Product Description

Can be installed on up to three PCs with a household.

---

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #345 in Software
• Brand: Microsoft
• Model: 503-00298
• Platforms: Windows 2000, Windows XP
• Format: CD-ROM
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .70 pounds

Features

• Easily create, exchange, and move files between home and school
• Microsoft Office full-featured productivity tools for students and teachers
• Includes Excel 2003, Outlook 2003, Word 2003, and PowerPoint 2003
• Enhanced data management; better e-mail management; support for research
• Add multimedia elements to PowerPoint presentations and copy to CD

From the Manufacturer
Microsoft Office Student and Teacher Edition 2003 is an affordable way for students and teachers to get Microsoft Office productivity tools to use at school and home.

Affordable, Full-Featured Software for Home and School
Office Student and Teacher Edition 2003 is not evaluation software. All the programs are the same full-featured versions you use at home and school.

• Take advantage of the best price for home users. Qualified students and teachers can obtain a set of four Microsoft Office programs at this discounted price.
• Use software for the whole family. Install Office Student and Teacher Edition 2003 on up to three computers in your home without having to buy extra licenses. Get software for the entire family and save money.

What You Get

Office Student and Teacher Edition 2003 includes:

• Excel 2003
• Outlook 2003
• PowerPoint 2003
• Word 2003

You and your family can easily create, exchange, and move files between home and school; manage e-mail messages more safely and efficiently; and spend less time doing research and other school-related and personal tasks.

Fully Compatible with Other Versions of Office
Ensure the programs you use at home are fully compatible with the versions you use at school. Office 2003 Editions files are compatible with files created with Microsoft Office 97 and later versions.

• Create, move, and edit files with confidence. Create Office 2003 Edition files at home or school and then work with them on computers running other versions of Office. You don't have to convert or reformat your files, or recreate your work. Also view and make changes to your files on different computers.
• Exchange files with other Office users. Share files with more people and reduce the need for converters, which can corrupt file contents or lose formatting.

The Best Tools for Learning
Make the time you and your family spend using computers a more productive, satisfying experience.

• Access easy-to-use resources. Office 2003 Edition programs share a familiar user interface (UI) and tools that give you easy access to the programs you use every day--without having to learn how to use new ones.
• Research and study more easily. Use the Research task pane to find information from dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other sources, some of which may require a connection to the Internet, while you're working in your Office 2003 Editions program.
• Find resources for school and class planning. Use tools on Office Online to access reference information, study tips, and hundreds of templates for personal tasks or student reports, research papers, and other files commonly used at schools.
• Learn how to best use the programs. Expand your skills with online training and in-product Help from Office Online.
• Share your presentations. Use Package for CD in PowerPoint 2003 to make your presentations more portable by copying them onto a CD, which can be carried easily between home and school. Include the free PowerPoint Viewer on the CD and you can distribute presentations to individuals who don't use Microsoft PowerPoint.
• Help protect your family from junk e-mail messages and viruses. Help protect your family from annoying--and potentially dangerous--junk e-mail messages. The Junk E-Mail Filter in Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 can help you filter out unwanted messages, block unwanted Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) pictures in junk e-mail messages, and make a list of trusted senders. Enhanced antivirus capabilities can help prevent your family from downloading viruses from the Internet or school.
• Recover files and retrieve e-mail messages quickly and easily. On slow e-mail connections, Outlook 2003 downloads subject information first so you can quickly identify and read more urgent messages. File recovery can also help you retrieve files quickly after service interruptions without recreating or reformatting files.

Summary of Features
Use software designed specifically with your needs in mind. Programs in Office 2003 Editions provide features that can help students and teachers make the most of their time.

Excel 2003: Enhanced Data Management and Statistical Analysis Capabilities

• Use the Research task pane to research companies and stock quotes.
• Use file recovery to help protect your spreadsheets in the event your program or operating system stops responding.
• More easily structure and manipulate information, such as household inventory, with improvements in list functionality.
• Use enhanced support for printing, charting, and transforming list data into Microsoft PivotTable reports.
• Take advantage of statistical analysis functions that broaden support for collinearity detection, calculations of the sum of squared deviations, normal distributions, and continuous probability distribution.

Outlook 2003: Better E-Mail Management

• Help reduce unwanted and potentially dangerous e-mail messages using the customizable Junk E-Mail Filter.
• More easily link to your e-mail account with improved Internet and Post Office Protocol 3 (POP3) e-mail account connectivity and management for Web-based accounts such as Microsoft Hotmail, Yahoo mail, and AOL mail.
• View up to twice as much content on a bigger, more flexible Reading Pane.
• Arrange your Inbox messages by conversation and group all messages on a particular topic.
• Use Quick Flags to prioritize, track, and follow up on messages.
• Get a pop-up Desktop Alert when new messages arrive, even if you're working in a different program.
• Use powerful user-defined Search Folders for quick access to e-mail messages that meet common search criteria. Note: Search Folders require a connection to Microsoft Exchange Server.

PowerPoint 2003: Smarter, with Added Multimedia Support

• Copy PowerPoint 2003 presentations to a CD for playback on other computers.
• More easily add multimedia elements to your presentation with support for audio and full-screen videos.
• Use file recovery to help protect your presentations in the event your program or operating system stops responding.
• Complete tasks faster with support for smart tags.

Word 2003: Expanded Support for Research and Coordinated Collaboration

• Use the Research task pane to reference thesauri, encyclopedias, and other online resources.
• Use document recovery to help protect your documents in the event your program or operating system stops responding.
• Restrict how reviewers can change document content and formatting.
• Merge comments and changes from multiple users into a single document.
• Share content in Web-based shared workspaces. Note: shared workspaces require Microsoft Windows Server 2003 running Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services.

Do You Qualify?
You must be a student or teacher in grades K–12 or in an institution of higher education to qualify.

---

Customer Reviews

At least it's more affordable than the standard...
I'm waiting for the day when software becomes more expensive than the actual hardware to run it (it should happen soon, considering the trend in computer prices these days, right??). In the meantime, I'm happy that Microsoft at least offers a lower-priced version of their software for those pursuing academic endeavors.

The Microsoft Office Student and Teacher Edition 2003 is basically identical to their standard Microsoft Office 2003. It contains:
- Excel 2003
- Outlook 2003
- Powerpoint 2003
- Word 2003

What it does NOT contain (compared with the professional and small business versions) is Access 2003, Publisher 2003 and the Outlook 2003 version that has a Business Contact Manager - none of which would be particularly necessary for students.

Microsoft stresses that this version of their Office 2003 is only for non-commercial use. You qualify for this edition so long as you are 1) a full- or part-time student enrolled in a K-12 institution, 2) home-schooled, 3) taking at least 6 credits at an accredited college/university, or 4) a full- or part-time faculty member and work 20+ hours at a school.

It retails at the amazon price, which seems like a lot until you remember that the Standard version is sold for over two hundred dollars more. There is no discounted upgrade price for the academic version, but this is still probably the best price you can get. AND you can use the software on up to three computers, so long as someone in your household qualifies (for instance, if you have a child who qualifies for this version, you can upload it onto your computer as well and use the software even if you do not qualify for the discount).

If you are a college/university student, I would suggest visiting your school bookstore before purchasing this software. Microsoft offers academic volume licensing through a lot of colleges/universities, where you can get the same software for up to 70% off if you qualify. Check out [microsoft website] for more information.

Excellent Value
It was hard for me when I originally made the transition from WordPerfect to MS Word/Office, but once I did I never looked back.

The Students and Teachers edition is an excellent value as it contains 4 full versions of programs that cost more individually than you'd pay for this entire bundle.

The catch? First, by installing the software you are agreeing that you are a student or teacher engaged somehow in academia (no, they won't send people to your house to check...it's an honor system kind of thing). The other catch, and the one to really pay attention to, is that you can't upgrade these programs like you could if you purchased the individual program or one of the other Office bundles. This means that if a Word 2004 upgrade becomes available one day you could not install it to upgrade the version of Word that comes with this bundle. You'd either have to buy the next edition of the Students and Teachers bundle or purchase another full version of Word (either in one of the other bundles that Microsoft Offers at substantially more than the S&T edition or as the stand alone program which still costs more that the S&T edition).

Small price to pay, however, as the money you save in obtaining the Students and Teachers edition will still allow you to buy upcoming versions for generations to come and you'd still come out ahead as this bundle is such a great deal.

A vast improvement
I thought there was little Microsoft could do to improve Office. After all, a word processor is a word processor. Outlook, however, is a whole different story. This is probably worth the upgrade alone. Not only does it group your email better (today, yesterday, last week, two weeks ago, three weeks ago, last month, older) but it's ergonmically better on the eyes. It now reads like a MS Word document now - full screen - instead of the old "split screen" way with much of the text on the bottom.

There are other little improvements though that are easily overlooked. For example, no more of the annoying "new mail" message poping up in the middle of your screen like in XP/2000. Now the sender and subject of the message "fades in" in the task bar area of your screen, stays there for 7 seconds, and "fades out" if you don't do anything. You can even set the transparency and time to fade out - cool! Let's say you don't want to open it, but know you want to do something with it later. Flag it right there! Just click the flag icon and its selected for "follow up". You can then act on it when you get ready.
You can also set a reminder on a message much like a meeting reminder. It works just the same except now when you open the reminder it opens the email message.

Of course if you don't need Access, the Student/Teacher edition is the way to go. I bought mine at Best Buy and the salesman said they don't ask for ID, or even care for that matter. And keep in mind you can use it on up to 3 computers. If you're like me and you spend most of your day reading, writing, sorting and replying to email, go get this upgrade. You won't be disappointed.