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All Office 2010 Apps

Let's take a look at what's new in all Office 2010 programs. Firstly we shall start with the most obvious one - Backstage!

Backstage

Backstage is the replacement for the File Menu/Office Button in Office 2007. It combines all the features of that old File menu and in some cases makes it much smarter and easier. In Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Publisher, Visio and InfoPath there are 5 sections in Backstage. The Info section displays important and relevant information about the current document. In Word it will display things such as permissions, versioning and checking compatibility with previous versions of word, as well as the Open, Save, Save As and Close. In PowerPoint it will say things like, have you compressed the pictures and videos etc. The Recent section lists recent documents, you can pin documents here and also remove them from the list - which is great. The New section is where you get access to all of Microsoft's great templates! The Print section is just fantastic - it's Microsoft's new smart decision to bring Print and Print Preview together (except OneNote, Visio and InfoPath) - because when you print a document, you naturally want to preview it before you print it, so make it one action - very smart decision by Microsoft. The next section is Share. This is where you can send your documents via e-mail or fax, where you can convert your document format to a format that older versions of your Office program can read and other word processors or spreadsheet clients or presentation managers. You can also save as PDF and to a Sharepoint Sever if you want. The last section is simply named Word, or Excel, or PowerPoint etc - the name of the program you're currently using. Here any of the other add-ins are listed as well as Program Options, the About screen, activation and the Exit Button. In Outlook and OneNote the commands are similar, but more suited for each program's functions.

Customisable Ribbon

In Office 2007, Microsoft introduced the concept of the "Ribbon" interface. Some people loved it (like myself), a lot of people who had gotten used to how Word had worked through 95, 97, 2000, XP(2002) and 2003 or a combination of them did not like the new ribbon as it meant learning something new. The Ribbon was only included in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access and the individual item windows in Outlook. In Office 2010, the ribbon has been extended to all of the applications (except Picture Manager and the Clip Art Organiser), but the ribbon has got a new feature to it, I'm calling this one of the Killer Features to upgrade for - The Customisable Ribbon. You can create your own tabs with your own custom set of commands, hide or edit the current Microsoft choosings and once you're finished customising to your heart's content, you can export your settings so you can take them to another computer to import again! This to be itself is a big feature to all those of you who hated Office 2007's ribbon interface, now you can make it work the way you want.

Word

Word 2010 hasn't got too many upgrades to it in this version - which makes sense because most of the improvements were made in Office 2007. All I can really mention is some new formatting designs, the new web version of Word that will beta later this year and that when using SharePoint - you can have multiple editors on the same document at the same time, with changes occuring in real time. Oh and also Word, Excel and PowerPoint can now capture a screenshot and paste it into the document in 2 clicks.

Excel

Excel 2010 like it's Word counterpart has had too many changes in Office 2010. The main one is the new Sparklines chart feature. These are charts that fit into a single cell and are designed to show trends.A very useful feature for statistics indeed. Excel 2010 also now has Slicers. This allows you to narrow down on information you need to focus on.

Access

Having a look through Access 2010, I couldn't actually find anything new, except for Backstage and Customisable Ribbons. It appears that Access has been practically ignored in this recent upgrade. If you're looking for something new in Access, it may be there, but I haven't found it yet.

If you're looking at Word, Excel or Access alone to give you reasons to upgrade to Office 2010 then you may be disappointed. Other than the features that Microsoft have added to the whole suite (Backstage and Customisable Ribbons) then there's not too much that's change in Word, Excel or Access. If you are happy with Word, Excel or Access 2007, then you may be fine to stick with them, if you are planning to upgrade from Office 2003 though, wait till Office 2010 is available and skip Office 2007. Most of the improvements have been made in PowerPoint, Publisher, Outlook and OneNote in this version.

Outlook

Outlook 2010 has had some significant improvements made to it - especially when used with an Exchange Server. The first thing is Outlook has the ribbon interface in Office 2010. If connected to an Exchange server, then Outlook will warn you if you're going to be sending a message to a large amount of people or to someone outside the company - designed to help stop those accidental e-mails that can cause real trouble to a company. Outlook also features conversation view, this will group mail that is related to each other, e.g continuous replies between people into one item in your inbox - which you can expand if needed. Another new feature is Quick Steps, if you have an action you perform on a regular basis, such as forward to my Manager, add an appointment to my Calendar etc, you can set up a one click button which will perform that action to the currently selected piece of mail. Most of these are business improvements which will benefit only those who use Microsoft Exchange, but there's still some real nice stuff in there for the average users too.

PowerPoint

PowerPoint 2010 offers a number of improvements, many which seem to be to compete with Apple's Keynote presentation software - a part of the iWork suite. The first is the number of new animations, some of which are quite impressive indeed. Secondly the new transitions - these are also impressive. Thirdly is video editing built right in to PowerPoint - now you can trim and do basic video editing right within powerpoint, no need to edit your movies before importing them, this is a real timesaver. Another is called Broadcast Slide show. If you need to show your slideshow to people, but they are not in the same room - you can generate an e-mail link, which when opened by the recipient will display your presentation, and it will change slides when you do, it also works on mobiles and don't worry if the person doesn't have powerpoint - it runs through the web browser too.

Publisher

Publisher 2010 gains the Ribbon - YAY! It also gains some decent page viewing controls, with nice big previews down the left side. Also it appears the templates work a bit better now. It also now has something called Catalog Pages, these may have been in Publisher 2007 but I they appear to be new.

OneNote

OneNote 2010 like Publisher and it's other friends, gains the Ribbon in this version. It also gains a nice search box, for searching through the many notes you'll probably collect! Not too much else to say about OneNote really.

So Should I Buy Office 2010?

The Verdict! If you just want to use Word, Excel and Access and currently use Office 2007, then Office 2010 won't do much more for you really, stick with your current versions. If you want the cool effects of PowerPoint 2010 then check it out. Publisher is improved in Office 2010, and if you're using Outlook 2007 - then definitely check out Outlook 2010, great stuff there. OneNote is improved with the ribbon and search, but not that much compared to PowerPoint, Publisher and Outlook. If you're a business who uses SharePoint and Exchange - then Office 2010 is definitely for you, most of the new features involve SharePoint and Exchange!