Do NOT be fooled by 1 star reviews, they are not true. I purchased Office 2003 and it has to be the best office suite I have ever used. You will be very pleased.


IT Professional review of MS Office 2003   May 22, 2004
I have been in Information Technology for well over 15 years. Having seen several software companies come and go I have to keep an open mind on new releases. My first 'end user' experience with Office 2003 was at work after having my workstation upgraded to Windows XP Professional and Office 2003.

First impressions, Outlook has improved functionality with a preview pane that displays a new email message with the content. Excellent function, I have to say a small item but worth its weight in gold for the end user. Other items in Outlook previews co-workers calenders with yours side by side. Numerous other excellent features as well to many to list.

MS Word also has the preview pane for view docs, works very well and the integration with other applications works extremely well. Excel has new functionality as well as Access is improved as well. There is so many improvements and add-ons that increase productivity I purchased the MS Office 2003 Professional edition and I have to say it was worth every cent.

If you want the best Office Suite then look no further, MS has hit a home run here.


Major problems since hour 1   April 19, 2004
My current issue is Outlook locks up for no good reason constantly. This has caused a bunch of interesting problems, such as when I try and synch my palm and outlook decides now is hard lock time. I get this nice little message in the system tray informing me that outlook appears to be locked up or has stopped responding. This is obvious to me. Luckily I was mailed a copy of this from MS (I guess you buy 36 copies of Office 2000 Pro and they love you). I have submitted numerous feedbacks, an average of 2 or 3 error reports per day, disabled com add-ins, etc. As it stands Outlook has been giving me hell. Also, the junk email filter, I don't know what logic they're using but it isn't half as effective as cloudmark or GFI.

Excel now does rock, word seems slightly improved, access I have not played around much with but it appeared to work. My question though, WHY IS CLIPPY STILL ALIVE!??!!?AHHHH!!!


Still finding all kinds of useful tools   March 18, 2004
Some people are still waiting for color television to be perfected. It no longer takes a brave sole to be on the technical edge. Money may be an issue however aside from that the product works and the worth is what you get out of it. Other people may prefer other packages but that does not diminish the useful ness of this one.

I had zero problems with the installation. However it took some time for all the updates that were not on the CD to download. You also need the net to register. Even though I asked for a complete install instead of some upgrade the system did recognize my previous version and kept all the settings.

I do have a tendency to say if it works don't fix it; however I have benefited form this version in many ways. The one most useful to me is the use of the thesaurus; many times I miss spell and misuse words. The older version of Word still required a dictionary standing buy for words that were spelled correctly like "bear" and "bare" or sense and since, or some foreign phrase. Now I can go out on the net and get a good definition, from inside the word program. I am also finding a lot more flexibility with Excel.

Do not forget to compliment this package with Microsoft Office OneNote 2003.


Outstanding   February 18, 2004
I had a computer with just word productivity pack in it. My computer came with Windows XP but no Windows software. I have a computer class that uses the software that I don't have, I bought this...I like to use word, excel, and powerpoint. I also like how 2003 pro edition comes with publisher. I would give this software suite 4 out of 5 stars because it can be improved somewhat