did get mine at around $370 at J&R, which is a great price.) I figure I can upgrade this in about 5 years time, which works out to about $70 to $75 per year (assuming that I'll be paying about $370 to upgrade in 5 years time.)

A big positive is that this is the industry standard. So the work you put into learning the multiple new features of Word, Excel, MS Access is not wasted because you can reuse the same skills in another job. Your time will be well spent. Note that the software may seem bloated but the intelligent user is able to choose and pick the most useful and relevant features of each application and ignore the features that are not useful. Different features are useful to different people...

Another positive: Each product in Office Professional is fully programmable using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) which you can use to build custom programs. This very powerful feature is sometimes overlooked when shopping for Office suites.



Best of Class   September 18, 2003
Robert D. Shull (Fairfield, OH)
65 out of 79 found this review helpful

I am using Microsoft Office 2003 Professional Enterprise edition, obtained through an MSDN subscription.

Microsoft Office System 2003 will prove to be the best in its class. The Microsoft Office Family has been revamped to provide industry standard XML and .NET support. Files can be easily shared between applications in the Office System family.

Microsoft Office now includes a new research tool that allows you to easily search for information. You can search research books (thesaurus, dictionaries) and web resources. Third party developers are creating even more sources (like Google) that will make this an essential tool for anyone writing reports.

Microsoft Outlook has been revamped with a new and improved interface. It is now easy to categorize messages, calendar items, contacts and more. These items can then be sorted by category! Outlook 2003 is easier to use than any previous version.

Microsoft Office 2003 is a complete solution for the home and business user alike. It is an essential tool for students and developers. The wave of the future is XML and Microsoft is beginning to shape that future today.

If you are new to Microsoft Office this is an essential product. This is a nice upgrade from Office 2000 or XP, but mostly for developers and businesses. If you want to harness the power of XML or .NET this is for you.

Microsoft Office System 2003 will only run on systems with Windows 2000 or XP installed.