Here's the bottom line on Microsoft Office XP: there is enough new stuff here to buy it. Yes, we know, a great deal that has been written about this must-have application disagrees with that assessment. Too bad. Hope you won't listen. Here's why.
   Office XP is one of the most stable versions of Office we've seen out of the box. You can crash it. But you won't do so often. For one thing, Microsoft seems to have finally gotten using Word as an editor for Outlook email messages right. It hasn't given us a bit of trouble. This was rather a surprise, because it had been buggy before. The advantages of using Word to edit and write email are obvious. And face facts, as more and more people do – and they will – you'll be seeing more and more HTML mail from friends and acquaintences. Heck, if we didn't like being able to format our documents, we could write letters with a DOS text editor or Notepad.
   Smart tags. This technolofy, introduced for the first time in Office XP, has the potential to be one of the great innovations. You read it here first. While the Smart tags which ship with Office are pretty lean, some of those available early from third parties show what this has the potential to be.
   My favorite of all can be had from the OAG people, who produce the Official Airline Guide. Just type a flight number into Word, highlight the resulting Smart tag, and all of a sudden you have a complete flight itinerary all set up in a table. This is cool. But what is even more cool is the potential of what can be done with this technology.
   In fact, Smart tags are really something to be excited about. Combine them with always-on web access and you see some true power. As more and more people go to always-on – either by staying connected through dialup or cable or DSL connections – you marry the entire resources of the web with your Office applications.
   And, remember, you don't have to use them. If you want to tell someone you're arriving on AA333 and the Smart tag offers you the option to print out the whole itinerary, you don't have to do it.
   The new Task Panes which give you information about the files you may want to open are a major boon. I see Microsoft doing away with the traditional "File Open" box in future incarnations of Office simply because these are so much more useful.
   Back more years ago than I can remember, someone named Kitty sang a song called "Little Things Mean A Lot." While there is some really interesting stuff in Office XP such as text to speech and the ability to work with others on the same document, I'm impressed that when I type cc: at the end of a letter to indicate carbon copies Auto Correct gives me the option of having it appear as two small "c's" rather than a capital C and a small c.
   – I'm impressed that when I address an email in Outlook, the lookup feature works like a charm. I may never have to type a whole address again.
   – I'm impressed that I can send out a range of data via email from Excel, without having to manipulate the spreadsheet to do it. All I have to do is select the range I want to email and click on the email button.
   – I'm impressed I can get Excel to read back the figures I have input so I can check them from a source. Most of the mistakes I make in Excel are when I input incorrect data.
   – I'm impressed with the whole range of new goodies in PowerPoint. Making a presentation just got a whole lot easier.
   – I'm not only impressed, I'm thankful for the new clipboard, which makes it much, much easier to save multiple parts of one (or several) documents and paste them into another. And, I really like the way you have options on how to paste these items right on the page, rather than through windows or menus.
   – I'm happy that Microsoft has done away with its ill-conceived single document interface in Word. It was a pain in the you-know-what.
   – I'm sorry that Office XP seems to be taking a beating from many of the so-called gurus because this is an excellent upgrade. These gurus seem to always been on the lookout for some slam-bang new technology, but what makes programs like Word, Excel, Outlook, Access and PowerPoint really work are the ease-of-use features. There are a great number of them in Office XP.
   And that's why we think you should seriously consider an upgrade.