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We wrote this FAQ to answer the many questions we receive on this topic from our clients and other inquiring minds in the many electronic communities we frequent.
Where to Find Office 97 Official Public White Papers from Microsoft
This FAQ was last updated on September 10, 1997.
These are pointers to all the Microsoft-official, public white papers and articles regarding Office 97 we could find as of the above date. Also included are Web links to major trade publication reviews or articles.
Latest "New listings" (in order of what we find most instructive; items marked "new" are new relative to this FAQ's last update):
- (new) Microsoft Team Manager 97 — http://www.microsoft.com/teammanager/documents/tm97dg/default.htm is a backgrounder and design goal paper comprised of seven topics, ranging from "Changing Business Needs Require New Tools" to "System Requirements."
- (new) Microsoft Access 97 Conversion Issues — http://www.microsoft.com/AccessDev/Articles/Acc97Cnv.htm guides you through the new features and discusses compatibility with prior versions.
- (new) Porting Your 16-Bit Microsoft Office-Based Solutions to 32-Bit Microsoft Office — http://www.microsoft.com/OfficeDev/Articles/porting.htm provides guidance for using the Win32 API, single source code for 16 and 32-bit environments, and the like.
- Office 97 Resource Kit — http://www.microsoft.com/Office/ORK/ is the actual Office 97 Resource Kit. It's a whole new ball game, folks.
- Q&A: Microsoft Office 97, Developer Edition, and Visual Basic for Applications 5.0 — http://www.microsoft.com/OfficeDev/ProdInfo/ode97faq.htm walks you through issues of interest to programmers/developers in Q&A style. Excellent reading, and lots of it. Hot tip: the Office 97 Developer Edition ("ODE") will include a Setup Wizard.
- Everything for Building and Distributing Solutions with Microsoft Office 97 — http://www.microsoft.com/OfficeDev/ProdInfo/ode97data.htm is a big-picture overview with three main sections: "Product Highlights," "System Requirements," and "Mastering Microsoft Office 97 Development" (an ad for the multi-media/CBT product). You could skip this page and not miss much.
- Learn to Build and Distribute Solutions with Microsoft Office 97 — check out http://www.microsoft.com/OfficeDev/ProdInfo/mast97info.htm and try not to yawn. Just another ad for the multi-media/CBT product.
- Microsoft Introduces Office 97, Developer Edition And Mastering Office 97 Development (press release dated 10/7/96) — http://www.microsoft.com/corpinfo/press/1996/oct96/odepr.htm is just another press release among thousands. Do yourself a favor and skip this one.
Prior "New listings" (alpha order):
- It's Your Microsoft Office 97 — http://www.microsoft.com/office/office97/articles/off97_1.htm delves into the customer research and usability lab aspects of the development of Office 97, with a focus on the suite's IntelliSense, improved user assistance, streamlined user interface, and IntelliMouse features.
- Microsoft Office 97 FactSheet — http://www.microsoft.com/office/office97/documents/o97whnew/WNewtoc.htm says it was published in September 1996; you can download this sucker as a meager 9.31 MB Word document, that's right, megabytes! This very extensive set of 24 pages is comprised of the major topics "Office 97 New Features Guide", "Intelligent Applications", "Intranet Solution", "Improved Software Administration", and "Appendix: Related Information".
- Microsoft Office 97 Programmability Features — http://www.microsoft.com/officedev/prodinfo/ofc97enh.htm has extensive coverage of the programmability features in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) version 5.0 and Office 97. There's also a link to the upstream Office Developer Forum page at http://www.microsoft.com/officedev/.
- Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications Page — http://www.microsoft.com/vba/ is the opening page for, you guessed it, VBA. They're adding new stuff to this page and its sub-pages all the time.
- Microsoft Word 97 Preview — http://www.microsoft.com/office/office97/preview/word/word97.htm is a sneak-preview video of the new grammar checking capabilities in Word 97.
- MS Exchange Client/Outlook Interoperability article — from Microsoft TechNet CD October 1996, this is a market bulletin prepared by the Microsoft Exchange Server Product Management Team in June 1996. Topic headings include "What is Outlook?", "Client Migration", "Client Coexistence", "Group Scheduling Coexistence", and "Summary".
Prior listings:
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