Microsoft Office 2010
Microsoft Office 2010
Office 2010 is a new productivity suite offered by Microsoft for Windows. Among its many new features, Office 2010 comes with a redesigned User Interface. The Microsoft Ribbon interface which was visible in Word, Excel and PowerPoint in Office 2007, has been modified in Office 2010. The ribbon in Office 2010 will also be visible in Outlook, Visio, One Note and Publisher.
Microsoft Office 2010 is the newest version of office suite offered by Microsoft and will enable users to complete tasks in a way they want. Office 2010 is suitable for users who are engaged in research, development initiatives, sales and human resources etc.
Microsoft Office 2010 is a refined and enhanced version over Microsoft’s previous productivity suites. Office 2010 includes Microsoft Access 2010, Microsoft Excel 2010, Microsoft PowerPoint 2010, Microsoft Word 2010, Microsoft InfoPath 2010 Microsoft OneNote 2010, Microsoft Outlook 2010, Microsoft Office Communicator 2010, and Microsoft Publisher 2010. The office suite will also include Microsoft SharePoint Workspace 2010, which is included in Professional Plus and Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2010 a free, downloadable product.
Microsoft Office 2010 contains a number of obvious changes that make it the definitive version of the popular productivity suite, but it’s still a mammoth pile of code that requires work to master. Learning a few tricks can greatly improve your efficiency. Here are ten of our favorites, ranging from keyboard shortcuts to ways to keep tabs on your social networks.
1. Open Recently used files with two Keystrokes
In older versions of Office, the File menu always displayed your recently used document which you could open by typing Alt-F1, then the number of the document on the list (1 for the most recent, 2 for next most recent, etc.).This feature isn’t turned on by default in Office 2010, but you can activate it by entering the Backstage view, selecting Recent, and adding a check box next to Quickly access this number of recent documents. Change the number to whatever number of documents you want to see on the list. In the Recent Documents list, you can “pin” a document to the list so that it will always appear, even if you haven’t opened it recently. A nifty new feature lets you “pin” entire folders to the list of Recent Places in the right-hand column on the menu.
2. Add a Redaction tool to Word
Unlike Adobe Acrobat and Corel Word- Perfect, Word doesn’t come with a built-in redaction tool, which means that you can’t permanently hide text in a Word document. Still, you can add that functionality to Word 2010’s Review tab by installing the Word 2007 Redaction Tool. Just be careful—when text is replaced by a black box, you can’t press Ctrl-Z to reverse the redaction.
3. Do everything With the Keyboard
Office’s Ribbon interface looks as if it’s designed for the mouse, but you can fight carpal-tunnel syndrome and other wrist problems by using the keyboard instead. Tapping the Alt key causes boxed letters to appear on all the Ribbon’s tabs, and boxed numbers to appear on the Quick Access. For example, type “H” and the Home tab opens, complete with boxed letters (and a few sequences of two letters like “FN” and “PG”) that you can press to access all the
features on the tab. Galleries-like the gallery of styles on the Home tab-have letters located on the scroll bar to their right. You can type “L” for Styles on the Home tab, and tap the appropriate letter to open the gallery, so you can navigate it with the arrow keys.Type Alt again to exit this mode.
Office finally lets you rearrange the Ribbon the way you want by clicking the File tab to go to Backstage, selecting Options, and then Customize Ribbon. In the righthand column, you can create a new tab or a new group on an existing tab, remove or rearrange items already on the Ribbon by selecting them in the right-hand column, or select items that you want to add from the list on the left. Long-term Office users may want to use the Commands not on the ribbon
function because you can now add a command that you used in older Word versions that were nixed due to lack of demand.
5. Open Documents that office Wants to Block
In Office 2007, if you tried to open a document created in very old versions of Office, an error message would appear, and you would be unable to open it. Office 2010, fortunately, makes it easy to override those blocks. In Word or Excel, go to File, Options, Trust Center, click Trust Center Settings, then select File Block Settings, and remove the check marks from the older Office files that you want Office 2010 to open.
6. Print only one Page of an outlook Message
Other Office apps let you print the current page (or one or more numbered pages) directly from the Print menu in the Backstage view by clicking the down arrow next to the Print All Pages button to see the pagerange options. Outlook doesn’t offer this on its Print menu; instead, you must click the tiny Print Options button on the Print menu, then select a Page Range option.
7. Integrate social networks into outlook
Outlook’s “Social Connector” feature lets you integrate LinkedIn updates (and Facebook and others in the future), but the method for setting this up isn’t obvious. You’ll need to download and install Linked In for Outlook. You’ll also have to ignore the warning that details the need to install the Outlook Social Connector (that advice applied only to the public beta of Outlook 2010). Finally, in Outlook, click the View tab, People Pane, and then the down arrow to access Account Settings and log in.
8. Make Your own Quick steps in outlook
Outlook’s new Quick Steps feature lets you create one-click (or one-keystroke) e-mail actions; for example, moving a message to a folder you use for archiving messages. Create a new Quick Step by going to Outlook’s Home tab, then clicking Quick Steps, Create New. There you’ll assign a name, shortcut key, and tooltip for your Quick Step then use the drop-down menus to select
one or more actions. You can find your new Quick Step from the gallery of Quick Steps in the Home tab, or via a shortcut key
9. Create sparkline Microcharts in excel
Excel’s niftiest new feature is its “microcharts,” or Sparklines. These tiny bar and line charts occupy a single cell, and represent a row or column of numeric data. You can experiment with these by opening a worksheet that has labels in the left column and numeric data in the remaining columns, inserting a new column between the labels and the data, and then creating a Sparkline (by clicking a cell in the new column, and selecting Insert, Sparklines, and either Line, Column, or Win/Loss). A dialog box opens that lets you enter the range of cells to the right of the selected cell either by typing in the address or selecting the cells in the worksheet itself. Click OK, and your microchart appears in the cell where you started.
10. Broadcast a slideshow from PowerPoint
The best new idea in PowerPoint is its built-in broadcast feature, which you can launch by opening a Presentation, clicking File, Save & Send, Broadcast Slide Show, clicking the Broadcast Slide Show button, and then Start Broadcast.The first time you do this, you’llneed to log in to Microsoft’s free broadcast service with a Windows Live ID but you can choose the option to log in automatically in the future. When the broadcast is ready, the dialog box will display a Send in Email link, which you can use to send an invitation link to your audience.
Probably every person, who is at least a bit interested in technology news know that Microsoft had just released a new Office suite ''Microsoft Office 2010'', however both, individuals and business companies, are wondering, is it worth to to spend a money on this new software version ? Therefore, I decided to create a hub about Office 2010 and write an independent review about its advantages and disadvantages, as well as my personal thoughts about this software.
Word
Of course, better pricing is important only for the new customers, however most of us already have older Office versions, so what new features we can find in the newer version ?
The first thing, which caught my eye was a completely changed picture editing in Word. I am working with pictures in Word documents everyday, so I know that this is one of the worst parts of Microsoft Office 2007 , as you have very limited configuration settings, so every time, then you want to make more advanced changes to pictures or photos, you have to open alternative picture editing software and then upload that picture to Word again, hopefully Office 2010 don't have these problems anymore and I am happy to see this new picture editing interface:
Another great feature is better diagrams templates. I had no complaints about previous Office versions diagrams, however there was only a few standard templates, so all Word documents with statistical information looked quite the same, without any uniqueness. Office 2010 changed this, as in this newer version you can find more standard templates, as well as new add-ons, such as better 3D graphics capabilities. Just look at these new graphics templates:
Excel
Word is not the only program in the Office suite, which got a great improvements, so, what kind of upgrades we get in the Excel 2010 ? To be honest, the previous Excel version worked very well for me and I have no complaints about it, however I didn't liked the fact that all calculations are a bit too complicated and for some tasks, I had to look for a guide in the internet, how to do one thing or another. Excel 2010 solved this problem by adding more interactivity, so now you don't have to be a ''software guru'' to group all statistical information and make charts, according to calculations within a few clicks. This is some pictures of the new Excel 2010 interface:
PowerPoint
PowerPoint 2010 was not forgot by Microsoft too. PowerPoint 2007, as well as Excel 2007, worked without problems for me and it was the only Microsoft Office program, which had no competition (word and excel alternatives from Open Office were quite good, but this open source project lacked of the main PowerPoint features). The only disappointment was problems with video files, as even basic functions, such as video embed in the presentation were quite complicated. PowerPoint 2010 solved this problem with the same ''interactivity style'', so now you can simply ''drag and drop'' video files, as well as configure them with a few mouse clicks. A few photos from the new PowerPoint interface:
OneNote
Most of non-business Office users probably don't know OneNote program very well, however I was using it a lot then I was writing for a blog with a group of other writers, as this program allows to synchronize all documents easily, so you don't have to pay for the expensive files synchronization services, but despite its easy interface, it lacked of some essential features for this kind of program, for example, the search function was so basic that it was almost impossible to manage a large number of files. Hopefully, OneNote 2010 added a lot of additional functions and features, including the new search interface with more filters. I also like the idea to make this applications, as ''internet friendly'', as possible, as now it is possible to exchange important documents straight from the internet browser. A few screenshots from the new OneNote 2010:
A Few Disadvantages...
All mentioned features makes Office 2010 the best Office suite in the market, however I must mention some points, which, in my opinion, should be improved in order to make Office 2010 even better.
Firstly, the design looks identical to the previous Office version, so, despite its great looking, it is a high possibility to click something accidentally, as all buttons are too ''blurry'' and you can't see the buttons and windows corners very well. Of course, it is a minor bug, but it can become very annoying, so I can recommend Microsoft to solve this problem, to achieve better customers satisfaction.
Moreover, due to my mentioned fact that Microsoft improved the cheapest version of Office suite and now it has all essential features without any limitations, the ''middle-class'' version, ''Home And Business'' seem to be overpriced, as it is almost two times more expensive than ''Home And Office'' version (~$220), but the only additional feature is Outlook program. Microsoft probably understand that users won't be paying double price for just a one little improvement, so they acted aggressively and created terms that customers can't use cheapest ''Home And Office'' version for any commercial or revenue generating activity. It is a real shame to promote a more expensive version just by adding formal limitations, instead of making it better.
Finally, I haven't noticed any improvements in spelling correction and it is a huge disappointment, as we are living in the fast moving world, so, if you are blogger or journalist, sometimes you just don't have a time to read your whole article again, so these minor features might be your best friends and their improvement must be in Microsoft top priority upgrades list.
Verdict
To sum up, Office 2010 have corrected almost all previous version problems and add a large variety of useful functions, which will be used not one time per year, or just out of curiosity, but most users will use them everyday and enjoy faster work and more interactive interface.
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