What makes Office 2003 better than 97?

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Pointertovoid

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Hello everybody!

Used Office 97 Pro up to now, saw no clear reason to change. And then I used a really affordable opportunity to buy a used Office 2003 Pro.

Installed on my St3500418as+E8600+P45+ich10r, it is very fast, that's an excellent surprise. 1/3s to open Word after reboot. Though I didn't try on my PIIIs nor my P1mmx... But the very first hurdle is passed brilliantly.

Now, having tried o2003 briefly (still haven't activated it), I haven't seen real decisive advantages over o97... Do you see some? I mean, better functions for the user. Not compatibilities and file formats, I don't care.

- Dictionaries and spelling correction in several languages, that's nice. But I miss one language, and there's no significant grammar capability.
- User Interface is in one language only, isn't it? Putting more would need an additional GUI, which costs more and seems impossible to obtain for o2003.
- It still gets security patches, but this won't last for o2003 neither, and I don't care anyway.
- Some bugs are improved, like column and page width interactions in Word.
- Diagrams are still as complicated and unnatural in Excel. Formatting in Excel, as well.
- Can the Equation Editor still be used alone? I didn't find it.
- Write-protected individual cells in Excel, may be useful from time to time.

Please refrain from answering "Open Office", I know it already, thanks.
 
Yes, the changes are pretty minimal from 97 to 2003, in my opinion. If I recall correctly, Office 2003 may have been updated to better utilize multi-core CPU's and such, hence the quickness.

In general you'll see the biggest difference if you went from 03 to 07, especially in terms of the user interface. Currently I'm testing Office 2010 (technical preview) and it is a lot like 07 in terms of the user interface, but MS has designed it to work in a 64 bit environment (my OS is 64-bit) and it flies.

But I do understand what you are saying in regard to not seeing the point in going from 97 to 03- it is expensive. Well, it's expensive either way you look at it, no matter the version. But like many on here, I rather enjoy keeping up on these things.
 
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