Following their Windows 8 initiative, Microsoft is also in the process of revamping and finalizing their Microsoft Office 2013 productivity suite. The new Office, like Windows 8, is
significantly different from past versions, with some great new
features.
Before we get started with the tour and review, you might want to
download and trial Microsoft Office 2013 for yourself. You can find the
download on the Office 2013 page.
Like many recent app and software
releases, the new version of Office is more incorporated into the cloud
and the internet in general. Thus, 2013 has a very present option that
prompts you to sign-in to your Live or Hotmail account. Once that is
done, you will be greeted with a simple welcome screen.
One of the first things that you may notice when getting started with MS Office is the increase in interaction. When setting up office, you can now select themes and other light customizations.
All of the main Office apps are fully redesigned, so the UI is familiar, but different to Office 2007 or 2010.
Power Point
Excel
Access
One Note
Outlook
Publisher
Word
Nearly all MS Office programs now have integrated app and web
functionality. So, with Office 2007 and 2010, you could of course insert
images and videos. With the latest version of office, you can very
simply insert apps and other web elements, in addition to images, videos
and other standards, to create more interactive documents. Here’s how
the apps function operates in Word:
Office 2013 also has advanced collaboration and group document editing features along with integrated Microsoft SkyDrive.
The new menu incorporated into Office programs
has more sharing and group options, and even a built-in blogging
feature, which I’m guessing might replace Live Writer 2011. That would
be great for writers if you could blog directly out of a program like
Word, but the post to blog features are also present in Excel and other
Office apps, meaning that you can push not only text documents, but
charts, graphs and other info graphics directly to a blog or website.
Excel has a new flash fill feature, which is a “smart option” that
attempts to analyze your patterns and Excel document usage, and auto
fill and predict the next entries for you.
Those are just a few of many, new, individual features in Office 2013.
In addition to new features, Microsoft is also incorporating more
Office 365 compatibility into the desktop and tablet versions of Office
2013. For collaborative document editing and other workgroup features,
Office 2013 will allow you to import and export documents more effectively if you’re a 365 subscriber.
In review, Microsoft Office 2013 is a lot “smarter” than past
versions of Office. Just by creating or editing a basic Excel
spreadsheet, you will definitely notice the enhanced UI (user interface) and modern, more web friendly options.
Using another new option, Connected Services, you can directly sign
in and link some of your favorite social accounts, such as Flickr or
Linked In, directly to office also. So, if you want to send an image
that is edited in Office directly to Flickr, that can be done with the
click of the mouse, using Connected Services.
For Skype users, the finalized version of Office will offer direct
Skype sharing and posting. So, if you’re using Microsoft’s Skype program
to chat with a coworker or manager, and you need to quickly send them a
document, you can directly send to Skype via the new Office interface.
Many technology and news websites have reported that Office 2013 will not be compatible with older systems such as XP or Vista.
Thank you for stopping by the site for today’s post. Overall, I will
likely switch to Office 2013, as I am currently running 2007. I like the
new interface and I very much like the new smart features,
writing/blogging features and connected services. For anyone that has
been considering purchasing Office, wait for 2013 to be released, as it
brings quite a few new features and a completely redesigned interface
that will be awesome with Windows 8.
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