Ballmer officially introduced the new suite of MS Office, completely renovated and known as Office 2013.
The very first thing that stands out as probably the most expected, is that it is completely influenced by Metro UI to take advantage of every detail that has come with Windows 8, for both PC and Tablets. In the case of using a computer (all in one, for example) one can activate the touch screen multi-touch gestures to start using the screen with the fingers.
While in classic mode, most applications will work normally despite having Metro design. In terms of operation, each application will be integrated with Skydrive, i.e., that all we do is out of sync in the cloud and can be accessed at any time.
The Evolution of Applications
At first glance, both Word 2013 and PowerPoint 2013 (to name a few applications) will present an interface that bears some resemblance to Office 2007 or Office 2010, however there are small details that indicate that this new version of Office keeps some surprises
Word 2013
Word is one of the most commonly used Office applications and in Word 2013 one of the most interesting change is the way that will allow us to browse documents as if it were a book, obviously being from a tablet or a touch screen. All this is integrated with the Web, while we are reading we can do consultations with Bing, and also use annotate and translations from the same interface.
Excel 2013
Excel 2013 also comes with some interesting developments with a view to facilitating the use of this spreadsheet is loved by some and so hated by others. Excel 2013 “learn” from our usage and will help us auto-complete cells automatically without having to resort to formulas or macros. Self-correction functions are improved to locate errors or inconsistencies in the data.
Excel will also integrate with various Web services and data processing in real time without breaking the head statistics.
Powerpoint 2013
PowerPoint comes ready to improve our performances and productivity. PowerPoint 2013 offers us the possibility of linking our Facebook, Flickr or LinedIn account to obtain content (pictures, videos, etc.) from these social networks and we can insert them in our presentations in a very comfortable way.
Outlook 2013
Outlook comes with support for Exchange ActiveSync, i.e., we may use services in the cloud sync (contacts, notes, tasks, calendars, etc) without having to deploy an Exchange Server in our company. Specifically, Outlook 2013 is the component for which Microsoft has placed greater emphasis to the idea of improving user productivity and, above all, its speed of response (messages, appointments, etc.) and organizational capacity (including the forecast time to information meetings on the agenda based on their location).
OneNote 2013
One Note, the Microsoft Notebook also have Metro Interface and similar cloud sync facilities to make files accessible to multiple environments, like that of desktop, tablet or phone with Skydrive.
Integrating Multimedia Applications
This new Office is a clear focus on trying to cover all segments and meet expectations of home users or executives who want to have our documents at all times without using a USB memory device.
Parents of all office remain Word, PowerPoint, Excel, so they were used as examples to demonstrate editing a PDF file in Word, and to integrate multimedia content into a file as a video from Youtube .
The document editing have become a wider concept now. For example, the integration of Facebook, Bing, YouTube, Flickr gives us many more clues of the vast structure and increase in features that we are going to see and use than what we were doing earlier with previous versions of Microsoft Office. The best part is that we don’t need to have our system and USB or any kind of storage devices with us to access our documents, instead we can access them on the move anytime with Microsoft SkyDrive.
Goodbye Windows XP and Vista
By the time final version of Office 2013 is available, which is expected in early 2013, there will be no support for Windows XP and Windows Vista . It’s a logical decision because most of the innovations are focused on touch screens, syncing in the cloud and, if you tried, you know that Skydrive don’t work with Windwos XP, for example. The only alternative in such case or a logical move is to upgrade to the latest version of Windows.
Availability
Office 2013 will support Metro interface and therefore can be managed from devices such as ARM Surface or tablets but for now will be available in desktop version. Office 2013 Preview have arrived in public beta and is available for download. I’ve already downloaded it and using it on my Windows 7.
Conclusion
It is barely a glance, but it is clear that they have tried to cover almost every detail. Perhaps, there are many more features to come but we certainly will have to wait for its Final Release.
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