Microsoft Office 2003

Microsoft Office 2003
Developer	Microsoft
Type	Office suite
Release date	August 19, 2003
Discontinued	April 8, 2014
Latest release version	Service Pack 3 (11.0.8173.0) / September 17, 2007
Operating system	Windows 2000 SP3 or later
Licensing	Trialware
Website	Archived site as of December 1, 2005
Preceded by	Microsoft Office XP (2001)
Succeeded by	Microsoft Office 2007 (2007)

Microsoft Office 2003 (codenamed Office 11) is an office suite developed and distributed by Microsoft for Windows. It was released to manufacturing on August 19, 2003, and made available for the public on October 21, 2003. It is the successor to Microsoft Office XP and the predecessor to Microsoft Office 2007.

Microsoft Office runs on Windows 2000 (if SP3 or later is installed), Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Vista. It is the last version of Microsoft Office to be compatible with Windows 2000.

New features in Office 2003 include information rights management; new collaboration features; improved support for SharePoint, smart tags, and XML; and extended use of Office Online services. Office 2003 introduces two new programs to the Office product lineup: InfoPath, a program for designing, filling, and submitting electronic structured data forms; and OneNote, a note-taking program for creating and organizing diagrams, graphics, handwritten notes, recorded audio, and text. It also introduces the Picture Manager graphics software to open, manage, and share digital images.

Applications

• Microsoft Word
• Microsoft Excel
• Microsoft PowerPoint
• Microsoft Outlook
• Microsoft Access
• Microsoft Publisher
• Microsoft InfoPath (New)
• Microsoft Project
• Microsoft Visio
• Microsoft FrontPage
• Microsoft OneNote (New)
• Microsoft Office Picture Manager (New)

New features

The core applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access) received only minor improvements from Office XP, although tablet and pen support was introduced for the applications.

Office 2003 features improvements to smart tags such as smart tag Lists, which are defined in XML, by using regular expressions and an extended type library. Smart tag recognition was added to PowerPoint and Access.

Office 2003 was the last version of Microsoft Office to include fully customizable toolbars and menus for all of its applications, the Office Assistant, the ability to slipstream service packs into the original setup files, Office Web Components, and the Save My Settings Wizard, which allowed users to choose whether to keep a locally cached copy of installation source files and several utility resource kit tools. A new picture organizer with basic editing features, called Microsoft Office Picture Manager, was included.

Only basic clipart and templates were included on the disc media, with most content hosted online and downloadable from within the Office application. Microsoft advertised Office Online as a major Office 2003 feature "outside the box". Office Online provides how-to articles, tips, training courses, templates, clip art, stock photos and media, and downloads (including Microsoft and third-party extensibility add-ins for Microsoft Office programs).

Office 2003 features broad XML integration (designing customized XML schemas, importing and transforming XML data) throughout, resulting in a far more data-centric model (instead of a document-based one). The MSXML 5 library was introduced specifically for Office's XML integration. Office 2003 also has SharePoint integration to facilitate data exchange, collaborative workflow, and publishing. InfoPath 2003 was introduced for collecting data in XML-based forms and templates based on information from databases.

Outlook

Outlook 2003 received improved functionality in many areas, including better email and calendar sharing and information display, complete Unicode support, search folders, colored flags, Kerberos authentication, RPC over HTTP, and Cached Exchange mode. Another key benefit of Outlook 2003 was the improved junk mail filter.

Word

Word 2003 introduced a reading layout view, document comparison, better change-tracking and annotation/reviewing, a Research Task Pane, voice comments, and an XML-based format, among other features.

Excel

Excel 2003 introduced list commands, some statistical functions, and XML data import, analysis, and transformation/document customization features.

Access

Access 2003 introduced a backup command, the ability to view object dependencies, error checking in forms and reports, and other features.

FrontPage

FrontPage 2003 introduced conditional formatting, Find and Replace for HTML elements, new tools for creating and formatting tables and cells, dynamic templates, Adobe Flash support, WebDAV, and SharePoint publishing, among other features.

Publisher

Publisher 2003 introduced a Generic Color PostScript printer driver for commercial printing.

Removed features

Several features were made unavailable from the Microsoft Office 2003 installation CD. Two of these features included functions for Access 2003: the Access 2.0 database conversion utility, and Client Server Visual Design Tools for Access. A large number of other converters and filters were also removed from the installation CD starting with Office 2003. Several international font options were also removed from the installation CD.

Some features from previous versions of Word were removed starting with Word 2003. These include the Web Pages wizard and the Comments pane in the View menu. In FrontPage 2003, support for Design Time Controls was removed. In PowerPoint 2003, the Genigraphics Wizard support and Presentation Broadcasting were removed. Multiple features were removed in Visio 2003.

The Microsoft Draw Converter, Organization Chart Converter, and Microsoft Photo Editor applications were no longer included starting with Microsoft Office 2003. One major change affecting all Office applications was the deprecation of WinHelp, which led to context-sensitive help text being removed. Additionally Microsoft Office Shortcut Bar was removed.

Some features previously installed by default were no longer installed by default starting with Microsoft Office 2003. The most notable among these is the Microsoft Agent Office Assistants, which were already disabled by default in Microsoft Office XP due to widespread backlash but were still installed by default.

Notes

• Microsoft Office 2003 did not directly accompany a Windows release targeted at general consumers. While Windows XP was the current Windows version for the entire duration of Microsoft Office 2003’s main lifespan, Microsoft Office XP is the version that directly accompanied Windows XP. This would not occur again until the release of Microsoft Office 2019.

External links

• Microsoft Office Online at Microsoft (archived 2003-09-07)
• Microsoft Office 2003 at Wikipedia