Hi Chris,

I am new to this forum. I had heard of it from Cheryl Lewis (a good cyber friend of mine), but this is the first time I have visited. Hi

In July, you replied to a post from Gilian

"I didn't find much difference between Word 97 and Word 2000 ... but big differences with Word 2002. Some I like, some I don't. One of the areas where there are enhancements is Tables and I really appreciate the enhancements because I use tables alot. If there are any questions you have about the new version ... ask away"

I create Microsoft Word tutorials and did them in 97. Then, 2000 came out and I spent AGES creating 2000 versions. Just as I finished 2000, Mr. Gates brought out 2002

The big difference between 97 and 2000 I found was in Tables, plus other bits and pieces. Tbe question I would like to "ask away" (if you have time) is in what particular areas does 2002 differ from 2000 . . . I haven't looked at 2002 yet; in fact, I am too scared because I may be looking at heaps more work to create a 2002 version and I want to get on with marketing

Cheers,
Georgie Farmer

Hey George,
Sorry for the lengthy delay in my reply.

The biggest difference between 2000 and 2002 is found with two features. The Task Pane and Smart Tags. The task pane is designed to put commonly used features at your figure tips but the reality is it give the user one more feature to do the same things you can do through your menu and toolbar commands. The best feature found in the Task Bar is the ClipBoard which is found throughout the office suite and allows you to copy, cut, and paste up to 24 different clips of information repeatedly and across applications. Quite a powerful tool.

I find the smart tags somewhat annoying. I cannot find a good definition of what all they will encompass and depending on what you are doing they offer choices for action. For example, if you are copying something from the internet to a word document, a smart tag asks whether you want to keep existing formatting or assume document formatting. It doesn't always work quite correctly but can be somewhat useful.

The other area that I am finding frustrating and hard to control is Styles. Seems like ever formatting choice you make in your document shows up in Styles making it very difficult to locate the "standard" styles you want to apply.

Mail Merge is completely revamped and works entirely different that previous versions. It seems easier to use according to some readers and students of mine but I find it has less functionality.

Help .... well what can I say about help. I HATE what they have done to the help. Much harder to find what you are looking for. The value of the information once you find it is still good but locating it is more cryptic.

These are some of the major changes and I don't want to sound down on the program. Mainly, you can still work with the features you know and love but with more features and what should be more flexibility comes more frustration in trying to understand what the program is actually doing with your data. I have gotten used to the quirks at this point.

I guess my recommendation is if 2000 is working well to suit your needs then stay with it and don't spend the money for the upgrade, but of course it depends on how much you need to be compatible with others. MS is currently beta testing the next upgrade so it won't be long before you are two versions behind.