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Microsoft Office 2010
December 4, 2009 | 17 Comments
I finally got my hands on the Office 2010 Beta and have installed it on both my home and work PC’s. For those wanting to get their hands on the Beta version to try, I believe it is now freely available on the Office 2010 site.
I will do some more detailed reviews in the coming days as I really dig in to playing with it but wanted to get people’s thoughts on a couple of things I notice as soon as I unwrap the suite.
New Interface
One of the things that jumps out on first use is that Microsoft have followed in the footsteps of Adobe Creative Suite 4 with their minimalist, flat user interface. At first glance I hated it as it felt too “grey” and not broken up enough but honestly you get used to it after a few uses.
Word 2010
Excel 2010
Powerpoint 2010
Outlook now has the Ribbon
Not sure if this is a good thing or not honestly, I have lost the Send/Receive option from the Home tab and this is a little annoying. I have replaced my home Outlook 2007 with this and functionally I really like it, though I will admit I am not a heavy email user.
Outlook 2010 Email
Outlook 2010 Calendar
Backstage
Microsoft have replaced the Office Button that made it’s appearance in Office 2007 and add the new File tab in. This now opens a full screen area known as Backstage. It is where you find all of the usual functions such as saving, printing and sharing.
Office 2010 Backstage
Sharing with Skydrive
One of the really nice new features bundled with Office 2010 is the ability to store your documents in to the cloud on Windows Skydrive. This is 25GB (for now) storage attached to your Windows Live account that can be used to store anything you like and shared with your family and friends or the general public.
Office 2010 Skydrive
Skydrive File List
Office Web Apps
Continuing on with the push towards cloud computing, and competing heavily with Google Docs, Microsoft have launched a free version of a few Office applications to edit yoyr documents online. This is known as Office Web Apps and you can access it via the Beta site.
Office 2010 Web Apps
I have placed a demo file up on my Skydrive to allow you to take it for a test spin. The functionality is cut down but for day to day use I am highly impressed!
What are your initial thoughts? Is there anything specifically you’d like to know?
Jordan xxoo
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