Customer Reviews

Microsoft Office Standard Edition 2003 [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

There is no other product which compares to the Microsoft Office suite. "Microsoft Office Standard Edition" is the place to get started. And it is the place you'll probably stay.

You do need Word and Excel, and occasionally, PowerPoint. Learn basic word processing and spreadsheet usage. Shine in meetings with PowerPoint.

Do you need to upgrade from XP? Not likely. There are no new features I found impressive after having the XP version for years.

It lacks Access, but most people don't need the database strength of it, and will survive nicely with just Excel.

For e-mailing documents and files to coworkers, you can be confident they'll easily open Office files. There is a good chance they use it themselves.

Outlook is one of those highly underrated, but enormously useful applications to help you organize your contacts, schedule and tasks easily. You can use it as an e-mail reader as well, though that feature has been vulnerable to viruses.

Word is a huge program which can do far more than you'll need, but it will allow you versatility and simplicity that WordPerfect has yet to pull off.

Excel is a basic spreadsheet with incredible math functionality. I don't need most of the math tools, other than minor budgets and such. I find it handy for tracking my poetry submissions; I can see which magazine I sent which piece to when, and how and when they replied.

PowerPoint makes those cool slideshows with the text that can be animated on the screen. With the templates, you can look good without requiring a graphic design degree.

I fully recommend "Microsoft Office Standard Edition." It is the business and home office standard. You need it, it is easy to learn, and the price is right.

Anthony Trendl
editor, HungarianBookstore.com

You need to get out more. Just the fact that you are looking at this page and are thinking of upgrading your Microsoft Office makes it clear that you have a problem. Don't believe the Microsoft advertisement featuring dinosaurs to announce "Microsoft Office Has Evolved." It hasn't. This is a mature product. It doesn't matter if you use Office 1997, 2000 or 2003. They are all the same. The good, the bad and the ugly. It is all still here. Maybe a few bugs have been fixed. Most haven't, and ther are always new bugs. If Microsoft took the time to really improve the software, that would be one thing. But they don't.

Here is an example. You are in Outlook. You call up a contact and want to send that person a letter. You need to print an envelope, but there is no command to do so. There is no button to click. You can't right click anywhere to print an envelope. I am not making this up. Outlook has been out for almost ten years and multiple upgrades, and Microsoft still hasn't gotten around to implementing functionality to print a single envelope. Your only option (the on-line support confirms this) is to perform a mail merge. This is an elaborate process that is designed for printing thousands of envelopes for a bulk mailing. It involves opening multiple windows and setting all sorts of settings. You have to go through the ENTIRE PROCESS just to print a single envelope! What is more, the mail merge feature has bugs in it. It leaves blank lines in addresses that look atrocious, and it drops country names from addresses. It gives you options as to how you want country names treaed in addresses, but these all do nothing. Whatever option you select, Outlook leaves countries out of addresses when it prints envelopes.

I could go on, but I won't. If you are using Office 2000 or even Office 1997, you aren't missing out on anything. There is absolutely no reason to shell out $300 for new software that does all the same things in all the same ways with mostly the same bugs.

Before you donate your hard-earned money yet again to Bill Gates' 'Feed the Multi-Billionaire Fund', do yourself and the world a favor and search for 'Star Office 8' on Amazon and read the reviews there. I use MS Office Professional 2003 in the office, and just cannot believe how badly so many businesses and individuals are being ripped off by Microsoft for this BLOAT-ware.

Star Office 8 is under $50 from Amazon and is fully compatible with Microsoft Office, and includes full functionalities of MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Visio, and Access. Let me know what MS software I can buy under $100, let alone $50. Hopefully, this is the beginning of the end of the Microsoft Monopoly, and the dawning of the Era of Sanity in computer software.

Thanks for Office. I bought a new H/P desktop that only had a 60-day Office trial -- and literally had to pay the price. Thanks to you, I'm glad I didn't have to pay full retail. Installed like a charm -- downloading sure has gotten a heck of a lot smoother. Bless your hearts.

Yes, I love Microsoft Office. It's incredibly user friendly, it has wonderful features, most of which I don't even know how to use, and it's spelling and grammar checking features are the best of it's kind. I've been fortunate enough to have been a student up to now in my life and therefore did not have to buy Microsoft for my personal use, the school would always buy one for me. And of course there are always illegitimate means... but I'm not advocating piracy here.

However, I would be the last person on earth to consider using Microsoft Office if I had to pay $350 for it. It's an insane price. consider the alternatives:

Open Office: Does everything MS Office does, some things even better. I love how you don't need to buy or install anything extra to type mathematical formulas in Open Office. The best thing about this, however, is that it's FREE!

Google Docs and Spreadsheets: This one is even better. Not only is it free like everything else from Google, you can COLLABORATE IN REAL TIME with anybody else on the internet to write your word documents! Nothing beats that, it's just the most wonderful thing that Google has done.

as prommised, new in box. shipped immediately. excellent price, good service and good first experience.

I really thought that office was better proir to the whole XP upgrade, but that I will leave to other discussions.

This product is your standard Microsoft office products. I am fairly sure that most have experienced their products. There are no surprises and the added bells and whistles aren't worth the upgrade unless your are a VBA programmer.

Now, having gone through all of this, I DO NOT rcommend that you purchase this product, but purchase the Student version. Same product - HUGELY different price.

The items arrived on time in good shape. I would buy from this seller again.

The item was recieved in good condition and was the correct item---but I did try to call this company and the phone # was linked to a different company and was a recording only--I was trying to get faster shipping--2 day air--but had to wait for 8 days due to no contact prior to shipping.

Item being reviewed
Microsoft Office Standard Edition 2003 [OLD VERSIO)?????????????

I was very, very disapointed !!!! Thinking I was buying a NEW ITEM (Paying $250.00) and receiving a SEALED program it would not load onto my computer. I spent hours trying to find out why I kept getting an "INVALID" product key number, which was located inside the disc case.
If I was the average person today I would have just given up and returned the item. Instead I kept searching and finally got some from a Microsoft Tech that tracked the product key number to a "TEMP" program and not a new program. He issued a new product key number and I finally was able to load the program.
The program FINALLY loaded and is working -- Will I buy additional programs on line? I don't think so --- Joe Cornell