Microsoft Office 2000 contains some interesting performance support features. While I haven't done a lot of testing, the Office 2000 Agent seems to be less intrusive that the first iteration in Office 97. The animated character no longer resides in a box, but it still performs a variety of animations when it wants to get your attention.

Figure 1 illustrates the Office Agent's suggestion when I capitalized the word "Three" in the bullet point "Item Three". The agent lets me choose to change the text, ignore the style rule or change the style checker so this message will not be appear again. It also lets me turn off that tile. While there are some things about the Office 97 Agent that I don't like, the Office 2000 Agent seems to become less annoying and more flexible.

I like the fact that it identifies style problems. When one is focused on adding content it can be difficult to adequately proofread one's work. In this example, the Office Agent lets you discover those best practice rules and change them if you like. I also like the fact that by clicking the choice "Change the text to sentence case" Office Agent" makes the change and closes the message bubble. It makes the correction a one step operation. I don't have to close the message bubble, click on the "T", delete it and type a lower case "t".

Figure 1

PowerPoint 2000 has a Common Tasks button on the tool bar. It displays a menu of the commonly used menu (Figure 3).  In a complex and feature rich system like PowerPoint this feature makes it easier to find and perform those common tasks.

Figure 2

When you choose  to send a document or presentation by selecting the menu option File/Send To/ Mail Recipient, Office 2000 displays the address fields just below the tool bar (figure 3). This feature lets you retain the context of the task and make last minute editing changes after addressing the message, but before sending it. However if you decided not to send the document after selecting the menu it, you will have a difficult time hiding the address fields.  Its an interesting feature but the real benefits are not overly apparent.

Figure 3

Office 2000 features a new file open dialog that makes it easier to find and navigate to a file directory or list of files. The icons on the left side of the dialog let you quickly change the directory or file list. Unfortunately you can't change these list types and some may be of questionable benefit. The favorites options show a list of your bookmarked internet URL's or local files. The desktop icon show the document shortcuts on your desktop, but if you don't put document shortcuts on your desktop this list doesn't help much.  

Figure 4

Figure 5 shows a tip window in PhotoDraw 2000. The tip appears when you select a touchup option. While tips are not new, this tip widow appears next to the interface elements that will be used to perform the task.  It even has an arrow that points to one of the interface elements.

Figure 5