History

Microsoft Office 2003 (codenamed Office 11[6]) is an office suite developed and distributed by Microsoft for its Windows operating system. Office 2003 was released to manufacturing on August 19, 2003,[1] and was later released to retail on October 21, 2003.[7] It was the successor to Office XP and the predecessor to Office 2007.

New features in Office 2003 include information rights management; new collaboration features; improved support for SharePoint, smart tags, and XML; and extended use of Office Online services.[8] Office 2003 introduces two new programs to the Office product lineup: InfoPath, a program for designing, distributing, filling and submitting electronic forms containing structured data; and OneNote, a note-taking program for creating and organizing diagrams, graphics, handwritten notes, recorded audio, and text.[9] It also introduces the Picture Manager graphics software to open, edit, manage, and share digital images.[8]

With the release of Office 2003, Microsoft rebranded the Office productivity suite as an integrated system dedicated to information workers. As a result, Microsoft appended the Office branding to all programs.[10] Office 2003 also is also the first version with support for Windows XP colors and visual styles,[11] and also includes updated icons.[10]

Office 2003 is the last version of Office to include the menu bar and toolbars across all programs,[12] as well as the last version to include the "97 - 2003" file format as the default.[13] It is compatible with Windows 2000 and Windows XP; it is not supported on Windows 98, Windows ME, or Windows NT 4.0.[5] It is the last version of Office compatible with Windows 2000, as Office 2007 requires Windows XP or a later version.[14]