In last week’s blog, I looked at Microsoft Office 2010 beta version. My focus was mainly on the overall changes across the whole suite of applications. I wanted to look at the new updates to the individual applications, too.
Word 2010 was not changed radically between the 2007 and 2010 versions. More styles and fonts were added, which will be very nice when I design handouts. One of the new updates that I will really enjoy having available is the Paste Preview. The Paste Preview lets you test out the different paste options before actually committing to the paste. This means less use of the undo button if the paste does not look right in your document. The main change in Word (also in PowerPoint and OneNote) is the co-authoring feature (through the use of SharePoint Server or Windows Live) which allows multiple people to work on same document or presentation simultaneously. Whenever you save the document or presentation, it syncs with the other users’ changes. For those of us who collaborate with others on documents and presentations, this will be of great benefit!
The most changed application for 2010 is Outlook. In the 2007 version Outlook was a hybrid, keeping some of the menus from the 2003 version and adopting some of the ribbon from 2007. Now it is all ribbon based like the other applications. One of the ribbon items added is called Quick Steps, which helps you to create often used items, like team meetings, quickly.
Outlook now tracks your email and other history with each contact. The Conversation View allows you to look at the email threads as a conversation to find attachments or emails quickly. It also lets you ignore future messages in that thread if you do not need to be a part of that conversation.
I am most impressed with Outlook’s new Social Connector. The Social Connector is not completely developed but has amazing possibilities for people like me who are trying to manage Facebook, Twitter, RSS feeds, LinkedIn and other social media. The Social Connector pane appears near the bottom of the screen, below an email message that you are reading. It will update your Facebook, LinkedIn, or other social media sites for that contact and store the information in Outlook. Essentially, when all of the applications are developed for the connector, Outlook would be the repository for all of your social media sites. Since all of the connector applications are not developed yet, I’ll have to wait and see how powerful this feature will really be for my day-to-day use.
Like Word, Excel had a few main updates, but was not completely overhauled. I was happy to see that Conditional Formatting now has more icon and style options. Additionally, Excel 2010 added Sparklines, which are small charts in a cell. The cell-sized charts are right next to the data that they are based on, making it very quick to see a visual representation of the data. I really like not having to look over at a separate chart to get a basic idea of the data trends. The other Excel new feature is the Slicer. It allows PivotTables to have more layers, making them even more powerful!
I cannot wait to get my hands on the new PowerPoint 2010 official release! In the 2010 version, Microsoft has updated the video editing features. Now, you can edit videos from within PowerPoint. For example, you can add fade and transition effect and shorten or trim videos without needing an additional video editor. I was disappointed to find out that they have not increased the number of video formats accepted. PowerPoint 2010 is still limited to .avi and .wmv video formats unless you want to installation third-party codecs or applications.
PowerPoint 2010 also added more Photoshop-style photo editing. You have more control over contrast and sharpening plus added picture effects and background removal options. There are also more options for publishing your presentation to the Web. I was excited to see that PowerPoint 2010 added 3D transitions, too!
It looks like the new Office 2010 has many user-friendly updates. The Ribbon that we all had to get used to in Office 2007 will initially require some getting used to for those upgrading from Office 2003. Overall, I’m really happy with the design in Office 2010 and the productivity increase potential that I can see from the new improvements.
