Office XP
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Microsoft Office XP (codenamed Office 10) is an
office suite Productivity software (also called personal productivity software or office productivity software) is application software used for producing information (such as documents, presentations, worksheets, databases, charts, graphs, digital paintings, ...
which was officially revealed in July 2000 by
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
for the
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. Office XP was
released to manufacturing A software release life cycle is the sum of the stages of development and maturity for a piece of computer software ranging from its initial development to its eventual release, and including updated versions of the released version to help impro ...
on March 5, 2001, and was later made available to retail on May 31, 2001, less than five months prior to the release of
Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...
. It is the successor to
Office 2000 Microsoft Office 2000 (version 9.0) is a release of Microsoft Office, an office suite developed and distributed by Microsoft for the Windows family of operating systems. Office 2000 was released to manufacturing on March 29, 1999, and was made av ...
and the predecessor of
Office 2003 Microsoft Office 2003 (codenamed Office 11) is an office suite developed and distributed by Microsoft for its Microsoft Windows, Windows operating system. Office 2003 was released to manufacturing on August 19, 2003, and was later software releas ...
. A Mac OS X equivalent,
Microsoft Office v. X Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is the former name of a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketin ...
was released on November 19, 2001. New features in Office XP include smart tags, a
selection-based search A selection-based search system is a search engine system in which the user invokes a search query using only the mouse. A selection-based search system allows the user to search the internet for more information about any keyword or phrase contai ...
feature that recognizes different types of text in a document so that users can perform additional actions; a task pane interface that consolidates popular
menu bar A menu bar is a graphical control element which contains drop-down menus. The menu bar's purpose is to supply a common housing for window- or application-specific menus which provide access to such functions as opening files, interacting wi ...
commands on the right side of the screen to facilitate quick access to them; new
document collaboration Document and file collaboration are the tools or systems set up to help multiple people work together on a single document or file to achieve a single final version. Normally, this is software that allows teams to work on a single document, such as ...
capabilities, support for
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and
SharePoint SharePoint is a web-based collaborative platform that integrates natively with Microsoft Office. Launched in 2001, SharePoint is primarily sold as a document management and storage system, but the product is highly configurable and its usage v ...
; and integrated
handwriting recognition Handwriting recognition (HWR), also known as handwritten text recognition (HTR), is the ability of a computer to receive and interpret intelligible handwritten input from sources such as paper documents, photographs, touch-screens and other dev ...
and
speech recognition Speech recognition is an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science and computational linguistics that develops methodologies and technologies that enable the recognition and translation of spoken language into text by computers with the m ...
capabilities. With Office XP, Microsoft incorporated several features to address reliability issues observed in previous versions of Office. Office XP also introduces separate
Document Imaging Document imaging is an information technology category for systems capable of replicating documents commonly used in business. Document imaging systems can take many forms including microfilm, on demand printers, facsimile machines, copiers, multifu ...
,
Document Scanning Document imaging is an information technology category for systems capable of replicating documents commonly used in business. Document imaging systems can take many forms including microfilm, on demand printers, facsimile machines, copiers, multifu ...
, and Clip Organizer applications. The
Office Assistant The Office Assistant is a discontinued intelligent user interface for Microsoft Office that assisted users by way of an interactive animated character which user interface, interfaced with the Office help content. It was included in Microsoft Off ...
(commonly known as "Clippy"), which was introduced in
Office 97 Microsoft Office 97 (version 8.0) is the fifth major release for Windows of Microsoft Office, released by Microsoft on November 19, 1996. It succeeded Microsoft Office 95 and was replaced by Microsoft Office 2000 in 1999. A Mac OS equivalent, Mi ...
and widely reviled by users, is disabled by default in Office XP; this change was a key element of Microsoft's promotional campaign for Office XP. Office XP is incompatible with
Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturin ...
and earlier versions of Windows. Office XP is compatible with
Windows NT 4.0 Windows NT 4.0 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It is the direct successor to Windows NT 3.51, which was released to manufacturing on July 31, 1996, and then to retail ...
SP6 or later,
Windows 98 Windows 98 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. The second operating system in the 9x line, it is the successor to Windows 95, and was released to ...
,
Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It was the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), releas ...
,
Windows Me Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows Me (marketed with the pronunciation of the pronoun "me"), is an operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. It is the successor to Windo ...
,
Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...
,
Windows Server 2003 Windows Server 2003 is the sixth version of Windows Server operating system produced by Microsoft. It is part of the Windows NT family of operating systems and was released to manufacturing on March 28, 2003 and generally available on April 24, 2 ...
,
Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...
,
Windows Server 2008 Windows Server 2008 is the fourth release of the Windows Server operating system produced by Microsoft as part of the Windows NT family of the operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on February 4, 2008, and generally to retail on Fe ...
and
Windows Server 2008 R2 Windows Server 2008 R2 is the fifth version of the Windows Server operating system produced by Microsoft and released as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became General av ...
. It is not officially supported on
Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly ...
or later versions of Windows. It is the last version of Microsoft Office to support
Windows NT 4.0 Windows NT 4.0 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It is the direct successor to Windows NT 3.51, which was released to manufacturing on July 31, 1996, and then to retail ...
SP6 or later,
Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It was the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), releas ...
before SP3,
Windows 98 Windows 98 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. The second operating system in the 9x line, it is the successor to Windows 95, and was released to ...
, and
Windows Me Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows Me (marketed with the pronunciation of the pronoun "me"), is an operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. It is the successor to Windo ...
as the following version,
Microsoft Office 2003 Microsoft Office 2003 (codenamed Office 11) is an office suite developed and distributed by Microsoft for its Windows operating system. Office 2003 was released to manufacturing on August 19, 2003, and was later released to retail on October 21, ...
only supports
Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It was the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), releas ...
SP3 or later. Office XP received mostly positive reviews upon its release, with critics praising its collaboration features, document protection and recovery functionality, and smart tags; however, the suite's handwriting recognition and speech recognition capabilities were criticized and were mostly viewed as inferior to similar offerings from competitors. As of May 2002, over 60 million Office XP licenses had been sold. Microsoft released three
service pack In computing, a service pack comprises a collection of updates, fixes, or enhancements to a software program delivered in the form of a single installable package. Companies often release a service pack when the number of individual patches to a ...
s for Office XP during its lifetime. Mainstream support for Office XP ended on July 11, 2006, and extended support ended on July 12, 2011.


History

At a meeting with financial analysts in July 2000, Microsoft demonstrated Office XP, then known by its codename, Office 10, which included a subset of features Microsoft designed in accordance with what at the time was known as the
.NET strategy The Microsoft .NET strategy is a marketing plan that Microsoft followed in the early 2000s. Steve Ballmer described it as the company's "most ambitious undertaking since Internet Strategy Day in 1995". In support of this strategy, between 2000 an ...
, one by which it intended to provide extensive client access to various web services and features such as speech recognition. SharePoint Portal Server 2001, then codenamed ''Tahoe'', was also in development at this time and was slated to improve collaboration for users of Office 2000 and Office 10. In August, Microsoft released Office 10 Beta 1 for product evaluation purposes. During this period Office 10 was characterized as an interim release between its predecessor, Office 2000 and a future version, and was planned to include new formatting options; integrated speech recognition; improved collaboration capabilities and enhanced support for web services; and a
web portal A web portal is a specially designed website that brings information from diverse sources, like emails, online forums and search engines, together in a uniform way. Usually, each information source gets its dedicated area on the page for displayin ...
complete with
web part A Web Part, also called a Web Widget, is an ASP.NET server control which is added to a Web Part Zone on Web Part Pages by users at run time. The controls enable end users to modify the content, appearance, and behavior of Web pages directly from a ...
s. Beta 1 was compatible with Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT 4.0 SP5, and Windows 2000. Before the release of Office 10 Beta 2, there was speculation that Microsoft intended to rebrand the new product as "Office 2001," "Office 2002," "Office.NET," or "Office XP." The latter was shorthand for ''eXPerience'' and was positioned as a brand that would emphasize the new experiences enabled by the product. At the time, Microsoft intended to name the latest version of
Visual Studio Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) from Microsoft. It is used to develop computer programs including web site, websites, web apps, web services and mobile apps. Visual Studio uses Microsoft software development platfor ...
as "Visual Studio .NET" but unnamed sources stated that the company did not desire to do the same with Office 10, as the product was only partially related to the company's .NET strategy. Microsoft ultimately decided on "Office XP" as the final name of the product and used the same brand for Windows XP—then codenamed ''Whistler''—which was developed concurrently. In spite of this, individual Office XP products such as Excel, PowerPoint, and Word would continue to use Microsoft's year-based naming conventions and were named after the year 2002. Office XP Beta 2 was released to 10,000 technical testers in late 2000. Beta 2 introduced several improvements to setup tools. The Custom Maintenance Wizard, for example, now allowed setup components to be modified after their installation, and the setup process of Office XP itself used a new version of
Windows Installer Windows Installer (msiexec.exe, previously known as Microsoft Installer, codename Darwin) is a software component and application programming interface (API) of Microsoft Windows used for the installation, maintenance, and removal of software. ...
. Microsoft also terminated the product's support for Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 SP5. After the release of Beta 2, Microsoft announced a Corporate Preview Kit Program for Office XP that would allow up to 500,000 corporate customers to evaluate a Corporate Preview Beta version of the product on a total of 10 machines per copy; individual copies cost $19.95 and expired on August 31, 2001. Office XP was released to manufacturing on March 5, 2001, and was later made available to retail on May 31, 2001.


Service packs

Microsoft released three service packs for Office XP throughout the product's lifecycle that introduced security enhancements, stability improvements, and
software bug A software bug is an error, flaw or fault in the design, development, or operation of computer software that causes it to produce an incorrect or unexpected result, or to behave in unintended ways. The process of finding and correcting bugs i ...
fixes; each service pack was made available as separate Client and Full File update versions: Client updates were for Office XP
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installations, were obtainable from Microsoft Office Update or as standalone downloads, and required Office XP installation media—these updates could not be uninstalled. Full File updates did not require access to installation media and were intended for network administrators to deploy updates to Office XP users who installed the product from a server location; users could also manually install Full File updates. Full File updates require Windows Installer 2.0; Office XP shipped with version 1.1. Windows Installer 2.0 shipped with Windows XP. On September 25, 2001, Microsoft released Windows Installer 2.0 redistributables for
Windows 9x Windows 9x is a generic term referring to a series of Microsoft Windows computer operating systems produced from 1995 to 2000, which were based on the Windows 95 kernel and its underlying foundation of MS-DOS, both of which were updated in subs ...
, as well as for Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000. Service Pack 1 (SP1) was released on December 11, 2001, and included performance and security improvements, as well as stability improvements based on error reports from users. SP1 also resolved an issue that prevented documents from being saved to MSN Groups. Service Pack 2 (SP2), released on August 21, 2002 included all previously available standalone updates; some of the those previously released included cumulative security patches for Excel 2002 and Word 2002 to address potentially malicious code embedded in document macros. The Full File version of SP2 is cumulative—SP1 does not have to be installed—while the Client version requires SP1 to be installed. Only Full File updates released after SP2 can be applied directly to Client installations of Office XP. Earlier updates were designed to update only administrative images and fail when applied directly to clients. Service Pack 3 (SP3) was released on March 30, 2004, and included all previously released updates, as well as previously unreleased stability improvements based on feedback and error reports received from users. SP3 does not require any earlier service packs to be installed. However, if an Office XP client was updated from a patched administrative image, the Full File version of SP3 must be installed. Support for Office XP RTM with no service packs installed ended on December 31, 2002. Office XP Service Pack 1 became unsupported on August 21, 2003, and Office XP Service Pack 2 reached end-of-life on March 9, 2005, almost 2 and a half years after it reached
general availability A software release life cycle is the sum of the stages of development and maturity for a piece of computer software ranging from its initial development to its eventual release, and including updated versions of the released version to help impro ...
.


New features


User interface

Office XP has a streamlined, flatter appearance compared to previous versions of Office. According to Microsoft, this change involved "removing visually competing elements, visually prioritizing items on a page, increasing letter spacing and word spacing for better readability, and defining foreground and background color to bring the most important elements to the front."


Smart tags

Excel 2002 and Word 2002 introduce ''smart tags'', commands for specific types of text including addresses,
calendar date A calendar date is a reference to a particular day represented within a calendar system. The calendar date allows the specific day to be identified. The number of days between two dates may be calculated. For example, "25 " is ten days after " ...
s,
personal name A personal name, or full name, in onomastic terminology also known as prosoponym (from Ancient Greek πρόσωπον / ''prósōpon'' - person, and ὄνομα / ''onoma'' - name), is the set of names by which an individual person is known ...
s,
telephone number A telephone number is a sequence of digits assigned to a landline telephone subscriber station connected to a telephone line or to a wireless electronic telephony device, such as a radio telephone or a mobile telephone, or to other devices f ...
s,
ticker symbol A ticker symbol or stock symbol is an abbreviation used to uniquely identify publicly traded shares of a particular stock on a particular stock market. In short, ticker symbols are arrangements of symbols or characters (generally Latin letters ...
s, or
tracking number Tracking numbers are numbers assigned to packages when they are shipped. Tracking numbers are useful for knowing the location of time sensitive deliveries. It is a unique ID number or code assigned to a package or parcel. The tracking number is typ ...
s in documents. A smart tag is denoted by a dotted purple underline underneath actionable text in a document; hovering over this text with the mouse cursor displays an icon that presents a list of related commands when invoked with a mouse click or the ++
keyboard shortcut computing, a keyboard shortcut also known as hotkey is a series of one or several keys to quickly invoke a software program or perform a preprogrammed action. This action may be part of the standard functionality of the operating system or ...
. A ticker symbol smart tag in Excel can present the latest stock information in a cell within a workbook, for example, while a contact name smart tag in a Word document can display options to send an e-mail message to—or schedule a meeting with—that contact. Excel and Word support extensible smart tags that allow developers and organizations to display custom commands related to specific information. The smart tags used by Word are also available in Outlook 2002 if the former is configured as the default e-mail editor. The AutoCorrect and Paste Options commands in previous versions of Office have been updated to include smart tags that are shared among all Office XP programs. The AutoCorrect smart tag provides individual options to revert an automatic correction or to prohibit an automatic correction from occurring in the future, and also provides access to the AutoCorrect Options
dialog box The dialog box (also called dialogue box (non-U.S. English), message box or simply dialog) is a graphical control element in the form of a small window that communicates information to the user and prompts them for a response. Dialog boxes are ...
. It is represented as a small, blue box when the mouse cursor is positioned over corrected text. The Paste Options smart tag provides options to retain original formatting of content, change the formatting based on the currently active program, or to provide contextually specific characteristics to content after users paste it from the clipboard. After the release of Office XP, Microsoft provided a repository for downloadable smart tags on its website. Examples of third-party companies that produced smart tags after the release of Office XP include
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,
Expedia Expedia Inc. is an online travel agency owned by Expedia Group, an American online travel shopping company based in Seattle. The website and mobile app can be used to book airline tickets, hotel reservations, car rentals, cruise ships, and vacat ...
,
FedEx FedEx Corporation, formerly Federal Express Corporation and later FDX Corporation, is an American multinational conglomerate holding company focused on transportation, e-commerce and business services based in Memphis, Tennessee. The name "Fe ...
, and
MSNBC MSNBC (originally the Microsoft National Broadcasting Company) is an American news-based pay television cable channel. It is owned by NBCUniversala subsidiary of Comcast. Headquartered in New York City, it provides news coverage and political ...
. Microsoft released a Euro Currency Converter smart tag when new euro coins and notes were introduced on January 1, 2002.


Task panes

Office XP introduces a task pane interface that consolidates popular menu bar commands on the right side of the screen to facilitate quick access to them. Office XP includes Startup, Search, Clipboard, and Insert Clip Art task panes, as well as task panes that are exclusive to certain programs. Word 2002, for example, includes a task pane dedicated to style and formatting options. Users can switch between open task panes through the use of back and forward buttons; a
drop-down list A drop-down list (abbreviated drop-down, or DDL; also known as a drop-down menu, drop menu, pull-down list, picklist) is a graphical control element, similar to a list box, that allows the user to choose one value from a list. When a drop-dow ...
also presents specific task panes to which users can switch. The default Startup task pane is automatically available when users launch an Office XP program and presents individual commands to open an existing file, create a new blank file or one from a
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, add a network location, or open Office Help. The Search task pane includes individual Basic and Advanced modes and allows users to query local or remote locations for files. The Basic mode allows users to perform
full-text search In text retrieval, full-text search refers to techniques for searching a single computer-stored document or a collection in a full-text database. Full-text search is distinguished from searches based on metadata or on parts of the original texts ...
es, while the Advanced mode provides additional file property query options. An
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such as the
Indexing Service Indexing Service (originally called Index Server) was a Windows service that maintained an index of most of the files on a computer to improve searching performance on PCs and corporate computer networks. It updated indexes without user interven ...
can improve how quickly results are returned after a search is performed. The Insert Clip Art task pane is available in Excel, FrontPage, PowerPoint, and Word and provides options to search for and insert online
clip art Clip art (also clipart, clip-art) is a type of graphic art. Pieces are pre-made images used to illustrate any medium. Today, clip art is used extensively and comes in many forms, both electronic and printed. However, most clip art today is creat ...
into files. The Office Clipboard has been redesigned as the Clipboard task pane across all Office XP programs and can accommodate up to 24 clipboard items compared to 12 in Office 2000. Clipboard items provide a visual representation to help users distinguish different types of content. The Office Clipboard task pane opens when at least two items are copied.


Other UI changes

* A Compress Pictures button on the Picture
toolbar The toolbar, also called a bar or standard toolbar (originally known as ribbon) is a graphical control element on which on-screen icons can be used. A toolbar often allows for quick access to functions that are commonly used in the program. Some ...
allows users to optimize images inserted into files. * E-mail messages sent from all Office XP programs support an optional introductory field. *
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automatically launches the Office XP program used to create a
HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScri ...
document when users print that document. *
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users could store their documents in private or public locations at MSN Groups. * Office XP introduces a My Data Sources directory in
My Documents My Documents is the commonly recognized name of a special folder in Microsoft Windows (starting with Windows Vista, it is called Documents only, and the actual name of the folder might be different when the language of the installed copy of Win ...
that provides access to recently opened data sources. * Security features in all Office programs have been consolidated into a single Security tab. * The Insert Hyperlink dialog box presents a list of files and folders from the current web page folder, allowing users to navigate between open web pages. * The Web Options dialog box allows users to create documents tailored to
Internet Explorer 4 Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 (IE4) is a graphical web browser that Microsoft unveiled in Spring of 1997, and released in September 1997, primarily for Microsoft Windows, but also with versions available for the classic Mac OS, Solaris, and H ...
,
Internet Explorer 5 Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 (IE5) is a graphical web browser, the fifth version of Internet Explorer, the successor to Internet Explorer 4 and one of the main participants of the first Browser wars, browser war. Its distribution methods and Wi ...
,
Internet Explorer 6 Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) is a graphical web browser developed by Microsoft for Windows operating systems. Released on August 24, 2001, it is the sixth, and by now discontinued, version of Internet Explorer and the successor to Internet ...
, or various versions of
Netscape Netscape Communications Corporation (originally Mosaic Communications Corporation) was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was onc ...
. * When users revert automatically corrected text in an Office document to its original spelling, the text will not correct itself again.


File formats


XML support

Access 2002 and Excel 2002 support exporting and importing
XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...
. Users can also save Excel workbooks as XML spreadsheets.


Office Open XML Compatibility Pack

In 2006, Microsoft released a compatibility pack for Office 2000 SP3, Office XP SP3, and Office 2003 SP1 that enables users to open, edit, and save Excel, PowerPoint, and Word
Office Open XML Office Open XML (also informally known as OOXML) is a zipped, XML-based file format developed by Microsoft for representing spreadsheets, charts, presentations and word processing documents. Ecma International standardized the initial version a ...
documents introduced in Office 2007. The compatibility pack requires Windows 2000 SP4,
Windows Server 2003 Windows Server 2003 is the sixth version of Windows Server operating system produced by Microsoft. It is part of the Windows NT family of operating systems and was released to manufacturing on March 28, 2003 and generally available on April 24, 2 ...
, Windows XP SP1, or later versions of Windows. The update also enables compatibility with documents created in
Office 2010 Microsoft Office 2010 (codenamed Office 14) is a version of Microsoft Office for Microsoft Windows unveiled by Microsoft on May 15, 2009, and released to manufacturing on April 15, 2010, with general availability on June 15, 2010, as the success ...
,
Office 2013 Microsoft Office 2013 (codenamed Office 15) is a version of Microsoft Office, a productivity suite for Microsoft Windows. It is the successor to Microsoft Office 2010 and the predecessor to Microsoft Office 2016. Unlike with Office 2010, no OS X ...
, and
Office 2016 Microsoft Office 2016 (First perpetual release of Office 16) is a version of the Microsoft Office productivity suite, succeeding both Office 2013 and Office for Mac 2011 and preceding Office 2019, which in turn was succeeded by Office 2021 f ...
.


Alternative user input


Handwriting recognition

Office XP introduces handwriting recognition in all Office programs, allowing users to write with a mouse or
stylus A stylus (plural styli or styluses) is a writing utensil or a small tool for some other form of marking or shaping, for example, in pottery. It can also be a computer accessory that is used to assist in navigating or providing more precision w ...
instead of entering text by typing on a keyboard. Users can insert handwritten notes into Excel, add handwritten comments to PowerPoint presentations, send handwritten e-mail messages with Outlook, or write directly into Word documents. Notes written with a
handheld PC A handheld personal computer (PC) is a miniature computer typically built around a clamshell form factor and is significantly smaller than any standard laptop computer, but based on the same principles. It is sometimes referred to as a ''palmt ...
or a
Pocket PC A Pocket PC (P/PC, PPC) is a class of personal digital assistant (PDA) that runs the Windows Mobile or Windows Embedded Compact operating system that has some of the abilities of modern desktop PCs. The name was introduced by Microsoft in 2000 ...
can be converted into Word documents, and handwritten content in Word documents can be converted to text. Word must be the active e-mail editor in Outlook before handwritten e-mail messages can be sent. Once installed, handwriting functionality is also available in Internet Explorer 5 and
Outlook Express Outlook Express, formerly known as Microsoft Internet Mail and News, is a discontinued email and news client included with Internet Explorer versions 3.0 through to 6.0. As such, it was bundled with several versions of Microsoft Windows, from ...
5 or later. Handwriting recognition engines are available for the English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, and Korean versions of Office XP. The downloadable Tablet Pack for Office XP provided an extension for
Windows Journal Windows Journal is a discontinued notetaking application, created by Microsoft and included in Windows XP Tablet PC Edition as well as selected editions of Windows Vista and later. It allowed the user to create and organize handwritten notes and d ...
to reuse notes as Outlook 2002 items and to import meeting information from Outlook 2002 into notes.


Speech recognition

Speech recognition based on
Microsoft Research Microsoft Research (MSR) is the research subsidiary of Microsoft. It was created in 1991 by Richard Rashid, Bill Gates and Nathan Myhrvold with the intent to advance state-of-the-art computing and solve difficult world problems through technologi ...
technology is available for all Office XP programs, allowing users to dictate text into active documents, to change document formatting, and to navigate the interface by voice. The speech recognition feature encompasses two different modes: Dictation, which transcribes spoken words into text; and Voice Command, which invokes interface features. Speech recognition can be installed during Office XP setup or by clicking the Speech option in the Tools menu in Word 2002. When installed, it is available as a Microphone command on the Language toolbar that appears in the upper-right corner of the screen (lower-right corner in East-Asian versions of Office XP). When launched for the first time, speech recognition offers a tutorial to improve recognition accuracy, which begins by providing instructions to adjust the microphone for optimal performance. Speech recognition uses a speech profile to store information about a user's voice. Users can configure speech recognition settings, including pronunciation sensitivity in voice command mode, accuracy and recognition response time in dictation mode, and microphone settings through the Speech control panel applet. The Regional and Language Options applet provides Language toolbar and additional settings. Speech recognition engines are available for the English, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese languages. Microsoft recommended its SideWinder Game Voicechat device as a microphone to use with speech recognition.


Reliability

With Office XP, Microsoft incorporated several features to address reliability issues observed in previous versions of Office: * Application Recovery: Users can safely restart or terminate unresponsive Office programs—and save open documents before termination—from a utility that is accessible from the Office Tools group on the Windows
Start menu The Start menu is a graphical user interface element used in Microsoft Windows since Windows 95 and in other operating systems. It provides a central launching point for computer programs and performing other tasks in the Windows shell. It is name ...
. * Automatic Recovery: Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, and Word periodically save open documents in the background so the latest revision can be opened if an error occurs; users can configure how often files are saved, discard the latest revision, overwrite a file with it, or save it as a separate file. * Document Recovery: Access, Excel, PowerPoint, and Word present users with an option to immediately save open files when an error occurs before a program is closed or restarted to prevent loss of data. * Error Reporting: Users can optionally submit error report information to Microsoft for analysis to improve Office XP. Error reporting was instrumental in providing solutions included in all three Office XP service packs to address common issues. Error reports can also be submitted to corporate departments. * Repair and Extract: Excel and Word can automatically recognize and repair corrupt documents; users can also manually repair documents from these programs. * Safe Mode: Office XP programs will automatically launch in Safe Mode, a diagnostic mode that allows programs to bypass the source of a problem if they are unable to start properly.


Security

Excel, PowerPoint, and Word have been updated to provide password encryption options based on CryptoAPI. Additionally, all Office XP programs provide options for users to digitally sign documents.


Installation and deployment

When upgrading from a previous version of Office, Office XP retains the user's previous configuration. Office XP can also be installed directly from an administrative image hosted on a web server via
HTTP The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, ...
,
HTTPS Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is an extension of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). It is used for secure communication over a computer network, and is widely used on the Internet. In HTTPS, the communication protocol is enc ...
, or
FTP The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard communication protocol used for the transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network. FTP is built on a client–server model architecture using separate control and data ...
. The Office Resource Kit includes various improvements to deployment functionality when compared with the Office 2000 version. A new Setup INI Customization Wizard allows administrators to customize the Office XP INI
configuration file In computing, configuration files (commonly known simply as config files) are computer file, files used to configure the Parameter (computer programming), parameters and Initialization (programming), initial settings for some computer programs. T ...
prior to deployment. The Custom Installation Wizard can prohibit the installation, use, or uninstallation of programs or features such as the ''Run from Network'' and ''Installed on First Use'' setup options. Finally, the Custom Maintenance Wizard has been updated to provide customization options to configure Office XP including user preferences and security settings. The Save My Settings Wizard, introduced in Office 2000 as an optional download for Microsoft account users to remotely store their Office settings to the Office Update web site, has been updated to support importing and exporting backups to local storage or to a
network share In computing, a shared resource, or network share, is a computer resource made available from one host to other hosts on a computer network. It is a device or piece of information on a computer that can be remotely accessed from another comput ...
. In an effort to curtail
software piracy Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, su ...
, Microsoft incorporated
product activation Product activation is a license validation procedure required by some proprietary software programs. Product activation prevents unlimited free use of copied or replicated software. Unactivated software refuses to fully function until it ''determin ...
technology into all versions of Office XP to prohibit users from installing a single copy of the software in a manner that violates the
end-user license agreement An end-user license agreement or EULA () is a legal contract between a software supplier and a customer or end-user, generally made available to the customer via a retailer acting as an intermediary. A EULA specifies in detail the rights and restr ...
(EULA). The EULA allows a single user to install one copy each on a primary device and a portable device such as a laptop. Users who make substantial hardware changes to an Office XP device may need to reactivate the software through the
Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
or by
telephone A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into e ...
. Product activation does not require
personally identifiable information Personal data, also known as personal information or personally identifiable information (PII), is any information related to an identifiable person. The abbreviation PII is widely accepted in the United States, but the phrase it abbreviates ha ...
. Office XP introduced an optional subscription-based activation model that allowed consumers to annually license the product and receive incremental updates at a reduced price when compared with the cost of a full retail version. Microsoft originally intended to deliver the activation model to United States customers after the retail availability of Office XP on May 31, 2001, but later decided to make it available to consumers in "a few select locations" instead, citing a more cautious delivery approach. In spite of this, Microsoft distributed optical media and a single subscription to authorized U.S. retail partners who attended ''teamMicrosoft Live!'' events. As part of a
pilot experiment A pilot study, pilot project, pilot test, or pilot experiment is a small-scale preliminary study conducted to evaluate feasibility, duration, cost, adverse events, and improve upon the study design prior to performance of a full-scale research pro ...
, consumers in Australia, France, and New Zealand could purchase a subscription for Office XP starting in May 2001; the worldwide release of the activation model was contingent on the success of the pilot experiment, but Microsoft terminated support for subscriptions in 2002 based on feedback and research that demonstrated it was not well understood by consumers.
Office 365 Microsoft 365 is a product family of productivity software, collaboration and cloud-based services owned by Microsoft. It encompasses online services such as Outlook.com, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, programs formerly marketed under the name Mic ...
—released over a decade after Office XP—has since reintroduced subscription-based licenses to consumers.


User assistance

A new "Ask a Question" feature appears in the top-right corner of all Office XP programs and allows users to type
natural language In neuropsychology, linguistics, and philosophy of language, a natural language or ordinary language is any language that has evolved naturally in humans through use and repetition without conscious planning or premeditation. Natural languages ...
questions and receive answers without opening the Office Assistant ("Clippy") or Office Help. Additionally, Office Help has been updated to aggregate and display content from the Internet in response to a query. The Office Assistant is now disabled by default and only appears when Help is activated.


New application-specific features

;New features in Word 2002 * A Clear Formatting option which reverts all changes made to selected text, but retains hyperlinks * A Drawing Canvas allows content such as
WordArt Microsoft Office shared tools are software components that are (or were) included in all Microsoft Office products. Delve Office Delve allows Office 365 users to search and manage their emails, meetings, contacts, social networks and document ...
to be aligned to a fixed position * For Indian languages, fonts with the
Devanagari Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental Writing systems#Segmental syste ...
script and
Tamil script The Tamil script ( , ) is an abugida script that is used by Tamils and Tamil language, Tamil speakers in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and elsewhere to write the Tamil language. Certain minority languages such as Saurasht ...
are now rendered correctly thanks to updated version of
Uniscribe Uniscribe is the Microsoft Windows set of services for rendering Unicode-encoded text, supporting complex text layout. It is implemented in the dynamic link library . Uniscribe has been released with Windows 2000 and Internet Explorer 5.0. In addi ...
. Also, proofing tools were introduced for
Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...
,
Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people *Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece See also * * ...
,
Gujarati Gujarati may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India * Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat * Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them * Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub- ...
,
Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...
, Punjabi,
Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia ** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nati ...
and
Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...
. * Non-real-time
collaborative editing __NOTOC__ Collaborative editing is the process of multiple people editing the same document simultaneously. This technique may engage expertise from different disciplines, and potentially improve the quality of documents and increase productivity. ...
, allowing multiple users across a file share or server to edit a document and merge changes without requiring it to be unlocked; when a user is finished editing and closes the shared document, other users can view his or her edits and merge their own changes * Multiple portions of text can be selected simultaneously in a document * Styles for bulleted lists and tables * Support for filtered web pages, which allows users to the reduce the size of a HTML document by removing XML tags and Word-specific formatting * Support for
watermark A watermark is an identifying image or pattern in paper that appears as various shades of lightness/darkness when viewed by transmitted light (or when viewed by reflected light, atop a dark background), caused by thickness or density variations ...
s in documents * The General tab of the Properties dialog box now displays the file format of an open document *
Word count The word count is the number of words in a document or passage of text. Word counting may be needed when a text is required to stay within certain numbers of words. This may particularly be the case in academia, legal proceedings, journalism and ad ...
toolbar ;New features in Excel 2002 * Border drawing with grid, line color, style, and weight options * Colors can now be added to tabs in a worksheet * Drawings and pictures can now be inserted directly as headers or footers * Function argument information in
tooltip The tooltip, also known as infotip or hint, is a common graphical user interface (GUI) element in which, when hovering over a screen element or component, a text box displays information about that element, such as a description of a button's f ...
s * If a cell contains a large number that its associated column is too narrow to display ("###"), Excel displays the entire number in a tooltip * Numbers can be sorted as text to prevent unexpected sorting results that occur in mixed lists of numbers and text * Phrasing of Excel alerts has been revised to be concise * Users can evaluate formulas on a sequential basis to determine how Excel arrived at a calculation result * With a Watch function, users can monitor the results of multiple cells in a separate window even when working on a different sheet or workbook ;New features in Outlook 2002 *
AutoComplete Autocomplete, or word completion, is a feature in which an application predicts the rest of a word a user is typing. In Android and iOS smartphones, this is called predictive text. In graphical user interfaces, users can typically press the tab ...
for email addresses * Colored categories for calendar items * Group schedules * Hyperlink support in email subject lines * Native support for
Outlook.com Outlook.com is a webmail service that is part of the Microsoft 365 product family. It offers mail, Calendaring software, calendaring, Address book, contacts, and Task management, tasks services. Founded in 1996 by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smit ...
* Improved search functionality including the ability to stop a search and resume it later **
Incremental search In computing, incremental search, hot search, incremental find or real-time suggestions is a user interface interaction method to progressively search for and filter through text. As the user types text, one or more possible matches for the text ...
and content indexing is available if
Windows Search Windows Search (also known as Instant Search) is a content index desktop search platform by Microsoft introduced in Windows Vista as a replacement for both the previous Indexing Service of Windows 2000 and the optional MSN Desktop Search for Wind ...
is installed *
Lunar calendar A lunar calendar is a calendar based on the monthly cycles of the Moon's phases (synodic months, lunations), in contrast to solar calendars, whose annual cycles are based only directly on the solar year. The most commonly used calendar, the Gre ...
support *
MSN Messenger MSN Messenger (also known colloquially simply as "Messenger"), later rebranded as Windows Live Messenger, was a cross-platform instant messaging client, instant-messaging client developed by Microsoft. It connected to the Microsoft Messenger ser ...
integration * Performance improvements * Preview pane improvements including the ability to open hyperlinks; respond to meeting requests; and display email properties without opening a message * Reminder window that consolidates all reminders for appointments and tasks in a single view * Retention policies for documents and email * Security improvements including the automatic blocking of potentially unsafe attachments and of programmatic access to information in Outlook ** SP1 introduced the ability to view all non- digitally signed email or
unencrypted In cryptography, plaintext usually means unencrypted information pending input into cryptographic algorithms, usually encryption algorithms. This usually refers to data that is transmitted or stored unencrypted. Overview With the advent of comp ...
email as
plain text In computing, plain text is a loose term for data (e.g. file contents) that represent only characters of readable material but not its graphical representation nor other objects (floating-point numbers, images, etc.). It may also include a limit ...
** SP2 allows users to—through the
Registry Registry may refer to: Computing * Container registry, an operating-system-level virtualization registry * Domain name registry, a database of top-level internet domain names * Local Internet registry * Metadata registry, information system for re ...
—prevent the addition of new email accounts or the creation of new
Personal Storage Table In computing, a Personal Storage Table (.pst) is an open proprietary file format used to store copies of messages, calendar events, and other items within Microsoft software such as Microsoft Exchange Client, Windows Messaging, and Microsoft Outloo ...
s ** SP3 updates the object model guard security for applications that access messages and other items * Smart tags when Word is configured as the default email editor ;New features in PowerPoint 2002 *
GDI+ The Graphics Device Interface (GDI) is a legacy component of Microsoft Windows responsible for representing graphical objects and transmitting them to output devices such as monitors and printers. Windows apps use Windows API to interact with GDI, ...
accelerated graphic rendering, effects, and printing * Images in slides can now be flipped and rotated * Multiple slide masters in
presentation A presentation conveys information from a speaker to an audience. Presentations are typically demonstrations, introduction, lecture, or speech meant to inform, persuade, inspire, motivate, build goodwill, or present a new idea/product. Presenta ...
s * Native support for diagrams such as cycle, pyramid, and Venn diagrams * Presentation broadcast improvements * Presenter tools that allow users to view details on upcoming bullets or slides, and speaker notes, and to navigate to any slide without these actions being visible to the audience; this feature requires a
multi-monitor Multi-monitor, also called multi-display and multi-head, is the use of multiple physical display devices, such as monitors, televisions, and projectors, in order to increase the area available for computer programs running on a single computer sy ...
configuration * Print preview * Smart tags for Apply Automatic Layout and AutoFit features, the latter of which has been updated to automatically resize fonts to fit slides as users type and to remove the minimum font size limitation * Support for additional
paper size Paper size standards govern the size of sheets of paper used as writing paper, stationery, cards, and for some printed documents. The ISO 216 standard, which includes the commonly used A4 size, is the international standard for paper size. ...
s for printing * Thumbnails of slides are now displayed within a left-hand pane of the interface * Users can now snap objects to a grid and display drawing guides ;New features in Access 2002 * A new file format that enables faster access and data processing for large databases; the Access 2000 format is used by default * A new Stored Procedure Designer allows users to create or modify simple
Microsoft SQL Server Microsoft SQL Server is a relational database management system developed by Microsoft. As a database server, it is a software product with the primary function of storing and retrieving data as requested by other software applications—which ma ...
stored procedures * Batch updates for Access projects * Conversion error logging, which creates a table with information about each error that occurs during Access 95, Access 97, or Access 2000 database conversion * Enhanced international support including the ability to change the
left-to-right A writing system is a method of visually representing verbal communication, based on a script and a set of rules regulating its use. While both writing and speech are useful in conveying messages, writing differs in also being a reliable form ...
reading directionality * Support for multiple
Undo Undo is an interaction technique which is implemented in many computer programs. It erases the last change done to the document, reverting it to an older state. In some more advanced programs, such as graphic processing, undo will negate the las ...
and Redo operations * Support for PivotCharts and PivotTables ;New features in Publisher 2002 * Customizable toolbars * Font schemes that can be shared with Word * Header and footer support * Multiple publications can now be open simultaneously * Print preview * Support for OfficeArt * The new Format dialog box combines the Colors and Lines, Layout, Picture, Size, Text Box, and Web tabs * Users can export objects, pages, or groups of objects and pages as images * Users can open, edit, and save publications as HTML *
Visual Basic for Applications Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is an implementation of Microsoft's event-driven programming language Visual Basic 6.0 built into most desktop Microsoft Office applications. Although based on pre-.NET Visual Basic, which is no longer supported ...
(VBA) support * Word documents can now be imported directly to Publisher ;New features in FrontPage 2002 * Automatic web content from third parties, including Expedia and MSNBC *
Internet forum An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least temporar ...
s and
online surveys A paid or incentivized survey is a type of statistical survey where the participants/members are rewarded through an incentive program, generally entry into a sweepstakes program or a small cash reward, for completing one or more surveys. Detai ...
can be integrated with websites * HTML 4 features including button and fieldsets in forms, inline frames, and language attributes * Tabs to navigate between different pages within the interface * Tags in HTML pages can be automatically reformatted to be XML-compliant * Themes from previous FrontPage versions have been updated *
Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...
support * Users can now publish websites in the background and can continue to make edits during the publishing process * Usage analysis reports in daily, weekly, or monthly increments allow users to determine how often a web page is accessed and the URL from which this access originates; reports can be exported to Excel or as HTML


Removed features

* Binder was replaced by Unbind, a program that can extract the contents of a Binder file. Unbind can be installed from the Office XP CD-ROM. *
Microsoft Photo Editor Microsoft Photo Editor is a raster graphics editor component of Microsoft Office first included with Microsoft Office 97. It features editing tools to texturize, create negatives, adjust gamma, and add transparency to GIF images. It was replaced ...
no longer supports the
PCX PCX, standing for ''PiCture eXchange'', was an image file format developed by the now-defunct ZSoft Corporation of Marietta, Georgia, United States. It was the native file format for PC Paintbrush and became one of the first widely accepted DOS ...
image format * Office XP Small Business Edition removes the Small Business Customer Manager during an upgrade from Office 2000; the feature is not removed during an upgrade to the Professional edition. Users who desire to retain the Small Business Customer Manager must apply the Small Business Tools 2000 patch from the second Office 2000 CD-ROM before upgrading to the Small Business Edition of Office XP. * Microsoft Map was removed from Excel 2002 * In Excel 2002, several add-ins are no longer available. Some, but not all, are integrated into Excel 2002 and thus made redundant. * The .DBF files for Samples.xls and two Japanese templates are removed in Excel 2002 *
Microsoft Query Microsoft Query is a visual method of creating database queries using examples based on a text string, the name of a document or a list of documents. The QBE system converts the user input into a formal database query using Structured Query Lan ...
is no longer available * In PowerPoint 2002, the Custom Soundtracks add-in is no longer supported and the Routing Recipient option on the Send To menu was removed. * A number of features were removed in Outlook 2002


Editions

The component products were packaged together in various suites. Some of these editions were available as retail packages in either ''full'' or ''upgrade'' versions, others as full
OEM An original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is generally perceived as a company that produces non-aftermarket parts and equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer. It is a common industry term recognized and used by many professional or ...
versions for inclusion with new PCs, and still others as volume license versions that required no
activation Activation, in chemistry and biology, is the process whereby something is prepared or excited for a subsequent reaction. Chemistry In chemistry, "activation" refers to the reversible transition of a molecule into a nearly identical chemical or ...
. All editions provided the core components of Word, Excel, and Outlook, and all editions except the Small Business edition provided PowerPoint. Additionally, a Special Edition upgrade-only version was released with an Office XP-branded IntelliMouse Explorer, and some copies included Office XP Media Content on a separate disk.


System requirements


Reception

Microsoft Office XP received mixed to positive reviews after its release. ''
CNET ''CNET'' (short for "Computer Network") is an American media website that publishes reviews, news, articles, blogs, podcasts, and videos on technology and consumer electronics globally. ''CNET'' originally produced content for radio and televi ...
'' praised the new collaboration and data recovery features, and stated that Office XP offered a "host of incremental improvements" over its predecessor, Office 2000, but ultimately concluded that "most enhancements and additions are better suited for groups than individuals." Criticism was also directed at the productivity suite's strict hard disk space requirement and its incompatibility with Windows 95. Nevertheless, CNET awarded Office XP a 4-star editors' rating. ''
PC Magazine ''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and have continued to the present d ...
'' rated Office XP 4 stars out of 5 and praised the product's emphasis on user control, particularly in regards to customization options for features introduced in previous versions, and regarded it as "one of the few Microsoft upgrades that offers almost no pains with its significant gains." ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' stated that Office XP "isn't so much a list of new features as it is an improved arrangement of old ones," but offered praise for the new collaboration features, which were regarded as a "huge leap" from previous versions. Paul Thurrott regarded Office XP as "a must-have upgrade for writers such as myself," though he also stated that, without the new smart tags feature, it "has the feel of a minor upgrade with numerous useful, but small, changes." While most assessments of Office XP were positive, the speech recognition feature was frequently criticized due to its inaccuracy and lack of advanced functionality. ''CNET'' regarded it as "especially lame" because of its inability to recognize text editing commands such as "select the sentence" and because it required users to manually switch between command and dictation modes. ''PC Magazine'' stated that both the speech recognition and handwriting recognition features were not "reliable enough for general use." However, in a later assessment, ''PC Magazine'' stated that the "speech recognition is reasonably accurate, but there are very few commands for editing and correcting text" and recommended
Dragon NaturallySpeaking Dragon NaturallySpeaking (also known as Dragon for PC, or DNS) is a speech recognition software package developed by Dragon Systems of Newton, Massachusetts, which was acquired in turn by Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products, Nuance Communications ...
,
IBM ViaVoice IBM ViaVoice was a range of language-specific continuous speech recognition software products offered by IBM. The current version is designed primarily for use in embedded devices. The latest stable version of IBM Via Voice was 9.0 and was able t ...
, or Voice Xpress for dictation. ''The New York Times'' speculated that Microsoft had little to no confidence in the feature, as it is not installed by default and no microphone is included with Office XP; however, it concluded that it was "not bad for a freebie, especially if you would rather get the first draft down quickly and clean up the recognition errors later." Paul Thurrott stated that "the voice recognition is so bad it's almost not even worth discussing," concluding that it "is sort of a joke" when compared with mature products such as Dragon NaturallySpeaking.


See also

* .NET My Services *
Comparison of office suites The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of office suites: General information Office Suite names that are on a light purple background are discontinued. OS support The operating systems the office suites ...
*
List of office suites In computing, an office suite is a collection of productivity software usually containing at least a word processor, spreadsheet and a presentation program. There are many different brands and types of office suites. Popular office suites include ...
*
Windows Speech Recognition Windows Speech Recognition (WSR) is speech recognition developed by Microsoft for Windows Vista that enables hands-free computing, voice commands to control the desktop metaphor, desktop user interface; transcription (linguistics), dictate text i ...


References

{{Microsoft Office 2001 software Business software for Windows Handwriting recognition
Office XP Microsoft Office XP (codenamed Office 10) is an Productivity software#Office suite, office suite which was officially revealed in July 2000 by Microsoft for the Microsoft Windows, Windows operating system. Office XP was released to manufacturing ...
Products and services discontinued in 2011 Speech recognition software Windows-only software