13 New Features in Microsoft Office 2010

The Office Suite is one of the biggest cash cows of Microsoft. With the exception of the years in which they release new versions of Windows, Office is the most important thing for Microsoft. This is why, every new version, like Microsoft Office 2010 enjoys all the appropriate honors.

Microsoft Office 2010 was already officially released. But only for businesses, at the moment. Final users will officially get the new version starting next month.

Although is not a revolutionary update, Office 2010 brings a lot of new stuff and changes. Changes to the interface but only to functionality, the new version manages to bring a welcomed refresh to component applications, that were unchanged for 3 years now.

The most important news that it brings s the online version of the Office Suite. Word, Excel and Powerpoint will have online sisters and brothers that will allow the editing of documents directly from the Internet Browser.

The only problem is that Microsoft didn’t managed to release both Office versions simultaneously. The online suite is still in beta mode, and judging by the level of functionality currently offered, it will stay in the beta mode for a good period of time.

So, the most important news regarding Office 2010 is not ready yet.

But, ignoring this aspect, the new version comes with many new features. They are not essential features and they won’t pop-up in the eyes of every user. They are “details” that will be observed by more advanced users and users who already are familiar with most features of the Microsoft Office Suite.

Introduced in Office 2010, the Ribbon is the name of the interface that created a lot of confusion for users who suddenly thought that the menus have disappeared. In Office 2010, the Ribbon is part of all applications, including Outlook and One Note.

Further more, the ribbon is now more flexible. IF you click right on it and you choose the Customize the Ribbon command you can reorder all the features as you please. You can also create a special tab in which you can only add the features that you use on a regular basis. Also, the ribbon can be used in order to get more useful space.

The File Menu was introduced in Office 2007 and improved for Office 2010. If  in the previous version this menu was a pretty good copy of the Start menu of Windows, it now has a new interface and offers quick access to many features.

From the file menu you have access to elementary features like New, Save, Print and so on, but also to the document’s properties. From here, for example, you can fill in the meta information of the document or to establish access permissions.

If you want to save a version of a document that you can distribute online, you can use the new PDF/XPS saving feature.

It doesn’t have a lot of options but the layout of the page is respected, and the PDF will look almost like the original file. You can also choose to save as PDF only specific pages.

With Office 2010 documents can be saved locally but also online. For the second option the SkyDrive servers are used, which is the Microsoft online storage service that gives you 30 GB storage space for free.

All you have to do is pick the Save To Web option and log in to your hotmail / windows live account.

The Insert Tab has a feature that is called Screenshot. This recognizes the opened programs window and lets you save them and insert them in the active document as an image.

Just like Google, Microsoft is not so good as socializing. But it continues to try. A try like this is also found in Outlook 2010.

The personal information and email manager in Office 2010, Outlook, has a communication center where all information related to a specific contact are grouped. Under the Preview window of messages there is now a small box where you can see more messages sent by that contact, attachments, appointments and so on.

From here, you can also see the social activity of your contacts. For example, here you can see their messages posted on social networks.

Unfortunately, this feature is a bit hard to use. You need to install a separate program and there weren’t many social networks implemented in it. From the most popular ones, only Linkedin works for the moment.

In principle, the new feature Quick Steps is a Marco accessible to every user. In other words, it’s a succession of features that are automatically runned.

For example, one of the actions that currently are in Outlook is Reply & Delete that does exactly this: opens the window in which you write your reply to a message and automatically deletes it after it’s send. Based on the needs of every user, multiple combination can be generated.

The previous Word versions had the so-called Document Map. In his place we can now find Navigation panel. It’s not just a name change. With the help of this new feature you can organize your documents more easier.

For example, you can move through a simple drag&drop entire paragraphs of information. With the condition to use the standard title headings. Also here you can change the order of multiple titles at once.

The times in which a document could only be edited by one user are long gone. Now the same document can be opened and edited by multiple users at a time.

The program will let you know every time when somebody opens the document in which you are working. On your status bar a message containing the name of that user is going to be displayed.

The old and obsolete window of the printing feature has been buried and in her place we can see a modern one. The new Print feature is part of the File menu, it doesn’t have a separate window.

No new features appear, only the ones we already know but they are arranged different. Practically, all the options are aligned vertically, near the displayed document.

The Office 2010 Applications that allows you to insert images now have more tools to help you work with images.

Many effects and image editing features have been added. Among them, let’s mention that fact that you can now delete the background and modify the colors.

In PowerPoint presentations you can now include videos from the Internet. And it’s very easy. All you have to do is copy/paste the Embed code.

Obviously, to run the video during presentation you need to have an Internet Connection.

Once you have created a presentation you can choose from multiple saving and sharing options.

If you choose to save as a video, in the respective video you will find all the presentation settings, including the times between slides, animations and transitions. Three resolutions are available for the output video: 320 x 240 pixels , 640 x 480 pixels and HD 4:3 (960 x 720 pixels).

The decision to upgrade to the new Microsoft Office suite implies a lot of reasons that are strictly subjective. It matters for what you are using it, what system do you have, and so on.

Microsoft Office 2010, like all the new versions in the last decade, doesn’t bring many many news. Still, the new version, offers a lot of improvements. And it works very well on Windows 7.

Microsoft Office 2010