Microsoft
delivers another underwhelming Office upgrade
by
Alan Zisman (c) 2010 First published in
Business
in Vancouver July 6 - 12, 2010 issue #1080
High Tech Office column
On June 15, Microsoft released the latest incarnation of its Office
software under the name (let’s see if you can guess it) … Microsoft
Office 2010. The company claims 750 million MS Office users. You’re
probably among them.
I lost count of how many different versions of MS Office I’ve written
about when the number passed a dozen. Each new version provides modest
tweaks to what is a mature product.
The last version, MS Office 2007, shook things up a bit. It added new
file formats and replaced the menu and toolbar interface with what
Microsoft calls “ribbons” – sets of large icons attempting to make the
many program features more discoverable.
While Microsoft claims this new interface is more easily learned, I
never warmed up to it and fumble around looking for options that I used
to be able to find quickly.
The new version keeps the same file formats and tweaks the ribbon
interface. Last time around, clicking a round image in the upper left
(the “pearl”) revealed options like print and save. Too many users
ignored it, thinking it was just a design element. Now, like the
classic menu interface, users find the word “file” instead, in what
Microsoft refers to as the backstage area.
The ribbon interface is extended to Outlook and Publisher, which had
kept the old look in Office 2007. Also new: the ability to customize
ribbons with the tools you use the most and to export these ribbons, so
that you can use them on multiple (Office 2010) systems. A little arrow
icon turns ribbons on and off – handy on height-challenged netbook
screens.
Beyond the interface, there are a number of new and useful features.
PDF export is finally built in. PowerPoint users can make some basic
edits to inserted video clips. Imported photos can be cropped and their
backgrounds removed right in Word or PowerPoint, which replaces
dedicated photo editing software in many cases. Fancy typographical
features have been added to the font dialogue box.
Excel gains “sparklines” – miniature bar or line graphs that reside in
a single cell for quick representation of trends in the spreadsheet. An
optional 64-bit Office version adds the ability to work with huge
files. (Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions are on the same installation
disc.)
Nice features. But must-have? Not really.
Perhaps more interesting are the other members of the MS Office family,
which were released at the same time.
If you’ve bought a new computer for home use in the last while, odds
are that it came with a 60-day trial version of Microsoft Office or a
copy of Microsoft’s low-function MS Works. Both have been replaced with
Microsoft Office Starter 2010.
Not available for retail sale, Starter provides ad-supported,
reduced-function versions of Word and Excel 2010. Some may find that
the starter versions of these programs offer more than enough power for
their home needs and, unlike MS Works, they save in the same formats as
their full-scale MS Office siblings. Microsoft will be happy to up-sell
starter users to the full Office 2010 package.
Also new are Microsoft Office Web Apps (at
www.office.live.com):
simplified online versions aiming to undercut Google Docs. Some pluses:
a hefty 25 gigabytes of online storage with a free Microsoft SkyDrive
account. And Office Web Apps do a good job of displaying documents
created with the standard MS Office components. They’re usable with
Windows and Macs running most major web browsers, are free and don’t
require a copy of MS Office installed (iPhone and iPad users can view
saved documents, but not edit them, which is also the case with Google
Docs).
As with Google Docs, users will find these online Office tools less
powerful than full-fledged word processors, spreadsheets and
presentation software installed on their local hard drives. Beware:
complex documents may look great on-screen until you try to use Web
Apps to edit them, and Microsoft’s Office Web Apps lack Google Docs’
useful real-time collaboration features – unless you’re part of a
business network running a Microsoft SharePoint server.
Microsoft is hoping its new starter and Web Apps versions will compete
with free OpenOffice and Google Docs while encouraging users to move up
to the full (and not free) Microsoft Office 2010.