Microsoft Office 2010 has now entered its public beta phase, and it's already looking like a pretty substantial upgrade to the 2007 version, and a huge improvement on earlier editions of the omnipresent Office app suite. Here's ten reasons why you should give it a try.

The "Starter Edition" is free

Remember the hilariously-titled Microsoft Works? It never did, and the company got a whole lot of stick for that one, so it's dumping it entirely. Installed on new PCs in its place will be Microsoft Office 2010 Starter Edition - a free, ad supported, feature-limited version of Word and Excel.

But feature-limited doesn't mean you won't be able to do anything useful. Microsoft has tuned the functionality so that an average user who wants nothing more than to write a letter, or an invoice, or perhaps an essay, will still be able to do that with no problems. It's more hardcore stuff like macros and change-tracking in Word, or pivot tables and data analysis in Excel, that you'll have to pay for.

You can stream the software

If you decide you want to give the fuller version a try, but aren't ready to pay for it yet, then you can stream a trial version of the full software from the Web. Seriously. A 2-meg download will get you a "wrapper" that'll let you start up any of the apps within less than 2 minutes. From there, you can use the software as normal while the rest of the functionality downloads in the background.

Microsoft says the experience will be a bit slower than a downloaded version, but it can work out what you're doing and pre-emptively pull down any functions that might be shortly called-upon. The only time you'll see egg-timers is if you dart wildly between unrelated functionality like a Tasmanian Devil. Oh, and once it's downloaded, it stays cached, so you won't need to download again next time.

There's online versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote

A third option for cheapskates is to use the brand new, completely free, web app versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. They work in conjunction with SkyDrive (which we'll come to in a minute) to allow you to access and edit documents, spreadsheets, presentations and notebooks from anywhere in the world without a hefty software install.

They're multiplatform and don't have quite the same full functionality as the desktop versions - limited in the same way as the starter edition - but should give the basic user the vast majority of what they need to get stuff done from anywhere in the world, as well as fighting back against Google Docs.

You can sync your documents to SkyDrive?

Another handy feature, which is related to the last point, is the tie-in with Microsoft's SkyDrive feature. This, if you're not aware, is a 25GB online storage space provided free by Microsoft to anyone with a Windows Live account. It's accessible anywhere on the Web and handily you can save your documents in Office 2010 to it.

From then on, anytime you save that document, it'll save straight to SkyDrive - not your local PC. You can also access the Office 2010 web apps through Skydrive, so you can edit to your heart's content even when you're not on a computer with a version of Office installed.

When you finally buy it, you get a scratchcard?

So you've read the above, and decided that you do actually need to shell out money for the Office suite. Perhaps you need a pivot table, or a fancy transition in PowerPoint. Perhaps you need access to Access, or to Outlook or Publisher. In that case, you can go into a shop and buy a scratchcard.

That card has a product key on it, which you put in on a website and you'll get a download of the software that arrives in the same way as the trial version above - streaming to your computer. You'll be able to start using it within minutes while the rest of the suite downloads in the background.

Docs look identical across the desktop, the web, and the mobile phone

One of the irritations of using Office alternatives like Google Docs and OpenOffice is that you can never be sure that the document that you've lovingly laid out in those apps will open the same in Microsoft's version. A crucial essay submission could be rejected if it doesn't match the style rules.

So Microsoft has put a lot of work into making sure its documents look identical across the "three screens" - the desktop app, the web app, and the mobile phone version of the software, available on Windows Mobile. No more double-checking page breaks, margins and cell formatting.

Better performance

We've been testing a pre-release version of Office 2010 for a week now, and gosh it's fast. Older versions of Office crawled along, but if the final release is as zippity as this, then we'll be impressed. The most used Office apps seem to load within a second, with the less used, heftier ones, taking not much longer.

Within the apps, too, things seem to move about a little more responsively. There appears to have been a decent bit of background optimization, as well as the removal of the little bits of Office that sit in your taskbar and degrade your general computer performance.

Better printing experience

Among the various UI improvements, we wanted to highlight one in particular. While the whole "file" menu has been revamped, one of the best bits is the new print experience. Now, rather than having to remember to hit "print preview" before hitting ctrl-P, the two functions are integrated.

That means no more panicking when you're half-way through a vast printout that you forgot to switch it to 6-slides-a-page, or off full quality colour. A full preview of exactly what'll be flying out of your printer is displayed on screen, and easy to customise.

Photo & video editing?

This is a subtle one, but it could have wide-ranging implications. Microsoft has integrated basic photo and video editing tools into Office - allowing you to crop, trim, apply filters, correct for brightness and contrast, and add pretty borders. The functionality is pretty powerful, especially when it comes to video.

Could this eat into sales of dedicated photo and video editors? It's entirely possible - most people won't need much more than these tools to include video and pretty images into their next slideshow.

Embed web videos

Lastly, one of the niftiest new features is the ability to stick YouTube videos, or other embeddable web videos, into your documents. Grab the embed code from the site and paste it into a handy text box, and you'll see it appear in your presentation or notebook, complete with controls.

Then, when you're doing your big presentation, you can just hit play on the screen - rather than having to alt-tab to a browser, displaying your bright pink taskbar and Buffy the Vampire Slayer wallpaper.

Conclusions

Office 2010 has some pretty nifty features, and includes a whole host of improvements that should make your documents, spreadsheets, presentations, notebooks and everything else look considerably sparklier.

But we'd love to hear what your favourite features are. See that comment box down there? Go download Office 2010 and fill it up with your thoughts.

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Tags: Software PC software Office software Microsoft Microsoft Office 2010 Features

Ten reasons to try out Microsoft Office 2010 originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:00:00 +0000

Microsoft has revealed that the 2010 edition of its phenomenally successful Office suite has now entered beta. The software can be downloaded directly from Microsoft.com/office/2010.

The new version has a whole host of improvements, many of which will be familiar to those who have been following the progress of the Technical Preview. There's now web versions of Word, Excel, Powerpoint and OneNote, an ad-supported "starter edition" that replaces Microsoft Works, a "backstage" view for your apps and a bazillion bug fixes and performance improvements.

We'll bring you a full review in time, but for now go grab the beta, install it, and let us know what you think of Microsoft's new Office suite in the comments box below. We rather like it so far, but will bring you a full First Look shortly, and review when it's released.

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Tags: Software PC software Office software Microsoft Microsoft Office 2010

MS Office 2010 beta now available originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:00:00 +0000

Microsoft has updated its Office 2008 for Mac software, with version 12.2.3 now available to download from the Help and Support section of Microsoft's website. ?

As well as the usual security and stability fixes, the update includes fixes for vulnerabilities that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of a computer's memory by using malicious code.

As far as stability goes, 12.2.3 fixes an issue that causes Office 2008 applications to close unexpectedly while metafile issues with text spacing in Windows Office docs have also been addressed.

Improvements in Word means certain unexpected closures will be no more while similar closure issues in Excel have also been looked at, including the bug that meant the Workday Function would not recognise weekends and holidays, which we'd like to think was implemented originally by a mischievous coder.

There's similar stories across PowerPoint, Entourage and Microsoft Document Connection for Mac with the message to be drawn that you really want to install this update if you want to see all round improvements.

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Tags: Software Mac software Microsoft Office software Software updates

Microsoft issues update for Office 2008 for Mac originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:55:34 +0000

Microsoft has announced that it's dumping its Office-lite software, Microsoft Works, in favour of an ad-supported "Office Starter 2010". The idea is that PC makers will install the full version of Office on computers they sell, but that users will be subject to advertising and reduced features until they purchase a license for the software.

Buying that full version will be made easier, too. Instead of selling a big box, retailers will instead carry a plastic card with a license number inside - you can enter the number and your software will be unlocked. Only Word and Excel will be available in the ad-supported version.

This appears to be a "win" for all concerned. Light users get a functional MS Office, without all the functions that heavy users need but which they probably wouldn't use. Microsoft get revenue from those light users - a source of cash that wasn't previously open to them. Retailers get an easier way to sell office, and heavy users get the benefits of more features from the new cash rolling in.

What this means for Office Web Apps, though, remains to be seen - it could harm its development. We'll keep you posted of further info.

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Related links:

• News - Office 2010 Web Apps go live...
• Via - Betanews

Tags: Software Office software Microsoft Microsoft Office 2010

Microsoft introduces Office Starter 2010 originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 09 Oct 2009 10:00:26 +0100