Word Basics: Get Productive Fast

Discovering Microsoft's Key Word 2003 Enhancements

On September 29, 2003, Microsoft Word turned 20 years old. What could possibly be added to software this mature and comprehensive? A lot. In Word 2003, Microsoft has focused on extending Word in several key areas. These include

• Research tools

• Collaboration improvements

• Document security

• Productivity

• XML support

Using Word's Program and File Recovery Features

Word 2003 and Office 2003 include features designed to make them more resilient, and more capable of fixing both themselves and damaged document files.

These features cannot solve every problem you encounter with Word 2003; however, they should assist with many, if not most, of them—and, especially, help avoid much of the lost work and inefficiency that results from crashes and damaged files.

In the following sections, we introduce the Word 2003 program and file recovery features that will be most important to day-to-day users.

Recovering Documents with the Document Recovery Task Pane

If Word 2003 crashes, it displays a dialog box that gives you options for what to do next. By default, Word restarts and attempts to recover your work; if you don't want this to happen, clear the Recover My Work and Restart Microsoft Word check box.

If you have an Internet connection, you can also send Microsoft an error report that summarizes the technical aspects of the crash. To see what the report contains, click the Click Here link. Microsoft says it will treat the report as confidential and anonymous.

If you want to send the report, click Send Error Report. Word transfers the report, keeping you updated as to its status.

When the error report has been submitted, if Microsoft has information about how to prevent the problem, a dialog box appears containing a More Information link. If you click More Information, a Web page appears containing information on the problem and how it might be prevented or worked around.

If you prefer not to send an error report to Microsoft, click Don't Send. Word