Office A La Carte

By Anita Hamilton

Tired of spending hundreds of dollars upgrading your copies of Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel every couple of years? This time around, you probably don't have to. That's because the latest version of Microsoft Office (Professional Edition: $499), which went on sale last week and encompasses 11 individual programs, four varieties of server software and a couple of add-on services, has surprisingly few improvements designed for individuals. It targets the corporate market--teams of office workers sharing documents, accessing corporate databases and filling out electronic forms. If you do most of your computing work on your own, save your cash. For the home or small-business user, there are only two components worth buying, each available individually.

Outlook ($109), the company's popular email program, has been completely redesigned to make it easier to read and find messages. Best new feature: colored flags that you can attach to messages in your In box so they don't get lost in the clutter. Outlook sorts messages into folders for "today," "yesterday," "last week," and so on. It also automatically creates separate folders for all unread messages or all messages you've flagged. And for the first time, the program has a built-in spam filter. The most interesting feature is the ability to prevent people from forwarding messages you send them; however, it's too complicated to set up and use.

An all-new note-taking program, OneNote ($99 after rebate) is an inspired addition to the Office family. Sure, you could use Word to take notes, but OneNote is more flexible. Rather than being bound to the left-hand column to start typing, you can click anywhere on the page to type text or insert a picture, Web link or audio note. To send notes as email, click on the mail icon at the top of the page. Unlike Word, OneNote automatically saves everything you type, making it a great alternative to paper sticky notes. And a handy search box lets you do Web searches without switching to your browser, then drop the results right into OneNote.

Questions? You can e-mail Anita at [email protected]