The .Net initiatives set earlier this year called for sweeping changes to nearly all of Microsoft’s products in an effort to help Microsoft’s software applications and tools take advantage of the Web. The Office .Net piece of that puzzle introduces lots of new features including collaboration features， speech recognition features， smart tagging and native XML support， close integration with Hotmail and MSN， tools for creating and working with Web components， and more.
XML （extensible markup language） is one of the linchpins of Microsoft’s. Net strategy， as it allows for much more sophisticated data exchange across the Web as well as between the Web and productivity applications. Using XML， Microsoft is making a broad effort in the new Office suite to offer up more available information to users， especially information available on the Web.
The new version of Office will build in native XML support for Excel and Access. This move is intended to help these applications function as smart front ends for Web-based data repositories. Excel users will also find new features for working with Web components so that an Excel used might automatically publish a Web page， or a pivot table， or a pivot chart.
Additionally， a new offering to be found throughout the suite will be Smart Tags. Smart Tags appear on the screen while you work， offering information on completing tasks faster. For example， Smart Tags display AutoCorrect， AutoFormat and Paste options that can keep users from searching through menus. Smart Tags can also integrate information from the Web with applications， such as offering a stock quote for a company if you type the ticker symbol in Excel. In addition to Smart Tags， new Task Panes offer features found in the Office applications that not every user knows about， such as translation tools and search tools.
Collaborations and workflow features are central to the new version of Office， with collaboration process extending out to the Web. There is a new visual development tool for building Web-based collaborative applications based on Microsoft Exchange 2000’s Web Storage System. This feature will also be integrated with the upcoming “Tahoe” document management server. Departments within organizations will also be offered Team Workspaces， which are essentially easily created， self-contained Web sites within which， contact， task lists， announcements， and libraries can be shared by a team. Teams can also set alerts for any time information shared by the team is changed.
There are also many features found in the new version of Office designed to help when errors or data loses have occurred. Excel， PowerPoint， and Outlook will join Word in offering and Auto-Recover feature， which automatically saves documents and data at times intervals. An automatic document recovery feature will also be offered throughout the suite in the case of， say， a system crash. Applications will build in links to personalized， interactive help available from Microsoft， as well as Web support pages.
Finally， there are many miscellaneous additions to the Office suite. For example， installation and deployment routines have been beefed up to offer end users and IT managers more options. Word counts are automatically tallied and displayed. And Microsoft’s research labs have been working on speech recognition for years， and the new version will allow users to create and edit documents using voice commands.
Microsoft will be demonstrating the new Office suite this week in conjunction with the new Tahoe document-management server. However， Microsoft offers no specific ship date， promising a release date in the first half of 2001. Pricing hasn’t been set yet， either.
【New Words】
wrap
缠绕，重叠，包起来
version
译文，译本，翻译
significant
有意义的，重要的
collaboration
协作，（与敌人）勾结，通敌
miscellaneous
混杂的，多才多艺的
conjunction
联合，关键，连接词
7.2 Software of OfficeAutomation
Microsoft Office 2006
Microsoft Office 2006 is a collection of the more popular Microsoft application software products. Microsoft Office 2006 is available in Standard， Small Business， Professional， Premium， and Developer editions. The Microsoft Office 2006 Premium Edition includes Microsoft Word 2006， Microsoft Excel 2006， Microsoft Access 2006， Microsoft PowerPoint 2006， Microsoft Publisher 2006， Microsoft FrontPage 2006， Microsoft PhotoDraw 2006， Microsoft Outlook 2006， and Internet Explorer. Microsoft Office 2006 allows you to work more efficiently， communicate better， and improve the appearance of the documents you create.
One of the CD-ROMs that accompanies Microsoft office 2006 contains a clip art gallery that you can use in any of the applications to enhance the appearance of a document. The gallery contains over 16 000 clip art images， sounds， photographs， animations， themes， and backgrounds. In addition， thousands of additional images are available from the Microsoft Clipart Gallery Live found on the Microsoft Web site. Hundreds of new images are added each month to this collection.
Menus and toolbars adjust to the way in which you work. As Microsoft Office detects which commands you use more frequently， these commands display at the top of the menu， and the infrequently used commands are placed in reserve. A button at the bottom of the menu allows you to expand the menu in order to view all its commands. More frequently used buttons on a toolbar display on the toolbar， while less frequently used buttons are not displayed.
Microsoft Office applications are self-repairing. If you accidentally delete a file that is needed to run an Office application， the Self-Repairing Application feature automatically finds the deleted file and reinstalls the file. This feature reduces the number of calls to technical support and increases user productivity.
