Introducing Microsoft Office
2010.
First impressions are that Office
2010 is going to be to Office 2007
what Windows 7 is to Vista. Although
there nothing really wrong with
either of them, Vista and Office
2007 inspired an inordinate number
of complaints from consumers and IT
folks alike. Maybe the changes were
a little too drastic or maybe it’s
just that the timing wasn’t right.
Whatever the reasons, many people
skipped the new OS and apps and
stuck with Office 2003 on XP.
One big change is that this
version of Office comes in a 64-bit
version, so those running a 64-bit
OS can take full advantage of 64-bit
performance and stability. Here are
some features that you might
consider when thinking about
upgrading to Office.
1: The Ribbon
Office 2010 not only keeps the
Ribbon; it has now been added to all
the Office programs, including
Outlook and OneNote. But don’t
panic: The Office 2010
implementation is Ribbon Done Right.
The difference is that now you have
control over your Ribbon and what
items appear on its tabs, and you
can even add tabs of your own and
put your favorite commands on there.
No more despair because a favorite
command that was on an Outlook 2003
menu can’t be found anywhere on the
Ribbon.
All you have to do is right-click
the Ribbon and select Customize The
Ribbon. This opens
a dialog box from which you can make
new Ribbon tabs and add or remove
commands from the tabs.
2: Office button options
Office 2007 users are familiar
with the Office button, the big
round button in the upper-left
corner of Office applications, from
which you can select a variety of
tasks and options.
The Office button in Office 2010
has a new look, and it’s been added
to Outlook and OneNote, which didn’t
have it before.
It's
now implemented as a Ribbon
tab in Word 2010.
You’ll find many of the same
options as before, along with a
number of new ones. For example, in
the Sharing section, you’ll now see
options to save the document to
SharePoint or change the file type.
The Back button at the top of the
page returns you to the document
itself.
3: Outlook improvements
The Ignore button that’s been
added to Outlook is just what those
of us who belong to lots of email
discussion lists have been waiting
for. It allows you to get rid of
conversation threads that you aren’t
interested in. Not only will it
delete all messages in your Inbox
that belong to the thread, but it
will automatically delete any
messages pertaining to that thread
that come in later. Highlighting a
message and clicking the Ignore
button displays the dialog box.
Outlook 2010 also makes it easier
to manage conversations. When you
view messages in Conversation View,
you can right-click a conversation
title and select from a number of
actions that you can perform. If you
select Clean Up Conversation,
redundant messages in the
conversation will be deleted. You
can perform more actions on a
conversational thread, including
clean up.
Another great new Outlook feature
is Quick Steps. This is a section on
the Ribbon’s Home tab where you can
create single-click links to perform
tasks that normally require multiple
steps. For example, if I want to
forward a message, instead of
clicking forward and then typing the
address into the To box, you just
click the To link and the forwarded
message appears with his address
already entered.
4: Easier screenshots
There is now the ability to
capture screenshots from inside the
application and paste them into the
document, all in a couple of clicks.
The Screenshot button has been added
to the Insert tab of the Ribbon.
When you click the Screenshot
button, you’ll see the available
screenshots, and you can click on
the one you want to insert into the
document. After you insert a
screenshot, the picture tools will
automatically appear to allow you to
perform photo editing.
5: Photo/video/graphics in Word
and PowerPoint
The photo-editing tools have
gotten more sophisticated in Office
2010. Now you can apply artistic
effects, similar to those available
in third-party photo editing
programs, such as PhotoShop, from
within Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
You even get a thumbnail preview of
what the effect will look like when
applied to your picture.
In PowerPoint, you can apply
artistic effects, reflections,
shadows, etc., to both photos and
videos. The Office 2010 applications
also include several new SmartArt
designs, to make it more likely that
you’ll find one that fits the needs
of your document or slide.
6: Drag-and-drop navigation pane
Another great feature in Word
2010 is the new drag-and-drop
navigation pane. It’s a little like
the Word 2007 document map. Whereas
the document map only gives you a
view of your headers and document
sections, graphics, etc., the
navigation pane lets you rearrange
your document easily by dragging and
dropping within the pane. To turn on
this feature, click the View tab on
the Ribbon and in the Show section,
check the box labeled Navigation
Pane.
Want to move that third
first-level heading (and all the
text under it) up above the second
one, without having to copy and
paste it? No problem: Just drag the
heading where you want it in the
navigation pane, which displays to
the left of your document.
7: Open in Protected View
When you open an existing
document for the first time in Word
2010, if you try to start editing
it, you may be surprised to find
that nothing happens. If you look
more closely, you’ll see that the
Ribbon is hidden. What’s up with
that? The document has opened in
Protected View.
As you can see, a red box across
the top of the document notifies you
that you’re in Protected View and
tells you that the file originated
from an Internet location. This
gives you the opportunity to
determine whether it’s safe to open.
If you click the Enable Editing
button, the document downloads, the
Ribbon appears, and you can make
changes to the document as usual.
8: Excel sparklines and slicers
The most notable additions to
Excel 2010 are two new features
called sparklines and slicers.
Sparklines are tiny charts that fit
into a cell.
The sparklines use the line
format, but you can also create
column or win/loss sparklines. You
can edit the design of the
sparklines, too.
Slicers are objects you can use
to filter the data in pivot tables,
which you can move around or resize
on the screen. When data in the
pivot table changes, the slicer is
automatically updated. Both
sparklines and slicers are created
via the Insert tab on the Ribbon.
To see a demo of the new Excel
features, check out the video at
http://www.microsoft.com/office/2010/
9: OneNote improvements
OneNote has been a bit of a
forgotten stepchild in previous
editions of Office, perhaps because
it only came with the “lowest” and
“highest” editions of Office 2007 —
Home and Student edition and
Ultimate edition. Most Office users
have the Standard, Small Business,
or Professional edition. Microsoft
obviously wants to get more exposure
for OneNote. According to early
reports, Office 2010 features will
follow the same pattern as Windows
7; that is, each successively more
expensive edition will contain all
the applications of those editions
“below” it, and more. That means
OneNote will be included in all
editions of Office 2010.
The most obvious change to
OneNote, as with Outlook, is that
now it sports the Ribbon interface.
In OneNote, however, the Ribbon
is minimized by default. Just click
the small arrow near the Help icon
(blue question mark) in the
upper-right part of the window to
maximize it.
The new OneNote includes a number
of improvements to simultaneous
multiple-user editing of notebooks.
New content that was added (or
changed) by another user is now
highlighted, so you immediately see
what’s new. There is also color
coding to indicate the author of
content that was written by someone
else. Searching has been enhanced,
as well.
Another interesting feature is
linked note taking. If you put
OneNote in linked mode, it will
automatically link your notes to
whatever you’re viewing (Web page,
selection in Word, a particular
slide in a PowerPoint presentation,
etc.). Then, when you hover over the
link in OneNote, you see a thumbnail
of the material to which it’s linked
and you can click it to open the
original.
For editing, OneNote now supports
basic styles. You can also add math
equations, and there is a miniature
translator that provides a tooltip
in your language if you hover over a
foreign word. Finally, on Tablets
and other touchscreen PCs, OneNote
supports touch gestures, such as
finger scrolling and panning and
pinch zoom.
10: Simultaneous editing
If you leave a document open on
one computer, and then need to open
and work on it from a different
computer you get the “file in use”
dialog box that gives me the option
to open a read-only copy, create a
local copy to merge later, or
receive notification when the
original is available. Office 2010
does away with that annoyance.
Now I can pick up where you left
off, or two people can edit a
document simultaneously. A
notification in the status bar tells
you who else is currently editing
the document, and where they’re
making changes. Very cool!
Word can also cache shared
documents so you can edit them when
you’re offline, and any changes you
make will automatically be
synchronized with the original on
the server when you come back
online. Now you don’t have to
remember to merge your document when
you get back.
Summary
Office 2010 still has to go
through a public beta (expected
later this year) before we see it in
its final version, but what we’re
seeing in the technical preview
looks promising. Whether you’re
using Office 2007 or you’re still
using Office 2003, Office 2010 will
offer enough new and improved
features and functionality to make
it worth considering the upgrade.
We would be glad to discuss your
needs and suggest appropriate
solutions. Call Today.
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