TECHFORBES » MS office

U.S. Judge: Microsoft Word may temporarily continue to provide

prashanth — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 15:46:55 +0000

An appeals court in the United States, the ban on sale or Microsoft Word temporarily suspended. Pending the outcome of the appeal against the conviction for patent infringement may continue to provide Microsoft Word. Pending the outcome of the appeal against the conviction for patent infringement may continue to provide Microsoft Word.

Word ban in March 2007 Microsoft was sued by the Canadian company i4i, which found the possibility of custom-Word to XML documents to make an infringement of a patent of this company was. In March 2007 Microsoft was sued by the Canadian company i4i, which found the possibility of custom-Word to XML documents to make an infringement of a patent of this company was. In May of this year, a jury ruled that i4i was right, and that Word actually infringed the patent. In May of this year, a jury ruled that i4i was right, and that Word actually infringed the patent. In particular a U.S. court in August that Microsoft had to stop the infringement, and that sales of Word later than October 10 would be discontinued. In a particular U.S. court in August that Microsoft had to stop the infringement, and that sales of Word later than October 10 would be discontinued.

Microsoft believes that there is no question of patent infringement, and immediately appealed the conviction. Microsoft believes that there is no question of patent infringement, and immediately appealed the conviction. As a rule it is probably later than October 10, the software maker asked the court to suspend the ban on sale until after the conclusion of the appeal. As a rule it is probably later than October 10, the software maker asked the court to suspend the ban on sale until after the conclusion of the appeal. In a brief ruling, the Court of Appeal granted the request of Microsoft, which means that Word may be delivered just as yet. In a letter ruling, the Court of Appeal granted the request of Microsoft, which means that Word may be delivered just as yet. The appeal itself will start on September 23. The appeal itself will start on September 23. I4i The company had no comment on the ruling, reports the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. I4i The company had no comment on the ruling, as reports the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Microsoft ordered to stop selling Word in US

prashanth — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 03:18:56 +0000

A US judge has ordered Microsoft to stop selling its popular Word document creation application in the country in 60 days after finding that the software contains technology that violates a patent held by a third party.

Microsoft Office, which includes Word, accounted for more than $3 billion in worldwide sales in Microsoft’s most recent fiscal year and is used by literally millions of businesses and consumers for everyday tasks like word processing and making spreadsheets and presentations.

I4i, a Toronto-based software maker, has been battling Microsoft over an obscure patent related to XML or Extensible Markup Language. XML is a key software component of many websites as well as Word and other programs.

Upholding a a May 20 jury decision on Tuesday, Leonard Davis, a federal district court judge in Tyler, Texas, banned the world’s largest software from selling Word 2003 , Word 2007 and future versions of the software that use i4i’s technology without a licence.

The judge also ordered Microsoft to pay several hefty fines to i4i, including $200 million in damages and $40 million in “enhanced damages”.

“We feel vindicated with this result,” said Michael Vulpe, who co-founded i4i in 1993.

“It is not a question of fear or pride or anything else,” said Loudon Owen, chairman of i4i. “We’re very respectful of Microsoft, but when you’re in the right you have to persevere.”

Microsoft plans to appeal. “We are disappointed by the court’s ruling,” spokesman Kevin Kutz said in a written statement. “We believe the evidence clearly demonstrated that we do not infringe and that the i4i patent is invalid.”

The suit involves a patent i4i’s founders obtained in 1998 that is the basis for a “customised XML” tool the company supplies to drug and defence companies and other large corporations, said Owen.

XML is a specialised alphabet that can capture any kind of computer file as a regular text. It’s designed to make computer data human-readable – and make it easier for one programme to load and process data created by another programme.

Judge Davis found that Microsoft was aware of i4i’s patent and that there was enough evidence of Microsoft “wilfully infringing” on the patent to issue the injunction, pending continuation of the case.

Investors shrugged off the news – perhaps in anticipation of a higher court overturning the ruling, which arose from the plaintiff-friendly Eastern Texas federal jurisdiction, Information Week reported.

Microsoft prices Zune HD below iPod

prashanth — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 02:07:52 +0000

Microsoft Corp put its new Zune HD digital music and video player on sale on Thursday, pricing it below comparable Apple Inc iPod devices, in an attempt to claw some market share away from the dominant leader.

The devices, which are available for pre-order but won’t hit shelves until September 15, are priced at $219.99 for the 16 gigabyte version and $289.99 for the 32 gigabyte version. Comparable iPod Touch players are priced at $299 and $399 respectively.

A 16-gigabyte player typically holds about 4,000 songs.

Microsoft’s new Zune HD is slimmer than previous version and has a touch screen for the first time. The range comes in five colors and has a built-in radio receiver, Wi-Fi, and can display high-definition video to a big screen.

MS, Nokia team up to offer Office on mobiles

prashanth — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 02:12:42 +0000

Microsoft Corp said it will announce an alliance with Nokia on Wednesday, likely unveiling plans to make the software company’s Office suite of applications available on devices made by the world’s top cellphone manufacturer.

Microsoft, the world’s largest software firm, is set to bring out the latest version of its Office product next year, including an online version that will allow users to access the popular Word, Excel and PowerPoint programs over the Internet.

The move counters the recent entrance of Google Inc into the software market, offering free versions of word processing, calendar and e-mail applications online.

Microsoft declined comment on the nature of the alliance, set to be announced on Wednesday morning (EST), but an industry source confirmed the alliance concerned Office.

A news report on technology site CNET news said a partnership bringing Office applications to Nokia’s mobile phones was expected.

The announcement is to be made by Stephen Elop, head of Microsoft’s Business Division, which makes the Office suite of applications, and Kai Oistamo, executive vice president of Nokia Devices.

Open Office.org 3 for Windows and Mac

admin — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 03:47:13 +0000

Sun Microsystems released the first beta for OpenOffice.org 3 for Windows and Mac. The new version of OpenOffice, an open-source competitor to Microsoft Office, claims to offer users improvements on every component from interface to features to behaviour.
OpenOffice now natively supports OS X, so Mac users won’t have to install the X11 module before running the suite. Full Vista support is also included in the beta. Notably, OpenOffice 3 includes filters for the new Microsoft Office document formats such as DOCx and XLSx as well as continuing support for standard Microsoft formats.
The user interface is snazzier. Enhancements include support for OpenDocument Format 1.2, a Solver feature, spreadsheet sharing to facilitate collaboration, improved PDF creation and importation, and improvements to the Notes feature in Writer.
The new Start Center opens up a window that highlights all of the OpenOffice tools with big icons. Another OpenOffice extension is a Wiki Publisher tool that should make uploading Wiki information from the program to a MediaWiki server a snap.
Head to httpJ/download.openoffice.org to download the required versions.

Corel WordperFect Office X4 – Time to defect from Microsoft Office?

admin — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 18:19:44 +0000

The recent introduction of the ribbon interface in Microsoft Office polarized opinion among its users. It’s not possible to turn it off, so what are users to do if they can’t learn to love it? Switching to an alternative office suite, such as Corel’s new Wordperfect Office X4, is one option. However compatibility with Microsoft Office formats can still be a problem, as can ease of use.The X4 suite includes a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation and email program, similar to some versions of Microsoft Office.Wordperfect X4, the word processing package, can be started in Microsoft Word emulator mode, which is supposed to ease the transition for new users who are familiar with Word. However we were disappointed to find that this extends only to the style of some of the toolbars and menus.When actually carrying out an operation, you still have to learn the Wordperfect way of doing things.

Compared to Microsoft Word and even the free Open office word processor, the program felt rudimentary in some respects but there were no gains, in terms of usability, to compensate. The clip art browser doesn’t divide images into categories and the link to extra images online simply opened a blank page on Corel’s site. The overall impression is that of an incomplete program. We were also less than impressed with Wordperfect’s compatibility with Word documents. Attempting to open a basic Word 2007 document containing watermarks and graphics resulted in a garbled mess. Saving the document in Word 2003 format made no difference. Openoffice rendered the same document much more accurately and quickly.

There are some innovative new features, though. Perfectexpert is one example. It provides document templates that can be customised using a wizard. It differs from Microsoft Works’ wizards in that content and formatting are handled simultaneously and you can see the changes you are making as you apply them.

The side panel allows you to type a document while simultaneously using the wizard to help. Quattro Pro X4,Corel’s spreadsheet, fares slightly better.The Perfectexpert wizards are helpful, as they can help create customisable personal budgeting sheets,for example, without knowing a single formula. The options for creating charts are powerful and straightforward.

However if you are used to Excel, even the Excel emulator mode won’t be entirely familiar. Corel’s Presentations program is the pick of the suite. It’s powerful and flexible while remaining easy to use. Again, the wizards guide you through every aspect of creating and customising your slides.

The suite also features PDF support.You can now import documents via a scanner and save them as PDF. It also supports editing PDF document text, using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology.The suite also eliminates the need to have additional PDF creation program installed as you can directly publish the document to PDF. However, all these features are not enough to compensate for the fundamental flaws of the suite,though. When there are cheaper office suites such as Ability Office, or free ones such as Openoffice, paying nearly Rs. 15,000 for Wordperfect Office doesn’t seem like a good deal at all.

Error 25090 in Word

admin — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 13:24:02 +0000

I have OpenOffice as well as Office 2003 installed on my machine. But I made Office 2003 as my default suite for all my word, spreadsheet, and presentation files. Of late I keep getting the error “Error 25090: Office Setup encountered a problem with the Office source engine….Please open C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\ Office111033\Setup\Setup.chm’ and
look for ‘Office Source Engine’ . Italso launches the Windows Installer and begins installation some additional components for Office. I cannot work on my documents because of this poblem. How can I get Office 2003 to work again?

This sort of a problem usually occurs if someone has installed the Office suite twice on your computer — probably in different user accounts and set it to be used by all users. It can also be that the setup files were not removed after the installation. Usually the user is asked if the setup files should be removed after installation — if not then this error might occur. The solution is quite simple — all you need to do is begin the Office installation once again. You will need your Office installation CD for this. As soon as the installation begins, click on ‘Cancel’. The dialog box will ask you to confirm your action to exit the Setup. Exit it and the Office installation will close.

Viewing documents without licensed version of Microsoft Word

admin — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 11:25:26 +0000

I don’t want to spend money on a licensed version of Microsoft Word. I am looking for a legal option to display and read the documents. Is there any?
Us e the free Word viewer 2003 tool by Microsoft.
• Download it form the Microsoft web site by keying in ‘Word Viewer 2003’. Save the approximately 12 MB ‘ wdviewer.exe’ file in any folder on your system and start it. A wizard assists you through the installation and asks you to finish the installation by restarting the computer.
• Open the Word Viewer 2003 program by clicking on ‘Start’. The ‘ Open’ dialog box in which you select the desired document is automatically displayed. Word Viewer 2003 displays Word documents of versions 97, 2000,XP, and 2003; it also supports some other formats like HTML and Rich Text Format (RTF). The program not only displays the files but the file content can also be printed or copied in other Windows applications via the clipboard.
NOTE : On the Microsoft web site, suitable display tools are available for Excel as well as Powerpoint. They are called Excel Viewer 2003 and Powerpoint Viewer 2003 respectively.

How to display as icon in the taskbar for each application in Windows

admin — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 08:41:41 +0000

When several documents are opened in Excel or Powerpoint, an additional document icon shows in the taskbar and it appears while toggling using the shortcut key {Alt}+ {Tab}. How do I get rid of this feature?
You can change this feature in the concerned Office applications by doing the following.
• Click on ‘Tools|Options’ and deactivate the option ‘Windows in taskbar’ in the ‘ View’ tab in the ‘Show’ section. After that, Windows displays a single icon for each application in the task bar. However, with this configuration, toggle between several documents is possible only from the menu command ‘Windows’, and no longer with {Alt}+{Tab}.

This setting is not applicable to the entire Office applications. If required, repeat this method for other programs of the packet. However, in Word 200, the developers have not integrated this option.
Note: If you open several applications in Windows, the taskbar becomes crowded. To add to that, the Microsoft Office application from Version 2000 onwards ( except Microsoft Outlook) place an extra icon in the taskbar for each opened window. You open three documents in Excel or Powerpoint and four icons are displayed in the taskbar. The additional icon represents the application window of the last active document, when can be very irritating while toggling between opened files.

Accessing frequently needed functions faster in Office 2007

admin — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 02:31:18 +0000

As soon as you upgrade to the latest version of Office, the first thing tht happens is that you feel totally lost regarding where all your most often used functions are located. Here is how we re-enable these in Word 2007. Cllick the ‘Customize Quick Access Toolbar’ button in the title bar of Word and choose the ‘More Commands’ menu item. This will open a ‘Word Options’ dialog with the customizing page opened on it. You will see two lists on the right hand side; the list on the left contains possible commands whereas the list on the right displays the commands currently present on the toolbar. You can limit this selection using the combination box above the left list. Word offers the most frequently used commands by default. Select’ All commands’ instead. Search for the command that you want to add in the ‘toolbarfor quick access’ in the list. Select the desired entry, click on it an move it to ‘Insert’ in the list on the right.
Transfer all the required commands to the right list in the same manner.
Confirm with ‘OK’. If you want to remove a command from the toolbar, select it in the list on the right and click ‘Delete’. The ‘Quick access Toolbar’ for Excel, Access and PowerPoint can be configured in a similar manner.