Product Description

Microsoft Office Student and Teacher Edition 2003 is a suite of popular Microsoft Office personal productivity applications that is priced affordably for students and teachers in grades K12 and institutions of higher education.

Office Student and Teacher Edition 2003 includes these core Office programs: Microsoft Office Word, Microsoft Office Excel, Microsoft Office Outlook®, and Microsoft Office PowerPoint®.

• Complete Compatibility
  Create documents with Microsoft ® Office Word 2003, Excel 2003, and PowerPoint ® 2003, which can be read and edited by users of Microsoft Office 97, 2000, or XP.
  
  
• Protect your family from junk e-mail and viruses
  Office 2003 provides you with the resources you need to help protect your family from annoyingand sometimes dangerousjunk e-mail messages.
  
  
• Access easy-to-use resourcesOffice 2003 products share a familiar interface and tools that give you easy access to the applications you use every daywithout having to learn how to use new programs.
  
  
• Best price for home users
  Microsoft created this unique suite to give qualified students and teachers the opportunity to buy core Office applications at a discounted price.
  
  
• Software for the whole family
  The new multi-PC-household benefit helps you to accommodate the entire family and save money. You can install Office 2003 on up to three PCs in your home without having to buy extra licenses.
  
  

Features

• Automatic backup and recovery of documents
• Burn multimedia PowerPoint presentations¿including a free PowerPoint viewer¿directly to CD
• Full versions of improved, yet familiar Office programs for up to 3 of your home PCs
• Junk e-mail filtering and blocking of unsafe attachments
• Backward compatibility with older versions of Office programs

Reviews (42)

Meh...It's MS Office.
Alright, people.There is no denying that MS Office is good.In fact, it's been perfectly usable since their '97 edition; most of the improvements made since then have been incremental, and there's the rub.This software costs over $100.Most people will only use Word, which means the rest of the suite is just dead weight.

You want a viable alternative?Go to www.openoffice.org and download a copy of OpenOffice.It's FREE.It includes a first-rate word processor, a presentation program, and a spreadsheet, not to mention a drawing program and scads of other features.It opens Word files.You can save your work to MS Word's file format if that is a requirement.Did I mention that is is free?Schools and corporations are taking notice of this.They don't like spending millions on software licences.That's why they're using OpenOffice.Check it out and then pat yourself on the back for saving a hundred bucks.Unless you're in publishing and need the extra features of Word, you are unlikely to see any difference.

great software
I recently bought a notebook with Windows XP home edition.Naturally, there was no Microsoft Office in the package so my computer felt crippled.I'm currently in need of a word processor so I tried downloading every freeware that was rated better than MS Word.Unfortunately, I didn't find any of them useful.I still prefer MS Office over any other.Even though this is only the Student and Teacher Edition, it's still loaded with very useful programs.

A little expensive and not a lot of products in there
I am a teacher evaluating the software suites offer for my school in Ontario, Canada.

- The ministry of education pays for Corel's suite, but my students can not use it at home.
- Microsoft Office with ONLY word, excel, ppt = 200$ is too expensive, I cannot ask all my students to get that, therefore I cannot rely on it
- OpenOffice.org free for everybody, comes with equivalents to word, excel, ppt, access, frontpage, vector graphics... for free. I can then ask everybody to have it. It reads Microsoft documents. Learning curve is reasonably low.
- StarOffice is free for Students and Teachers in school and at home. A good choice as well.

Good, but free substitutes are available.
Microsoft did a pretty good job with its office products. They are easy to use, powerful and versatile. Between Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, you can get all your office needs met, whether you are a beginner, student, or a professional
The best feature of the Microsoft Office suite is Outlook. It combines an easy to use calendar, email program that can handle multiple email accounts, task lists, and many other features that are just right if you need an all-in-one organizer.

HOWEVER ---

One of the other reviewers mentions that "the bottom line is value... why pay retail?" My question is - why pay at all? There is a FREE office suite called Open Office that you can download (again, for free, and legally). All you have to do is Google Open Office, and you will find the website. Granted, Open Office is not as good as Microsoft Office, but it is quite close. If you are looking for basic word processing, presentation software, and spreadsheet package, and if you do not require advanced features and your budget is tight, Open Office would be perfect for you.

Students and Teachers...look no further
Why spend a TON of money on Office XP PRO when you can have it all for just a little? If you are a student or teacher, look no further, this is for you. This full functioning office suite comes with Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Outlook. It ONLY lacks Microsoft Access, which is a database program mostly used by professionals in that area of work. College students will likely never use it, therefore making this package perfect.

Thanks to Microsoft for keeping in mind college students and teachers and making it more possible for us to own their awesomely productive software for a reasonable price.

Enjoy ... Read more

Product Description

MANUFACTURER WARRANTY: 90 DAYS ... Read more

Features

• Confidently create stunning documents with impressive new tools
• Spend less time managing info and more time using it
• A productivity suite with a host of ground-breaking new features
• Full versions of the leading productivity applications from Microsoft
• Easily share ideas across platforms and around the globe

Reviews (22)

Best MS-Office so far... but hardly the best office suite.
Coming from 15 years of working with Windows, it is sheer joy to work on Mac OS X (yes, I am one of the highly vaunted switchers! - No, i did not just recently grow a brain... I work as an IT professional, and until OS X, the Mac did not allow me to do my job as an NT admin. I got laid off due to the glut of Windows IT pros and am changing careers to web design, where the Mac easily outshines windows in every single imaginable way!). I have since decided to get a BS BS in Interactive Media Design at Art Institute of Pittsburgh to step my career up further, and the school requires I use MS Office for some projects. I have OpenOffice, but hate... ABSOLUTELY HATE, the Java interface, so I decided to buy the student version of MS Office for Mac despite my years of utter distaste for MS Office as a whole.

Once installed, I was really quite pleasantly surprised to see that MS Office 2004 for Mac is ten times better than MS Office 2003 for Windows. Much cleaner, more logical interface, less cluttered, though stil la long ways off from clean and uncluttered. Some things are a little odd, but nothing I could scream about.

Overall, MS-Office 2004 for Mac is easily the very best MS-Office suite ever, and is made that much better by the total lack of that incredible pile-o-crap, Outlook. I can't say anything about Entourage, as I have no need for it, so I have never launched it, and most likely never will.

But, is MS-Office the best office suite ever? Hardly! If Apple's iWork included a spreadsheet program with the slick, simple and surprisingly powerful Pages and KeyNote 2, that would be my choice for best office suite, hands down. In fact, after getting a free trial of iWork when I upgraded to Tiger, I went out and bought a copy (it's a measly $79), and use it far more. I would not need office except for Excel, and to ensure file compatibility with my page layouts.

Good, but free substitutes are available
Microsoft did a pretty good job with its office products. They are easy to use, powerful and versatile. Between Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, you can get al;; your office needs met, whether you are a beginner, student, or a professional
The best feature of the Microsoft Office suite is Outlook. It combines an easy to use calendar, email program that can handle multiple email accounts, task lists, and many other features that are just right if you need an all-in-one organizer.

HOWEVER ---

One of the other reviewers mentions that "the bottom line is value... why pay retail?" My question is - why pay at all? There is a FREE office suite called Open Office that you can download (again, for free, and legally). All you have to do is Google Open Office, and you will find the website. Granted, Open Office is not as good as Microsoft Office, but it is quite close. If you are looking for basic word processing, presentation software, and spreadsheet package, and if you do not require advanced features and your budget is tight, Open Office would be perfect for you.

Open Office is available for the Macintosh platform, a well as for Windows, Solaris, and Linux.

See what Redmond could do if their OS didn't suck
Very practical upgrade. A must for school. The ability to open PowerPoint files is invaluable. I like Word much better than Text Edit (who doesn't). I wish there was an easy way to set up Entourage. That is my biggest complaint.

must have upgrade
First off, I would like to say that Microsoft did an outstanding job on Office for Mac, something that most people aren't used to hearing. There are so many improvements from previous versions, including faster speeds, smoother integration, and excellent compatibility with windows version 95 and up, just to name a few. Not to mention the beautiful design of the templates of all the included applications. Word, excel, powerpoint, and entourage look, feel, and perform like Apple's applications, which is a very good thing, with the added bonus of having the tools of microsoft office's programs.

I use Office for Mac especially for research papers and homework. With the portability of my Apple iBook laptop, i can't help but do online research wirelessly for my essays. Then I just use Word to type out and organize them. THIS COULDN'T BE EASIER! Because our printer is hooked up to the main computer in my house (windows-based), I just simply e-mail my word-processed essays to the main computer (a pc) and voila! My essay is automatically converted as soon as I open the document, fully compatible! Then it's just as simple as printing it out and your done!

Overall, I am so pleased with my purchase, I recommend this item to all of my friends and family and definetly recommend this to you. This is a must have upgrade for your Mac and it is worth every penny!

Can Be Slow to Respond
I am using a new G4 Powerbook, 1.33 GHz clock, 256 MB RAM, and with no simultaneous applications running except for Office 2004 I experience the following:

Word 2004 Mac (version 11.1) is sometimes very slow to perform certain functions: opening documents (even small and new documents can take 5 to 8 seconds); deleting by hitting the Delete key (2 -3 seconds to respond); pasting text into a document (2 -3 seconds to respond); and clicking on toolbar menu items (click on the icon then wait five or six seconds before the pull down menu appears - this only seems to happen the first time after working in the document for a while, clicking on a second menu icon will cause the menu to appear instantly as it should).

Also, and perhaps related, scrolling down the page in Word 2004 by rolling the mouse scroll wheel for what would be a more than 9 or 12 line scroll down command seems to cause this weird wave to roll down the page. It is disorienting because you momentarily lose sight of the page and where you were. Could this be related to the slowness of Word 2004 (or the G4) and an inability to refresh the display quickly. Word 98 Mac did not do this, nor do documents pasted into Apple's TextEdit running on the same machine. All other apps run quickly on the G4.

Other problems include the occasional crash of Word (and loss of all of the document you entered since the last save) for example when selecting Tools > Spelling and Grammar.

Also, it takes too many steps to get to set margins for a document in Word 2004: File > Page Setup > pull down the Settings menu to choose Microsoft Word > click on Margins button. Word 98 was easier with fewer steps.

Other than the above the Office 2004 suite has served me well these past few months. There are many improvements in the Charting functions in Excel 2004.

... Read more

Product Description

Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003 is the most complete personal and business productivity solution that enables people to:

• Manage customers and create impressive marketing materials
• Manage e-mail and share information efficiently and securely
• Streamline business processes

• Word 2003
• Excel 2003
• Outlook 2003
• PowerPoint 2003
• Access 2003
• Publisher 2003
• Outlook 2003 with Business Contact Manager

Features

• Easy-to-use wizards to create e-mail newsletters and printed marketing materials
• More than 20 preformatted business reports
• Analyze and manage business information using Access databases
• Exchange data with other systems using enhanced XML technology
• Control information sharing rules with enhanced IRM technology

Reviews (29)

Simply Awful
Office 2003 is quite simply the worst pile of bloated crapware I have ever had the misfortune of installing on my computer.Its slow, costs too much, eats up way too much precious hard drive space, and is difficult and unintuitive to use.Absolutely the worst experience I personally have ever had with "productivity" software.Do yourself a favor, go to openoffice.org, download their suite and use it.You won't be disappointed.Sometimes, I truly wish there were a "zero star" option from Amazon in rating a product.If anything deserves it, this garbage does.

Dear XMLers...
I am primarily an Excel user; this review is intended for those who primarily use Excel...

If you work with a development team that has the ability to produce XML files, and you want to get away from using gigantic flat databases for references, Office 2003 is your solution.Copying and pasting will be no longer necessary; just query a URL.It's proven to be an indispensible tool for us.

So, if you're in the serious business of producing reports, and you have a development staff that can produce dynamic XML pages, this is the product for you.With the previous version, you could Web Query; XML provides so many more possibilities --especially if you're coding.The code is much simpler.

Other than that, the program is not much different from 2002.Many other features that people want were still not implemented, such as extending the columns beyond 256 and the rows beyond 65K+.Word still has the same ole quirks (you know what they are if work with it often), and Access is just about the same.For the latter two programs, the only noticeable difference is the 'feel,' or the look of them.

The latest version
Perhaps I am jaded but again it seems that Microsoft has cranked out another product that looks and acts so much like its predecessor that you wonder at first if you loaded it onto your computer properly.

Office 2003 gives you what you already have in Office XP (and a few earlier versions) so learning how to use it is never going to be a problem.In virtually every way the program looks and feels like the previous Office versions.

There are improvements although I am not sure how much a home user will need the XML functionality.It may be a god-send one day but today it is still not a major factor and certainly does not demand a major update.The RESEARCH option is something to contend with and could be quite useful - it is almost like having Encarta loaded on your machine as well.I found it a bit limiting though; it is good as a thesaurus but there is no world atlas, quotation source, etc.Many people have applauded the new look and feel of Outlook.Again, it behaves just the same as previous versions of Outlook did.

Microsoft chose to retire the Office bar and that is a big mistake.They are trying to push the Quick Launch bar but most businesses and almost all Office users preferred the Office bar.

Don't get me wrong:Office 2003 works very well and with Word, Outlook, Excel, Access and Publisher you can literally do anything!It also preforms very well.But, again, unless Microsoft starts making major changes, these releases should not be heralded as new.If anything, they should be upgrades that former users should be able to download if they registered the original product - the cost is too prohibitive to justify upgrading.And, as your Office 97 or XP works just as well, you should think seriously before spending the money.

Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003
This is the newest version of Microsoft Office. I think this is the best also because they have added programs that you couldn't get with 2000 or XP. They include:

Microsoft Word 2003
Microsoft Outlook 2003 with Business Contact Manager
Microsoft Excel 2003
Microsoft Access 2003
Microsoft PowerPoint 2003
Microsoft Publisher 2003

Word 2003 has really improved and it has much more fonts than the older versions. I love PowerPoint now and I use it a lot with work and just sometimes to fool around with. Outlook has finally gotten a new look to it which looks awesome. Publisher has even more things you can do with it. Excel has become a little bit easier with more things built into though. I love Office 2003 and no other company can even compare to it.

Great Upgrade
A great upgrade from the prevous version.
I like it allot better than Office XP.
How could this program get anything lower than 5 starts, i dont know anyone who uses windows that doesnt have Microsoft Office. ... Read more

Product Description

For home and business users running Mac OS X version 10.2.8 orlater.Office 2004 for Mac Standard Edition introduces new features designed to help you transform the way you manage information share your ideas seamlessly and create impressive documents with confidence. Includes Word 2004 Excel 2004 PowerPoint 2004 and Entourage 2004.* Word Notebook Layout View Make meetings more productive by easily taking notes searching andflagging relevant information and recording audio directly into yourdocuments.* Project Center Conveniently access e-mail messages documents contacts and even audioand video from one central location.* Excel Page Layout View View and manipulate on your screen exactly what you will see on paperincluding margins headers footers and page count.* Improved junk e-mail protection Enjoy more freedom from unwanted e-mail messages than ever before. Thejunk e-mail filter removes messages before they get to your Inbox.* PowerPoint Presenter Tools You and only you will see which slide is up and which ones are ondeck while an on-screen clock maintains the perfect tempo. REQUIRES- G3 Mac OS X compatible processor or faster256 MB of RAM450 MB of available hard-disk space for recommended installationof Office (630 MB for a full drag-and-drop install). CD-ROM drive (or connection to a local area network if you areinstalling over a network). Mac OS X version 10.2.8 or laterMouse or compatible pointing devicewww.microsoft.com ... Read more

Features

• Convenient Excel page-layout view and PowerPoint presenter tools
• Improved junk e-mail protection
• A productivity suite with a host of ground-breaking new features
• Access e-mail, documents, contacts, and more from one central location
• Take notes, flag information, and record audio directly into documents

Reviews (4)

Same Functionality
I have not tried Entourage because I am fine with Mac's Mail program. Word, Powerpoint and Excel work just like on a Window's computer. I have not had any problems switching files between my Mac and a Window's computer (people ask me if that is a problem).

The only drawback to me is that the toolbars are a little more confusing in the Mac versions. They are all individual windows and I am so used to Microsoft Works toolbars being all up top.

If you connect to Exchange, this is a must have upgrade!
As a Unix system administrator, Microsoft Office is the best reason why I use the Macas my primary workstation OS. Aside from the usual hassles of getting Linux up and running on any machine (especially on a laptop!), there really isn't any good Office alternatives that can effectively allow you to collaborate easily with the rest of the MS-centrict world - especially with Exchange. Microsoft Office 2004 allows you do to so easily without sacrificing your need to use an Unix OS (except, of course, for a lot of cash).

Case in point: With Entourage, Exchange support has improved to the point that the setup is even easier than Microsoft Office for Windows - when you run it for the first time and you configured it for Exchange, it ask for three things:

1) Your username
2) Your password
3) The domain you log into.

That's it. It setups everything up. You don't need to configure the outgoing user, try to figure out which message store to use - it just works! Even Outlook 2003 for Windows does not do that. That and with much improved junk-mail filtering makes this an worthwhile upgrade (at least for me)

As for the rest of the package, I used Office v.X before the upgrade and from what I can tell, there is no big changes, aside from project center and some possible incremental updates (although now there is an autoupdate program that updates your current office install - but I think Office v.X has that as well).Overall, If you do need to exchange Office docs with your MS Windows work mates (and the Free alternatives doesn't cut it - which usually doesn't these days) and you need to connect to Exchange, get this upgrade.

Wow.
Wow.I said this one word when I started working with Microsoft's latest revision to their suite of software, Office 2004.

Wow.I also remember saying this when I say the gigantic headed Bill Gates up on the video screen behind Steve Jobs a few years ago when Apple and Microsoft agreed to play nice.(OK, there was more to it than just "play nice," but as usual, I digress.)

I do really like Office 2004.I like what I can do better with it.And, there is now also an envy factor.Not only do I have a better operating system at home than at work (my employer is still stuck in XP-land), but I now have a better Office software suite.

Allow me to tell you that I have been an Microsoft Office user for a few years, on both Windows and Mac OS 9.I was very happy with having Office X work so well on cross-platform work (when I travel without my Powerbook, I carry my USB thumb-drive and Office documents are quickly interchanged across operating systems.)

So, I have been very pleased with this latest version of Office.The 2004 suite installs very smoothly (I recommend following the install program, but you can drag-n-drop the entire suite also.)

I won't go into great detail about many of the different features (many Mac websites and magazines are filled with the current buzz about Office) but I will mention some high points and a few quirks.

I loved Project Center.This made Entourage a win for me.Prior to this, I had Office X, but I used Apple's Mail exclusively.Now, I use both (I'll mention this in one of my reviewed quirks below.)The ability to organize, track, and group all my electronic work together (emails, documents, spreadsheets, presentations, contacts, calendars ...) has been very useful.Plus I like the reorganized Entourage viewing panel for reading emails (the email opens and can be viewed to the right of the screen, rather than the traditional top and bottom view.)

Plus I really liked Word's updates in two key areas:Notebook layout and the formatting palette's transparency.The notebook layout helps meto take notes smoothly during presentations.Plus, it has a sound recording option.This was really neat.At a recent User Group meeting on databases, I sat and took notes during the presentation, and recorded the presenter's voice.During playback (90 minutes for about 8 megabytes), my notes are marked to the side by where in the presentation the recorded voice is currently.I'm almost willing to go back to college with this tool!But I can see where it will be useful in my current day to day work also.(I have a colander for a memory retention device, and I'm always taking notes in some form or another.)

Plus, I like the new feature of the formatting palette.When idle (maybe 10 seconds, if I counted), the palette allows the window below to show through, so that I can read my stuff a whole lot easier.Formatting for output is easier with this palette.

I use Excel, and I like it as a simple database.But I didn't see any really killer upgrades (but then I'm not a power user in the Excel world.)I do like how the charts and diagrams seem a whole lot easier now.

I've been a PowerPoint fan for quite a while now.But Apple's Keynote took away most of PowerPoint's thunder with its release.In 2004, PowerPoint fires back and wins back some issues on "Gee-whiz" tricks of animation and preview.The little addition of a timer makes the preview ability (the presentation on a separate screen/projector and the preview screen on your laptop) a key issue for the combination of making smooth and organized presentations. There are a whole new bunch of animation transitions and tricks.But, Keynote still wins in slide transition (the cube transform in PowerPoint falls flat.)

With this segue, I'll mention some of the downsides to Office 2004 which I experienced.In setting up Entourage, I brought over both an IMAP account (my .mac address) and a POP account (another email address).The IMAP works well enough, but I am used to "seeing" the email the Apple Mail way, and it took me a while to get used to seeing my .mac emails not move around as easily in filing (I'd have to copy the email somewhere, then delete it from the IMAP inbox.And my POP account (which worked so easily in Mail), never did get set up.I'm not smart enough to figure it out yet, so I still use Mail.And if Apple gives Mail a revision with at least an option to view emails from the side, rather then from above, I might switch back.All I know is that I like Entourage, but I don't really like it.

And, I encountered a series of application failures in PowerPoint when building a presentation for this review.Every one seemed somehow related to slide animations, but I couldn't see any one issue.For every one, I allowed the program to send its report to Microsoft with some hopes that this might get resolved.

And now, I'll finish by letting you know that Mom always said if I had nothing nice to say, that I ought not say anything at all.I have gotten in trouble with not listening to my Mom before.So with that, I offer my review of MSN Messenger:iChat Rules!But if you want full functionality of Entourage, load Messenger, but don't run it.With it installed, Entourage will let you preview emails when you are running other applications in the foreground (definitely useful feature.)

Lastly, as mentioned at the beginning, I use different Office versions, and I move documents around routinely to others.This Office version has one other neat trick -- a compatibility report.I can check my 2004 documents for compatibility with other versions to see what items might not work well.This is a nice simple feature, and I see this helping me out some also.

That's all ????
As a user of v.X, I was looking forward to this.Well, as much
as anyone looks forward to new MS software.Maybe a root canal would
be more fun.

I just don't see it.They want me to cough up $350 for a some really minor
feature additions?Even on the MS webpage, they have a hard time finding
more than 1-2 bullet 'enhancements' for each component.And I'd have
to believe that NoteTaker or NoteBook is a better application than whatever
MS's v1 of their Notebook facility is.And don't forget the all important Messenger
integration :(

Very disappointed. ... Read more

Product Description

Adobe® Acrobat® 7.0 Professional software is the advanced way to create, control, and deliver more secure, high-quality Adobe PDF documents. Assemble electronic or paper fileseven Web sites, engineering drawings, and e-mailinto reliable PDF documents that are easy to share with others using free Adobe Reader® 7.0 software.

Features:

• Enjoy improved performanceWith improved performance you can quickly convert, collect, and organize Adobe PDF documents.
• Extend commenting capabilities Enable anyone who uses free Adobe Reader® 7.0 software to actively participate in reviews.
• Easily design Adobe PDF forms Use Adobe LiveCycle™ Designer 7.0 software (now included with Adobe Acrobat 7.0 ProfessionalWindows® only) to create PDF forms that look like the paper forms they replace. Incorporate business logic, such as calculations and data validations.
• Organize Adobe PDF documents Quickly find a list of Adobe PDF documents you have recently opened. View them as thumbnails, and drag and drop files into related collections.
• Enjoy improved attachment capabilities Easily attach source documents such as spreadsheets, multimedia files, images, and drawings to an Adobe PDF document.

Features

• Easily attach source documents such as spreadsheets, multimedia files, images, and drawings to an Adobe PDF document
• Enable anyone with free Adobe Reader 7.0 software to use highlighter, sticky note, pen, and other commenting tools
• Create PDF files with the click of a button from Microsoft applications and AutoCAD
• Create a single Adobe PDF document from multiple sources, including portions of Web pages and previously combined Adobe PDF documents
• Use the included Adobe LiveCycle Designer 7.0 software to create PDF forms that look like the paper forms they replace

Reviews (13)

BEWARE - massive compatibility issues
That's right if you have fillable forms created in a previous version and expect to change them, your out of luck.I thought compatibility was the cornerstone of Acrobat.

Our firm does over $300 Million worth of business a year.We thought that Acrobat Professional ability to create fillable forms that could be shared, updated, and filled out by clients was a blessing.We not have dozens of worthless forms. And then there's the embarrassment when a client with Acrobat 7 can't fill out a form.THINK OF THE COST!

Adobe's site doesn't even mention the issue (although, their site search and help system is so poor that it may be their somewhere - who knows.)

At first, I thought I was doing something wrong.But, when I called support I was told that forms were not compatible.The service person then told me that she thought there might be a fix.However, without a service plan we'd have to pay to talk to Technical Support.We paid good money for this software (we buy multiple licenses) and only had this version for two days.

Considering the magnitude of this issue.I'm guessing there are other major problems with this release of Acrobat..

Adobe should fire its entire staff of software developers and the arrogant managers who let this software hit the market without providing fully functional compatibility.

So Far, So Good
This is actually my review for the upgrade product, but I can't seem to edit my original review there to add my update.So, I'm posting it here just so it's available online:

So far, I'm very pleased with this upgrade from my Adobe Acrobat Standard 6.0 to Adobe Acrobat Professional 7.0. The installation process went flawlessly and everything still works. Also, this version seems to start up MUCH faster than the previous version. It might be due to the "Adobe Acrobat Speed Launcher" which is now in my XP Home Startup Group, but since that doesn't seem to lengthen my Windows boot process, it's transparent, and welcome, to me. A couple of other very welcome changes are that 1) Acrobat appears to have linked into Windows Explorer: using the Thumbnail view, Windows Explorer now displays the first page of PDFs instead of just the generic Acrobat logo, and 2) the Organizer tool gives Acrobat the ability to do some PDF-related document management. Combined, these two capabilities might give enough functionality to let me stop using Scansoft's PaperPort for my document management needs and just use Acrobat. I'll keep looking into it.

UPDATE:After working with Acrobat as my PDF document manager for about a week and having gone through its entire help file (793 pages), I've decided to use it instead of my previous Scansoft PaperPort 9/OmniPage Pro 14 setup.It's not the best in the world, but it's workable.My document management needs are simple:I need to scan in my receipts and account statements to PDF format, OCR them so they're searchable, and manage them so I can find them.For various reasons that are unimportant here, Scansoft has irritated me into trying alternatives:Adobe Acrobat appears to be it.I can use Acrobat's Create PDF function to scan my documents and OCR them.I can then use its Organizer to see those PDFs in one of three ways:1) grouped under various History folders, 2) organized into a directory tree with options to set up Favorite folders, or 3) in various collections that I can produce which include links to documents of my choice.For text searching across my disk, I still use Copernic Desktop Search (free) as I did with Scansoft (though I could set up a Search Index in Acrobat, instead).My only complaints are that 1) the scanning/OCR process is slower in Acrobat since it opens and closes my scanner's interface for each page (instead of leaving it open), 2) Acrobat's OCR results aren't as accurate as Scansoft's, and 3) if I scan to a Searchable Image, Acrobat doesn't give me an opportunity to correct Suspect words.If I scan to Formatted Text & Graphics, I can edit Suspect words, but I end up with Acrobat's attempt to recreate the document instead of an actual picture of it with searchable text hidden behind it.Oh, well.I can live with that since it will allow me to get rid of two applications and the PDF it produces is about half the size of what I was getting with Scansoft.

For those interested, my upgrade process is below:

The first thing I did was uninstall my previous copy of Acrobat (version 6, standard). I did this through Start | Control Panel | Add or Remove Programs and uninstalled all the Acrobat stuff in the reverse order I installed it. I then rebooted (just to be sure) and ran this version's SETUP program. After I entered this version's serial number, it asked me for my previous version's CD for verification (it also gave me the option of verifying my upgrade status by phoning Adobe). I put the CD in the drive, it recognized it, and finished the installation. It then prompted me to activate the product over the internet (which I did without problem). Again, just to be sure, I rebooted (which wasn't necessary), and started up Acrobat. It immediately prompted me to register via the internet (which I did without problem) and asked if I wanted it to automatically check for critical updates. I said "yes" and it went out and got the current 7.0.1 update. I installed that, rebooted (not necessary), and was up and running. I started up all my programs which might use Acrobat files, opened a few of them, and all looks good.

Even though Acrobat's OCR process isn't as accurate or as fast as I'd hoped, everything else looks good. So, I'm giving the product a rating of 5 stars out of 5.

Improved again.
As a user of Acrobat from version 4.0 I have to say that once the use of a new version becomes familiar, there has always been a definite improvement. New users, of course, don’t have any choice about what version they will be using, so comparisons to previous versions is rather pointless for them.

Users of version 7 should be aware that many of 7.0’s features will only be readily available to those using Windows and Acrobat Reader 7.0 to view their documents. Yes,Acrobat Reader 7.0 is now available for Linux, but the installation does not automatically link to any media players installed, andmany embedded media files will most probably not be available. Cross document and many other links should also be given due consideration, as they will fail in a Linux installation. If in doubt, check.

The ‘Reduce File Size’ is a useful feature carried over from 6.0. This should be used to downgrade an Acrobat 7.0 file for users who will be using Acrobat Reader 5.0 - which is a lot -to eliminate the alert pop up about Reader incompatibility, even though there may be no incompatibility. This will apply to any .pdf with only images and text, etc. Not doing so has been frequently known to cause a recipient to panic and refuse to open the .pdf. This feature will also have a surprisingly beneficial result for the size of a .pdf. Reducing from 250 - 150 KB. is not unusual. But be sure to check the effect on image quality, if this is an important consideration.

The extra integration with MS-Office is more of a nuisance than a convenience, I find. But maybe casual newbies will appreciate this.

Anyone using Word for publishing purposes should consider InDesign and Framemaker instead, as they are more properly integrated with Acrobat in the first place.

The price of Acrobat has certainly increased dramatically since the days of 4.0. But then it’s no more expensive than a decent colour printer, and is a lot more versatile.

Acrobat is the Cornerstone of Knowledge Management
I train over 100 people per month on Acrobat. It is the only program that can bring the output from all programs together in one format and maintain document integrity. All the students are loving the improvements in Acrobat 7.
The adding of macros into Office Products is a great productivity tool that is universally accepted by all my students. I get several questions per month from students wanting to add the macros when Windows security is set too tight for all the macros to be added. Just printing PDF through the distiller does not create all the intelligence that is available in a PDF document.
Adobe is real good about asking for comments from the user community. If you want new features or changes in the next edition there is a portal on the Adobe website for your comments.
ISO is adopting numerous standards around PDF. PDF-A (archival) will be realeased in the next couple months. It will be the only format that can handle text, raster and vector. ISO PDF-E (engineering) is under development - it will revolutionize engineering. Acrobat 7 allows creation of 3-D PDF files that can be annimated and viewed in the Acrobat 7 Reader. Adobe publishes the PDF spec and encourages developers to expand the program. You can purchase third-party plugins to expand the functionality.
Finally we have a common format for the computer world to communicate. It will not replace other programs, but will allow us to communicate in one format. Imagine a 3000 page file with outputs from AutoCAD, Word, excel, microstation, scanning and numerous other programs. Now imagine searching everyting including drawings in 2 seconds. With Acrobat 7 you can do it.

Don't buy Version 7!
I paid full retail price for Acrobat 7.0 based on my assumtion about Adobe's reputation.What a huge mistake!Acrobat 7 will take over your machine and spread its tentacles into nearly all of your applications. The arrogance of Adobe is truly amazing.I couldn't make it work with Netscape, but I also couldn't remove it and use Reader 6.0 either.It seems they know best how you want to use your computer, and they enforce their methods upon you.Good luck if you have any problems or questions: the technical support people wanted $40.00 to answer a simple question, and this was immediately after I purchased and registered the product.I finally had to uninstall Acrobat completely from my machine.I've just wasted $450.00.

Steer clear of Version 7! ... Read more

Product Description

Office Professional Edition 2003, Upgrade ... Read more

Features

• Easy-to-use wizards to create e-mail newsletters and printed marketing materials
• More than 20 preformatted business reports
• Analyze and manage business information using Access databases
• Exchange data with other systems using enhanced XML technology
• Control information sharing rules with enhanced IRM technology

Reviews (27)

Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003 Upgrade
This has improved greatly since 2000, and includes training on Microsoft.com.I have enjoyed learning more about each product in the office package.

2003 Office upgrade
If you are primarily a Word and Excel user, this upgrade is just not worth it.In fact, I find the typical autocorrect-type (assumes the programmer knows better than you how you want to format your document) additions more annoying than improvements to the program.This is overall a very good package, but I just wish Microsoft would leave it alone.

Unable to get past the "Convert" Process
In mid-August I purchased a new 3-Gig P4 mid-range Compaq laptop with Windows XP Pro, a trial version of Microsoft Office and Microsoft Works pre-installed.Using the documentation provided on Amazon.com I purchased the upgrade version of Microsoft Office 2003 Pro on amazon.com.Here it is the mid-November and I'm still trying to get the trial version to "covert" to the upgrade version I purchased.No documentation seems to exist, online or otherwise, and I dread the possibility of spending hours on hold to Microsoft.

Much, much better
Let me tell you, I've used every version of Office that's been released since 1995, and this edition is by far the best one yet.
I was quite dissapointed with Office XP, luckily lots of problems have been fixed in this new version. First of all, all the programs that come with office load MUCH faster. It use to take nearly a minute to open word or excel, now they open in under 30 seconds.
Also, they have reintroduced Publisher as part of the main packages. Publisher, since I am a student who makes lots of paper creative design projects, was one of the most useful programs on my computer before the upgrade to Office XP. I was devastated when Microsoft pulled it from Office. I suppose I wasn't alone because it's back and better than before.
Along the same lines, Outlook has received it's first major update since 2000. In fact, it is now easy enough to use that I actually have picked it over Outlook Express (a personal first).
Overall, I must say that Office 2003 makes Office XP look like a train wreck of a program. I must recommend Office 2003 to anyone who uses Office of any edition, but especially to those who use XP because they have no idea how much they're missing.
Welcome to the future of Office.

Webmasters Don't Buy Access 2003
If you use Access 2002 or earlier in your websites, don't buy office 2003 because Access 2003 is not supported by anyone including bCentral, a Microsoft Company.I changed providers to bCentral after being told they did, then found they don't, plus not to mention cannot connect to their servers most of the time. As with any MS product, always errors.

It has been a complete nightmare, I uninstalled 2003 and reinstalled 2002 and all my databases that I opened with 2003 are screwed up.It will take me months to fix a 1500 page website that is Access driven.Time I learned PHP or MySQL. ... Read more

Product Description

ACT! 2005 ACT! 2005® organize your data for quick and easy access, manage and grow your business relationships, stay on top of your schedule 24/7, forecast and track sales opportunities, and share customer information securely. ACT! 2005 program code has been rewritten. ACT! now is using Structured Query Language (SQL), which provides a relational database (instead of dBase code which provides a flat database). This will give ACT! the ability to accommodate many more records in both a single and multiple user settings with more flexibility and stability. In addition, less frequent database maintenance is required with this new relational database structure.Create new Company and Division records to get a more complete picture of the entire relationship with any company, including all Notes, Histories and Opportunities. Link contacts to companies so that when core company information changes, the changes push to each contact for easier updating. Easily convert Groups into Companies. And create Companies from Contacts (or vice versa). ... Read more

Features

• Link to Palm OS and Pocket PC handhelds
• Forecast, track, and report on sales opportunities
• Easy-to-use contact and customer-manager software
• Access, organize, and manage contact details
• Stay on top of schedule 24/7; share customer info securely

Reviews (94)

Don't Do It!
Please do not buy this software. This rush to release VERY bad software should not be encouraged. It is virtually unusable as it now is. I am an ACT user since the DOS days and have always upgraded when avaialable. I'm cured now. I have a new Dell Pentium IV 3.3 GHz Computer with 1 GB of RAM. Even with all that this program is a DOG! Any stars associated with this product is laughable.

Extremely disappointed
I'm a New Jersey real estate agent who needed a product to track prospects, transactions and clients. The features in Outlook where limited and I wanted a complete depository of letters, faxes, documents and pdf's.

I was familiar with ACT's past reputation as a solid business tool and hoped that this new release would be the answer to my CRM needs.

I downloaded the trial version, experienced difficulties from the get go, (slow load, crashes, freezing), and I foolishly assummed that the full product would perform as advertised.

I am soooo sorry I did not come to this forum before purchasing ACT! 2005 at CompUSA. I've spent an inordinate amount of time trying to transfer Outlook records to mediocre results. The Outlook integration has never been totally resolved. The program is incredibly slow to load and react. I never got beyond loading contacts so I can't attest to any of the other glitches expressed here.

Bottom line: I'm still using Outlook and have almost given up on ACT. I'm afraid to rely on it for my business. I agree with all those who have enumerated the severe problems and limitations of this program. It is not a program that I would recommend to any of my colleagues.

Best Software should go back to the drawing board

ACT needs to get its ACT together
This version of ACT is full of bugs. For example, 1) It could only print labels for a max of 50 people with some of the printers, 2) The export CSV function is buggy and the exported data columns are not in the order specified but they end up in some random order.

Just about every function I tried using is buggy. I am just amazed they got this product out like this.

Whereas the USER fields modification on 6.0 was intuitive this one requires a 4 year college degree to master. Every time I use it I need to beat my brains out and try remember what I did before. It is bad.

Stick with 6.0 or earlier versions of ACT

What a mistake!
I am a long time Act user and after enjoying last version (6.0) I was extremely dissapointed with the bad performance of the new version.
I spent two weeks on the phone with the technicians and if you are patient, Best Software has great employees that take ownership and do the best they can. Unfortunately, the technicians can't overcome products limitations:
1. RAM HUNGRY. I had 512 MB and upgrated to 1 GB and still is slow.
2. Does not link with Palm OS. I was promissed several times that "it's comming". Not delivered. They have a new "link" that performs extremely poorly.
3. If you use Earthlink and have Total Access installed on yourcomputer (for your safety), Act will not be able to send emails through Outlook.
I am so upset that I will delete this software from my computer and go back to Act 6.0 which was great. Unfortunately Best Software will not pay me for the expense of the software and my time.

Don't do it
We tried to use this product, bought a 3 license package, we are a small sales company.The product became Unusable.We have 3 fairly new Dell computers, all with pentium 3 or 4 and the system slowed to a point where you could not tolerate it.The Sync by email feature which we liked is gone.You have to open a port in order to sync now.The amount of work that would have been required to figure this out not worth it.Next upgrade may be GoldMind. ... Read more

Product Description

Solve the challenges you and your business face with Microsoft® Office 2003. Microsoft Office 2003 is designed to help you improve your productivity and achieve better results. Powerful new functionality behind familiar and easy-to-use applications will let you take on today's demanding business challenges.

The new Microsoft Office provides the building blocks for you to create solutions that will help your organization take more effective action. Discover new ways to communicate with others, create and share documents, and utilize information.

Features:

Improvements were made in four areas: information management and control, business processes, communication and collaboration, and personal productivity.

This version includes:

• Word 2003
• Excel 2003
• Outlook 2003
• PowerPoint 2003

Features

• Create professional and effective documents using Word
• Access, analyze, and display data with Excel spreadsheets
• Junk e-mail filtering and blocking of unsafe attachments
• Backward compatibility with older versions of Office programs
• Automatic backup and recovery of documents

Reviews (1)

Office 2003
Office 2003 - Well - For a start it looks and works a lot better than previous versions of Office. Including the New Programs (Project, Infopath and Notes)

Only problem I could find is that the font look as though they are made up of coloured dots when they are black.

I coulnt find any other problems. ... Read more

Product Description

MANUFACTURER WARRANTY: 90 DAYS ... Read more

Features

• Convenient Excel page-layout view and PowerPoint presenter tools
• Improved junk e-mail protection
• A productivity suite with a host of ground-breaking new features
• Access e-mail, documents, contacts, and more from one central location
• Take notes, flag information, and record audio directly into documents

Reviews (9)

Cleaning up some confusion
In Office 2004, Microsoft continues to support most Palm handheld devices. However, one common situation Microsoft has seen is that people upgrading from Office X to Office 2004 do not install the Office 2004 Handheld Sync software (which is found in the Additional Tools folder). Failure to do so results in sync failure.

That said, Office 2004 Handheld Sync does not fully support the Palm Tungsten T3 or E [it is incorrect to say that it does not support any Tungsten T - it does!]. To enable sync with those devices, the user needs to go to the Conduit Settings and enable syncing capability with those devices. There are possible issues when this capability is enabled - and all of this is clearly documented in the read me that is installed when you install the Office 2004 Handheld Sync.

Better than Office v.X
This new version of MS Office for Mac OS X is definitely a big improvement over the original version.
As a student I had the option of getting the full version for a reasonable price, so I did, mostly because several other students I know had problems with the upgrade version. I can't really comment on their experiences other than hearing their complaints and frustrations persuaded me to go with the full version.
I had no problems with the installation or the use of the Office 2004 full version.
Yes there are some (relatively) minor annoyances, but most of the major problems (text formatting, printing alignment issues-- the old version was definitely NOT WYSIWYG) are gone. Admittedly I have fairly low expectations after the disappointing original version. The new one has not crashed or lost data yet.
Although I find the Project Center (or whatever it is called) awkward to use, it is definitely a good idea. Hopefully it will become easier and more intuitive to use in future versions.

It is a big disappointment that it does not work with my Palm. I still have to use Mail.app and iCal because I rely on my Palm. It would be nice to have everything integrated into one environment.

Visually Office 2004 seems less clunky and more sleek than OpenOffice, which is surprising because it runs noticeably slower than OpenOffice.

MS: I'd like to clear something up...
My friend worked with the MS team on this product. So reading some of the reviews, I've noticed quite a few inaccuracies. I personally have no direct connection with Microsoft and not interested in defending its interests much, but I'm against spreading bogus information.
First of all, there is no "3 strikes you are out" rule with the new Office 2004.
Some people seem to claim that Office 2004 can only be installed 3 times, after which user would have to do a clean re-install of the system. This is completely not true. Student and Teacher, Standard and Professional versions of Office 2004 do not have any special write protection and do not count how many times you install the program on your computer. However, license agreement for Standard and Pro versions states that you can only use one copy of software on one (1) desktop and one (1) laptop computer connected to the same network. Program does indeed check computers connected to the same network for opened Office 2004. If any Office 2004 program is opened on a desktop computer that is connected to the local network, it will refuse to launch until program on other computer is closed.
This is a security measure that doesn't affect regular consumers at all most of the time. The only reason for this is to make sure that small and even big businesses do not use one copy of a program on many computers. There is nothing new here either. Many companies have been utilizing similar security features for quite some time.
Student and Teacher edition which retails for a low price has ALL the features of Standard edition and can even be installed on three (3) computers at the same time.
The down side to it is that Student & Teacher edition cannot be upgraded in the future. But again, is not a big deal since upgrade for Standard version still costs more than full S&T edition. And of course, one must be a student or a teacher to purchase it.

I would recommend upgrading to the Office 2004 for many reasons. Not only you get a more stable programs now but also many new features like advanced Power Point timers, advanced printing themes and previews, audio note taking, a better option grouping and support for long file names, and many more. Most operations now also work faster and smoother.

Just like any new program, of course, Office 2004 will have a fair share of bugs, but they will be taken care of in a timely manner.

My Recommendation: Professional edition is a great buy for those who want to get Virtual PC 7.0 (included), as a VPC7 will retail for over half the price of the Office 2004.

If you are not sure about Office 2004 and would like to take it for a test drive, go to microsoft.com and download a "test drive" version. Try it out for yourself.

Hope this helps.

Entourage is flawed
If you use a Palm Tungsten T or E, and other PDA's, the Entourage conduit is not compatible and will not allow you to sych your handheld with Entourage.This is a serious flaw if you use Entourage as your primary address, emal, calendar and to do list application.Microsoft is completely aware of this and offers no excuse.They simply state that the Entourage conduit will not work and they have no solution for it.

In Office X the Entourage conduit worked flawlessly.

Mixed Review
The Project Manageris a nicefeature, but 2004 is full of bugs and problems.Some examples: when trying to save in Word, you have to use the "Column Browser" which lists your top tier folders and destinations, and recent folders, but you can't access subfolders.Very annoying.Entourage rules that worked in Office X don't work, and when I redo, they still don't work other thanmanually.Send and Receive schedule works occasionally, no pattern to its failure I can see.Mail view listings in outbox show sender (me!) not recepient.Really, some of the problems are just plain careless or thoughtless, and online support worthless at this stage.I would wait until problems fixed. ... Read more

Product Description

Microsoft Office Small Business Edition 2003 is a personal and business productivity solution that enables small-business employees to:

• More effectively manage customers and sales opportunities
• Create impressive sales and marketing materials
• Manage e-mail and share information efficiently and securely

• Word 2003
• Excel 2003
• Outlook 2003
• PowerPoint 2003
• Publisher 2003
• Outlook 2003 with Business Contact Manager

Features

• Free access to business templates, clip art, and multimedia content
• Junk e-mail filtering and blocking of unsafe attachments
• Centralized management of customer and prospect information
• More than 20 preformatted business reports
• Easy-to-use wizards to create e-mail news-letters and printed marketing materials

Reviews (1)

Great Software for Business or Home!
As the owner of a quickly growing business I need a software that will provide all of the word processing capabilities with the graphics capabilities and Microsoft Office SMALL BUSINESS 2003 does all those jobs very well with Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Business Contact Manager AND Publisher which allows me to do my communications, my record keeping, my client contact management, my presentations AND my own business cards and letterhead and brochures and flyers that look GREAT!I am very happy with this since I do not need Access as a database it saves me money. ... Read more

Product Description

For the busy Mac user who needs access to PC-only files and applications, there's Microsoft® Office 2004 for Mac Professional Edition. Boasting all of the breakthrough productivity features of Office Standard Edition, it also includes Virtual PC for Mac Version 7 with Windows XP Professional. It’s the easy way to manage, create and share your brilliance with anyone, including those in the PC world.

For professional users running Mac OS X version 10.2.8 or later who need Virtual PC for Mac to run PC applications on their Mac.

Innovators cross-pollinate ideas and information, and so should their tools. The new features in Microsoft® Office 2004 for Mac aren’t constrained by boundariesin fact, many of them are designed to give you access to your ideas and information from every program in the suite. Thanks to input from thousands of Mac users, Office 2004 contains tools that are more integrated and intuitive than ever.



Features:

Unicode Support:Now you can display most non-Roman fonts with ease and take advantage of the long file name capabilities built into Mac OS X.

Save Image to File:Save embedded graphics to a separate graphics file in GIF, JPEG, JPEG 2000, PNG, PSD or AppleWorks Graphic format.

Formatting Palette Transparency:Make the Formatting Palette translucent so that it no longer obscures your underlying document.

Error Reporting:Automatically generate and send an error report to Microsoft for analysis if an Office 2004 application crashes. ... Read more

Features

• Spend less time managing info and more time using it
• Includes Microsoft Virtual PC for Mac Version 7
• A productivity suite with a host of ground-breaking new features
• Easily share ideas across platforms and around the globe
• Confidently create stunning documents with impressive new tools

Product Description

iWork '05 ... Read more

Features

• Integrated iLife media browser and photo masking
• Create, present, and publish work quickly and easily
• Cinema-quality slide presentations; streamlined, yet powerful word processing
• 40+ professionally designed templates with multiple page designs
• Freeform graphics canvas; easy-to-use text styles, charts, and tables

Reviews (17)

Great package for work and efficiency.
I bought this product about a month ago and iWork made my life more efficient with all the easy functionality and integration that Apple has created. It is fully integrated with .Mac and your on-going web\work sites. The main application I use is Keynote which is an easy to use presentation sofware that places all the needed functionality for a quick presentation. Keynote has a very easy to use interface and similar functions to Pages which makes the transition from app to app very easy. The only downside I thought was the ramp up time to understand and get use to the apps.
Recommend it for all Mac users new and veteran.

Don't Underestimate This Program.
A number of reviewers have commented upon how easy this program is and, I suppose, in one sense it is, especially if you stick to using the templates.However, as one who has had occasion to work with "Adobe Pagemaker," this program can do sophisticated page layout and, as such, there will be a learning curve for the inexperienced.

But, the User Manual is good and there are good books coming out, like one from Visual Start in July, that will help people learn.

It is wrong to think of this program as a word processor "in competition with" Word."MS Word" is a robust word processor; "Pages," as its name implies, is a page layout program.Having also worked with "MS Publisher," the real point of comparison and not "MS Word," "Pages" far exceeds "Publisher" in capabilities and yet for relatively simple layouts is as easy as "Publisher" to use.

I have not as yet put any real strain on the program, but at first blush, on my Powerbook G4 1.5, speed of operations is just fine.Yes, as a few reviewers have pointed out, some of the palettes could be more elegantly combined.One tends to get a clutter of open palettes.But, these are refinements that will be made in future editions, I am sure.

Bottom line: If you want to layout pages with a lot of the sophistication possible in the more expensive "Quark" and "PageMaker" programs; if you want to be able to export your documents to universal portable PDF file format and print out beautiful documents; if you want to pay, basically, only about $40 for these benefits ["Keynotes," the other half of iwork represents another $40], then buy "Pages."

And, if you are a novice with respect to not only page layout programs but also to very robust word programs like "Word," don't expect that everything will be simple.You will have to learn, but you will be rewarded relatively quickly.

I almost didn't buy it....
I thought, "I have MS Office for the Mac, why do I need iWork?" Was I wrong!

Okay fine I suppose I don't really NEED it. But it is a great program, and worth the price. The ability to export my work as a .pdf file is worth the price by itself. The Pages interface is much better, cleaner than Word. And the templates are suprisingly useful. I created a web page by costomizing a template and exporting it as HTML. I twas easy and quick and the result looked great. Most of the people I work with are PC users and because they were unfamiliar with pages the web Page looked fresh, not like a modified copy of someone elses work.

I use my Mac for research mostly and the ability to save documents as .pdf files is very valuable as they are searchable. With Tigers ability to search the text within a .pdf I can now save my work as a .pdf and later find everytime a particular work appears in the fines I've created. This has made cross-refrecing very easy and fast. I now use a program called Pyramid to create a "mind map" of my work and create links from the "map" to refrences in the .pdfs.

I don't use Keynote as much. I t more visially appealing than Powerpoint and pretty easy to use. The ability to use Quicktime movies in the presentation is helpful and the ability to export as a Powerpoint file is nice.

Great program if Microsoft can develop an imitation
Keynote and Pages, the two applications included in iWork, were flawless under the Panther operating system. The Keynote app has always suffered from its inability to share with PC users. Oh yeah, I know I can convert a Keynote file to Powerpoint, .swf, QuickTime, or PDF, but the problem is that, especially when converting to PowerPoint, Keynote loses all its buttery-rich goodness. It's a PowerPoint problem, I realize, but without a Keynote viewer, there's no way around it. Thus, Mac folks must rely on Microsoft for slide presentations if they don't want to lug around their Mac laptop.

Also, installing Tiger will mess up the purchased Keynote templates you have saved. Even reinstalling them won't help.

My humble advice is to wait a couple of years until Apple fixes the bugs in Tiger, then MAYBE think about using a Mac. Until then, I'm switching back from a Mac to a PC.

Big time winner!
iWork comes with two programs, Pages (a word processor) and Keynote (Apple's version of PowerPoint).Both of these programs are very simple to use and very effective.Without a doubt, there are better programs available, but their cost several hundred dollars more and for the average user don't provided more bank for the buck.

When I first turned on Pages I thought "How cheesey!"But as I got to using it I found my first impression was totally wrong.It's simple appearance is very deceptive.This is a word processing program that can do everything that is needed for ordinary personal documents and beyond.You have to be willing to explore the program to discover its gems, but once you learn were things are you will find it a very fast and easy to use.The real value of the program is its desk top publishing.The 40 some templates let you create profession grade newsletters, journals, resumes, invitations, marketing brochures, and many other kinds of documents.This is worth the price of the software alone.It seamlessly works with your iPhoto, iTunes and iMovies.This is one powerful piece of software.With it you can produce commercial grade color brochures or newsletters at an entry level price.

Keynote makes wonderful multimedia presentations, and like Pages is seamlessly integrated with iPhoto, iTunes and iMovies.If you are using graphics or want to import photos into your presentation, Keynote is significantly easier, quicker, and simpler to use that PowerPoint.You can't miss with this program.You can even save you presentation as a PowerPoint, Quicktime, or PDF file or post it on the internet for all to see with the easy of a single click.

I have used both Microsoft Word and PowerPoint and keep them on my hard drive but rarely use them.As my skill with Pages and Keynote has grown I have found them to be more than sufficient in producing quality documents from personal letters, teaching handouts, to professional grade overhead presentations.
For the cost, iWorks cannot be beat!And you will not be disappointed.

iWork `05 System Requirements
- Macintosh computer with a 500 mhz or faster Power PC G3, G4 or G5 (G4 for PowerBook); G4 or G5 recommended
- 128 MB of physical RAM (512MB recommended)
- 8 MB of video memory (32MB recommended)
- Mac OS X v10.3.6 or later
- QuickTime 6.5 or later ... Read more

Product Description

Solve the challenges you and your business face with Microsoft® Office 2003. Microsoft Office 2003 is designed to help you improve your productivity and achieve better results. Powerful new functionality behind familiar and easy-to-use applications will let you take on today's demanding business challenges.

The new Microsoft Office provides the building blocks for you to create solutions that will help your organization take more effective action. Discover new ways to communicate with others, create and share documents, and utilize information.

Features:

Improvements were made in four areas: information management and control, business processes, communication and collaboration, and personal productivity.

This version includes:

• Word 2003
• Excel 2003
• Outlook 2003
• PowerPoint 2003

Features

• Create professional and effective documents using Word
• Access, analyze, and display data with Excel spreadsheets
• Junk e-mail filtering and blocking of unsafe attachments
• Backward compatibility with older versions of Office programs
• Automatic backup and recovery of documents

Reviews (2)

Like Bugs? If Yes, Then Buy This!
I am writing with reference to Office 2003 Standard in both Upgrade and Full (non upgrade) versions.

The upgrade CD would not accept the 25 alpha numeric `product ID' key. It would take 4 characters then jump to the next box. It would not allow you to return to the previous box and back fill the missing letter or number. In short, you could not ever enter the correct product ID. I can't say more about this version as I could not get past this point.

The Full (non upgrade) version seemed more stable. It accepted the `product ID' key at least but that is where the problems began.

The first problem I had was that in PowerPoint there was no preview. Sure enough, less than 30 days out and there was a critical upgrade to fix this problem.

I went to the Microsoft Update page to download it. It failed several times. I then contacted Microsoft Technical support. This is a known problem and you must download (at least for now) all updated to your local hard drive and install from there. If they don't solve this problem, its going to be a major problem when there are more than a few updates for Office 2003 available.

I also started to receive `run time error messages' when I used Microsoft Internet Explorer. Microsoft technical support says this is not an Office 2003 issue, but an Operating System issue. Sure it is! I did not have this problem before I installed Office 2003. The resolution was to disable all Third Party devices (such as the Google tool bar), and remove some other things as well.

The new Outlook interface looks great, but what good is a great looking interface if it does not work?

For some reason, email sent using Outlook 2003 is identified as `Spam' by several spam filtering programs, including Spam Assassin. I found this out when some people I was sending email to did not reply. I telephoned one of them and said they had not received any email form me. They then checked and found it in the `spam' folder. Here is the error message that Outlook 2003 generated:

> Content analysis details: (5.70 points, 5 required)
> FORGED_YAHOO_RCVD(2.7 points)'From' yahoo.com does not match 'Received'
> headers
> MSG_ID_ADDED_BY_MTA_2 (0.8 points)'Message-Id' was added by a relay
> (2) FORGED_MUA_OUTLOOK (2.2 points)Forged mail pretending to be from
> MS Outlook MISSING_OUTLOOK_NAME (0.0 points)Message looks like
> Outlook, but isn't

This is also a known problem to Microsoft Technical Support. The fix is to turn off all firewall and virus protection and to remove some networking package updates. I tried this but it still did not solve the problem. It remains unresolved.

I had more problems but I think this illustrates the point that this product was just released to soon.

If you enjoy `bleeding edge' technology, this is for you. If you are looking for something that works without `bleeding edge' features (bugs or problems) then take to heart the advice I was given by Microsoft Technical Support; ". . . I usually wait 6 months after a release before I upgrade. By then most of the major problems have been resolved."

Sage Advice!

As for me, I am returning to an earlier edition of Office at least for a while.

Here is the phone number fo