Page 33 - Microsoft Office Excel 2003 Programming Inside Out

Part 1: Preliminaries
What’s New in Excel 2003

document become available for every member of the team; if the changes conflict, you as the
administrator are able to choose which changes will be adopted. You can also use the controls
Chapter 1
on the Shared Workspace task pane to create and manage a document workspace.

Note Document workspaces are available for Microsoft Office Word 2003, Excel 2003,
PowerPoint 2003, and Visio 2003.

Implementing Information Rights Management

One of the hardest problems to solve in the digital domain is limiting access to information.
You can use passwords, accounts, and other access restrictions to limit who can view files on
a computer or network, but once an unprotected file is out in the open it can be copied and dis­
tributed easily. The new Information Rights Management (IRM) capabilities in Office 2003
help maintain the confidentiality and integrity of your information by limiting who is able to
view and edit your files. Specifically, network administrators can create policies that allow
you to set user-level permissions to limit access to the material. Users who somehow get their
hands on unauthorized copies of the files will not be able to peek at your company’s budget
for the next year. Users who are authorized recipients of the file but don’t have Office 2003 or
later installed on their computer will be able to use file viewers that let them examine the files,
but not edit them.

Note Information Rights Management is only available in Microsoft Office Professional
Edition 2003, Word 2003, Excel 2003, and PowerPoint 2003.

Comparing Workbooks Side By Side

Another useful new capability in Excel 2003 is the ability to scroll through two windows at
the same time so that you can compare the contents. Cell data forms patterns as it scrolls by,
and you can often pick out differences visually. The differences are even more pronounced
when you use conditional formats or change tracking to display cell data in a format that’s
different than the main body of data. To turn on simultaneous scrolling, open the two work-
books you want to compare and choose Window, Compare Side By Side With.
One of the enhancements in Excel 2003 is the set of additional research tools you can use to
get information from a number of sources. You can display the Research task pane by choos­
ing View, Task Pane and, if necessary, clicking the Other Task Panes bar at the top of the task
pane and clicking Research. Once you have displayed the Research task pane, you can type a
word or phrase in the Search For box, select the reference works you want to search, and click
the Start Searching button (the arrow to the right of the Search For box) to get more infor­
mation. Figure 1-1 shows the Research task pane and a selection of the reference materials
available for you.

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