Need a new Office? Upgrading your Microsoft software

by David Orenstein free-lance writer

Upgrading to a new version of Microsoft’s Office suite hasn’t been mandatory for years, but it can be worthwhile when useful new features are part of the package. Microsoft Office 2003 has many such features, but it will take a while for some of the most intriguing to become truly useful. The software debuted last fall, but one should always wait a few months before buying complex software.

Given that various upgrade versions of Office 2003 start at $240, any new features had better be real zingers. Previous versions included features such as speech recognition and language translation; this time around, the most interesting features add privacy and security. Large practices also might be tempted by features that promote collaboration, but they require extra software and a lot of technical savvy.

Microsoft did not design Office 2003 specifically for HIPAA-conscious physicians, but it seems programmers had them in mind when they added some of the latest security features. Office’s first line of defense is to “protect” a document. Although you can require others to type a password before opening a document, that may be an “all or nothing” restriction. With the new “protect document” feature, you can require a password for readers to be able to edit or change formatting. A shrewd user could cut and paste your content into a new, unprotected file, but the new file couldn’t masquerade as yours because it would have a different creation date and author.

The second line of defense is called “Information Rights Management,” which allows you to specify who can read, print, copy, or edit your document. These sophisticated protections, which can be applied to any Office document, including an Outlook e-mail message, are a bit tricky to implement. Microsoft authenticates you and your would-be recipients with online “Passport” accounts, so you and they must sign up for one. Also, you and they need to download rights management client software, which is free until Microsoft decides to charge for it. To take full advantage of IRM, all participants must have Office 2003, which is why this feature will take a while to become very useful.

Other security/privacy features in Office 2003 include a setting in Outlook that prevents e-mail messages from downloading images or anything other than text until you authorize the download. You no longer have to download or look at garish or annoying pictures in unsolicited e-mail unless you so choose. Microsoft also beefed up the junk mail filtering capabilities it introduced in Office XP.

Office 2003 also includes a “Reading Layout” in Word that changes your view of a document from one long page into a book-like layout with facing pages and clearer type. This makes reading long passages of a document more pleasant. The interface in Outlook also is improved. There are new ways to sort through your mountain of messages, such as by tagging them with different colors or even viewing them in a timeline. In PowerPoint you can now burn your presentations to a CD that anyone can view, even if he does not have PowerPoint.

For large practices, Office boasts numerous improvements to help people collaborate when both creating documents and reconciling their schedules. To schedule a staff meeting, for example, an office manager could pull up numerous people’s schedules at the same time. For a comprehensive look at the collaborative aspects of Office 2003, try PC Magazine’s early review, “Microsoft Office 2003: A New Strategy” by Matthew P. Graven (www.pcmag.com/ article2/0,4149,1273107,00.asp).

David Orenstein is a technology and business writer in Silicon Valley. To learn more about a technology topic in Computing Care, e-mail him at davealli@comcast.net.