News about Microsoft Word

• January 2005: Microsoft publishes the Microsoft Office Word 2003 XML Software Development Kit (SDK)
• 15 December 2004: Microsoft releases Word Viewer 2003. The viewer is a free download. Word Viewer 2003 allows you to view a Microsoft Word file even if you don't have Microsoft Word. You can also open files created in WordPerfect 5 or 6, Works 6 or 7, XML files, RTF files, Web pages and plain old .txt text files. It's a 12MB download, but if you need to be able to view a Word document, this is the way to go.
• 14 December 2004: Microsoft releases Office 2003 Tablet PC Update: Improved Ink Recognition. This download only works on a Tablet PC and it only works with Office 2003, including Word 2003. It is designed to provide context-based handwriting recognition. I wonder what that means!
• 10 November 2004: Microsoft releases Microsoft Office Word 2003 SDK. There's an overview of the SDK and a useful article about What You Can Do with Word XML.
• 10 November 2004: Microsoft releases Update for Office 2003 French Grammar Checker (KB873381)
• 21 September 2004: Microsoft launches Office Deployment Center on Office Online, containing information for IT professionals deploying Word and other Microsoft Office products.
• 30 June 2004: Microsoft's mainstream support for Word 2000 ends, but Microsoft updates information and confirms that extended support will continue until 30 June 2009.
• 9 March 2004: Microsoft releases Office 2002 Service Pack 3. Read about the upgrade or use Office Update to detect what updates you need and download them. Service Pack 3 includes the March 2004 Office Security Update for Outlook 2002
• 27 February 2004: Microsoft releases a new SETUP.EXE for Enterprises to use in deploying Microsoft Office 2003. It is available from on the Office 2003 Resource Kit web site.
• 27 Jan 2004: Microsoft releases Word 2003 Update: January 27, 2004. Read about the update or use Office Update to detect what updates you need and download them.
• 16 Jan 2004: Microsoft releases Known issues with the Remove Hidden Data tool that removes hidden data and collaboration data from Word, Excel and PowerPoint files.
• 5 Jan 2004: Microsoft releases Office 2003/XP Add-in: Remove Hidden Data tool to remove hidden data and collaboration data from Word, Excel and PowerPoint files. Note: This tool has problems. It will make your normal.dot dirty. After using the tool, you may be asked to save normal.dot when you exit Word, even if you have made no changes to normal.dot.
• 12 Dec 2003: Microsoft releases tool to remove "unacceptable" symbols from a font distributed with Word 2003. The unacceptable symbols are swastikas.
• 3 Dec 2003: Microsoft releases XML Toolbox for Microsoft Office Word 2003
• 19 Nov 2003: Microsoft announces royalty-free license of the Microsoft Office 2003 XML Reference Schemas, and releases the XML schema for Word 2003.
• 11 Nov 2003: Microsoft issues a critical update for Word 2003.
• 11 Nov 2003: Microsoft issues an important security patch for Word 97, 98, 2000, 2002
• Use Office Update to detect the security updates you need and install them automatically.
• 21 Oct 2003: Microsoft launches Office 2003 in New York and I was invited!

Office DevCon 2008, Sydney, Australia.

For Microsoft Office developers and power users.
1-2 November 2008.