Although a new release of ‘Office’ doesn’t inspire me to start doing the happy dance, (especially comparing the feature differences between 2003 to 2007), after doing some research and having a play around I’ve found Office 2010 has some pretty cool new features and it’s definitely worth checking out. However, if you’re like me and you’d rather just try it out now and read about it later, I’m giving you the opportunity right here and now to jump from reading to doing! We have the full suite of Microsoft Office 2010 available live via our CloudApp demo. Check it out here.
Ok, so if you’re reading this you’re tempted enough to at least have a look at whats on offer first before racing over to the live demo. There are quite a few new features, so I’ve condensed them down to the ones I think you’d be interested in most.
1. Send as PDF in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote and Publisher
Finally, you can send as PDF without needing Adobe Acrobat or some other third party app! You could actually access this feature in Office 2007 by downloading a plugin but it’s in Office 2010 by default. I know this will be one feature I’ll be using very often.
2. Outlook Social Connectors in Outlook
If you were thinking by ‘Social connectors’ that meant ‘connecting to social networks’ you’d be absolutely right! Since every man, woman and their dog and cats are socially networking via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others; Microsoft have added in the ability to connect into these networks via Outlook. Pretty cool eh? Once setup Outlook will grab data you’re normally accustomed to like contact details, profile pictures and status updates and uses them in various parts of the application, such as the in the People Pane and your address book. You could consider this the tip of the iceberg for social connectors as social networking is here to stay so it’ll be interesting to see this feature develop.
3. Outlook Ignore Feature
Ever joked about setting up auto-delete rules within outlook for a particular person? Well I know quite a few people who would love the new Ignore feature of Outlook 2010. The Ignore button that’s been added to Outlook allows you to get rid of conversation threads that you aren’t interested in or you are just part of the CC’d brigade that really doesn’t need to be included. It will automatically delete all messages in your Inbox that belong to the thread, and any subsequent emails relating to that thread.
4. Outlook Quick Steps
Heard about the no more than 3 clicks rule? Well another great new Outlook feature is Quick Steps. This gives you the ability to create a single click operation that will perform multiple steps for you. For example, if you find yourself constantly forwarding emails to a particular group or person instead of clicking forward and then typing the addresses into the To box, you just click the button you created eg “To current clients”, and the forwarded message appears with their addresses already entered.
5. Simultaneous editing
It is what you think, same time editing of the same file. You simply have a notification telling you who is editing what part of the file. Very handy for collaboartion on the same report or document.Word also has the ability to cache the files you work on so when you take your laptop away you can continue working on them and when you hook back into the network it will seemlessly update the networked version. Many people already achieve this this with offline files/folders but I thought it was worth mentioning.
6. Outlook SMS feature
I haven’t gone through the entire process of setting this up but I did see the option to add an SMS gateway to outlook. This will basically allow you to send out txt messages without digging your phone out of your pocket. It’ll also allow you to send SMS’s easily to multiple recipients, for example let your team know the bar is open and the drinks have started or to let a client know you are running a little late for your appointment….(cause you’re at the bar).
7. Embedded Videos in PowerPoint
Video is pretty much the standard for rich media content so it’s a wonder why embedded videos whether locally or via a webpage haven’t been implemented previously. Powerpoint 2010 also allows you powerful editing of the videos to enable you to grab just the bits you want and slot them into your presentation. It’s not something I use a lot of but when I do next I’ll be sure to be embedding some vids.
8. Broadcast Slide Show in PowerPoint
PowerPoint’s Broadcast Slideshow feature is basically webinar functionality added to a powerpoint presentation. So you no longer need Webex or Gotomeeting? With this feature you simply create a link, send it your mates and upon clicking they’ll see your presentation in unison with yours. For those quick needed conferences this feature is worth checking out.
9. Video Presentations in PowerPoint
This is probably my second favourite feature at the moment. But I could have done with it a week ago when I had to convert a Powerpoint presentation to DVD doing it the manual way of using a third party utility.This is great if you want to upload a presentation to YouTube or share your Powerpoint in a more friendly manner via video or if your mother-in-law assumed a powerpoint presentation would play on a DVD player!
So there you have it!
Hopefully there were couple new features that tempted you to do the happy dance – my favourite at the moment is the PDF feature – no more third party app for PDF creation! If you have a favourite let us know by commenting below.
And If you want to check it out in action feel free to have a look at Office 2010 live via our CloudApp demo.
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