What’s New among General Office Features?

The Office Assistant   New in Office 97, and the primary link to Help, the Office Assistant helps you discover features and points you to Help. Ask the Assistant questions in your own words rather than “computerese.” For more information, see Get Assistance While You Work.

Office 97 and the Web   New in Office 97. You now have the tools to help you develop and fully use the power of the Web. The Web toolbar makes it easy to search for and open Office documents on the Web. Add hyperlinks to documents, move through different types of documents easily, work with co-workers on a single document, and develop your own Web sites easily. You can also open Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and File Transfer Protocol (FTP) files.

Office Binder   New in Office 95, improved in Office 97, Binder allows you to group all of your documents, worksheets, and presentations for a project in one place. Binder lets you organize and print the files as a single unit with continuous pagination.

Office Shortcut Bar   New in Office 95, the Shortcut Bar allows you to find and open documents or databases quickly, set up appointments, even send e-mail. Customize the Shortcut Bar to display frequently used documents as buttons. (In Office 97, the Shortcut Bar is not included in the Typical installation unless it was part of your installation of Office 95. To install the Shortcut Bar, rerun Office Setup and choose the Custom Installation.)

Long file names   New in Office 95, descriptive file names with multiple words and spaces make it easier to identify your documents, workbooks, presentations, and databases. For more information on long file names and other Windows 95 features, see your Windows 95 documentation and built-in Help.

Programmability   New in Office 95, improved in Office 97, Visual Basic for Applications is now the standard programming environment for all Office applications, allowing you to automate and design Office to suit your needs and those of your co-workers. However, if you have important macros created in earlier versions of Office, they will still work in Office 97.

IntelliMouse   New in Office 97, the IntelliMouse pointing device makes it easy to navigate within your documents. The new roller/button allows you to scroll without having to move the pointer to the scroll bar. Panning and AutoScroll let you move between sections in documents quickly. With Zoom you get a bird’s-eye view of a section.

If you’ve installed Office from CD, then you have the Value Pack available. The Value Pack includes additional templates, clip art, and other add-ons that make working with Office applications easy and productive.