Like the other Office XP applications, Word has been reengineered to expose functionality in a more seamless manner. This means that you won't need to hunt and peck through menus and open dialog boxes to get at specific functionality. For example, in Word 2000, you need to open a dialog box to display word count in a document; this can be done through the Tools / Word Count menu option (ALT+T then W for you touch typists). But Word 2002 includes a Word Count toolbar that obviates the need to open a dialog box: Simply click the "Recount" button, or type ALT+C when the toolbar is open, to get the current word count (Figure). For someone who needs this functionality (i.e. me), this type of improvement is a huge time saver, and it's only one of many in Word 2002. Let's take a look at those new and improved features that really set apart this release.

Styles and Formatting Task pane
For users that need to apply numerous formatting styles, Microsoft provides the Styles and Formatting Task pane (Figure), which will appear by default when "Styles and Formatting" is chosen from the Format menu. You can scroll around a document and see, at a glance, which formatting is applied to the currently selected text, and easily change that formatting, all without needing to open a dialog box (Figure). Unless I'm working on a book, I tend to stick with pretty basic text formats, but this feature represents an interesting counterpoint to the little-used and misunderstood Format Painter (which I use regularly in Word 2000), especially now that Word supports multiple-select. If you need to clear formatting from a block of selected text, you can now do so in one step, by choosing Clear Formatting from the Styles and Formatting Task pane (Figure). I don't know that there was a way to do this, per se, in Word 2000, other than cutting the text and then Special Pasting it as unformatted text.

Reveal Formatting Task pane
For more advanced formatting needs, Microsoft supplies the Reveal Formatting Task pane (Figure), which will display, at any point in the current document, the font, paragraph, spacing, image, table, and other properties. The Reveal Formatting Task pane also allows you to compare two text selections to see whether they contain identical formatting, and then apply the formatting of one selection to the other if desired. This option is enabled by choosing Reveal Formatting from the Format menu. If you'd like to compare two selections, highlight the first selection in the current document, check the "Compare to another selection" option, and then select the second location. This pane can also be used to show all formatting marks, which used to require a visit to the Options dialog box (Figure).

Multiple Selection
Finally, Word users are able to use a feature that's been in Excel since the old days: Multiple-selection (Figure). This allows you to select multiple areas of text in a document simultaneously, so that you can then apply styles and formatting all at once. This feature is typically enabled by selecting some text and then CTRL-selecting other blocks of text, which is similar to the way you'd select multiple icons in Windows Explorer. Another cool feature of multiple selection is that you can do searches within the area that are highlighted, excluding the unselected portions of the document. I'm only surprised it took so long to implement.

Markup for Tracked changes
One Word feature I use every day is Track Changes, and it's gotten much better in Word 2002: It allows you to keep track of changes that are made to a document by different users. In my case, Track Changes is essential because I submit articles to Windows 2000 Magazine that are then tech edited and returned to me for further edits (Figure). In Word 2000, Track Changes assigns a different color to each author's edits, so it's easy to see who did what. But Word 2002 uses a new Markup feature which emulates the way people used to hand-edit documents: Graphical "call outs" to changes are made in the right column (Print Layout only), so that the main text of the document doesn't get cluttered. This makes a heavily edited document much, much easier to read. And if you've been writing for a while, as I have, the nostalgia effect of seeing a digital version of hand-editing is not to be missed.

MDI option
When Microsoft introduced Office 2000, one of the more controversial features was that Word and Excel were changed from Multiple Document Interface (MDI) applications, where each document window was contained inside the parent application window, to Single Document Interface (SDI) applications, where each document occupied its own window. A side effect of an SDI application is that each document also gets its own button on the Windows taskbar, and you can easily switch between documents using the standard ALT+TAB key combination. However, some users found this new interface to be problematic, because multiple Word documents could quickly clutter the taskbar. In Word 2002, you can now optionally choose to use MDI mode again if you're so inclined. I never missed MDI, but I always thought that users should be given the choice. And now that choice is back.