Microsoft Office 2010 is a worthy upgrade for businesses and individual
users who need professional-level productivity apps, but it will take
some time to get acclimated with the reworked interface. Users looking
for bare-bones, dead-simple office software should stick with Google's
and other online offerings or continue using older Office versions they
have already mastered.
The world has changed plenty since Microsoft introduced Office 2007. In
that time, Google has become a major player, with its suite of online
tools, and even Apple has made inroads with its iWork office suite,
though admittedly within a smaller set of computer users. Even with the
vast user base of Microsoft Office products, with new competitors in the
market, Microsoft Office 2010 needed to be good. Playing catch-up and
looking forward simultaneously, Microsoft tries, in Office 2010, to
remain (or become) the central hub of your working life, letting you use
your PC, smartphone, and the Web to make your projects come together
more efficiently.
It's true: every application in the suite has been improved and tweaked
in an effort to make your busy days more efficient, but you'll need to
be ready for a learning curve to get accustomed to Office 2010's
changes.
This update isn't for everyone; if you're a power user who has a
specific way you like to do things and want all the same functionality
as an older version of Microsoft Office, then you can probably get by on
an older version. Just like with Office 2007, however, Office 2003 or
earlier versions of the suite will need conversion tools to open many of
the now default Open XML file types. But if you are eager to try out
new time-saving features and are willing to spend some time learning
where everything is, we think you will appreciate this major update.
Even new users of productivity suites and students looking for a solid
set of productivity apps will benefit from the new features in Office
2010--and surely the Academic license is more than reasonable for what
you get.
Office 2010 is almost here
One of the major new changes to the suite is the ability to collaborate
and share your work using Web apps. You can collaborate using Web apps
over your SkyDrive (25GB of available online storage) on Windows Live.
You may also be able to collaborate with a coworker using a slimmed down
Facebook-connected version of the Web apps, however, Microsoft
representatives explained to us that the Facebook-connected version we
saw in the company demo is only a pilot program to test social media
features. As is, having two ways to connect seems a bit confusing to us,
but we'll reserve judgment until the bugs are ironed out.
Office editions
We reviewed Office 2010 Professional, which costs a substantial $499.
This suite includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook,
Publisher, and Access, in addition to SharePoint Workspace for
collaborative tools, and InfoPath Designer for standardized forms. If
you don't need desktop e-mail, you should opt for the lowest tier
Office, Home & Student at $149, which includes Word, Excel,
PowerPoint, and OneNote. Office 2010 Home and Business adds Outlook 2010
to the Home and Student version and costs $279. Office Professional
Academic 2010 is available through authorized academic resellers only
and costs $99. Unfortunately, there is no upgrade pricing for Microsoft
Office 2010, because Microsoft found that most people buy Office when
they buy a new computer and there was little interest in upgrades at
retail outlets.
Setup
We installed Office 2010 on two different test machines, one running
Windows XP and the other running Windows 7. In both cases the standard
installation was fairly painless, clocking in at less than 20 minutes
from start to finish. Requirements to run Office 2010 vary depending on
which operating system you're running, but you'll need at the very least
a 500MHz processor or higher, 256MB of RAM (512MB recommended to use
more advanced features), and Windows XP with Service Pack (SP) 3
(32-bit).
Connectivity to Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server or later is required for
certain advanced functionality in Office Outlook 2010. Instant Search
with options that appear as you type requires Windows Desktop Search
3.0. You will also need Windows Server 2003 with SP1 or later running
Windows SharePoint Services if you want to use the more advanced
collaboration tools. We were happy to see that Office 2010 didn't litter
our desktop with new shortcut icons, leaving it up to us how we wanted
to launch the suite.
Interface
The Ribbon has returned in Office 2010 (first introduced in Office 2007)
and now is offered in all the applications in suite. There was plenty
of resistance among users to the introduction of the Ribbon in Office
2007 across only a few core applications, and now you will be faced with
these changes across all the apps. We can only suggest to those that
are still resistant to the Ribbon that, with time, the cross-application
functionality becomes very useful. The Ribbon now changes based on what
feature you're using at the time and you have the ability to add or
remove features to any Ribbon if you need certain features for your
specific workflow. Just like in Office 2007, there's a core set of
always-on tabs in the Ribbon, as well as contextual tabs that appear
only when the software detects that you need them. Picture formatting
tools, for example, show up as a tab only if you select an image in your
document.
One of the more jarring changes is the file menu that will now take you
to a full-page document management section called Backstage. Like the
old file menu (or logo menu) you'll be able to open, save, and print
your documents from Backstage, but now Microsoft has added a slew of
features to help you with the next steps for your document. You can set
permissions to lock down your changes--including password-protected
document encryption--create access restrictions for specific users, and
include an invisible digital signature to ensure the integrity of the
document.
Save and send features (sharing) are also found in Backstage, along with
the option to inspect the document for hidden data (like document
comments and revisions), Check Accessibility for those with
disabilities, and also to ensure compatibility across older versions of
Office. Once you've properly inspected your document, you can click the
Save and Send button to open up options for auto-attaching the document
to an e-mail, saving to the Web (with a Windows Live account) for
collaboration or accessibility from anywhere, saving to SharePoint for
interoffice availability, and other options. Your print preview options
are also now in Backstage, so you can see how your document will look
without opening extra windows. Though useful, the reworked File menu (or
Backstage window) may be one of the interface tweaks people have a hard
time getting used to, but we think having all these features in one
place is much more efficient.
Like Office 2007, Office 2010 lets you quickly change styles, colors,
and fonts in most applications of the suite through the use of pull-down
Style Galleries. In PowerPoint, for example, along with helpful
image-editing tools (more on that later), you can quickly preview how
effects will change your image simply by mousing over each effect.
Similarly, as you mouse over different fonts in Word, the document will
change in real time before you commit.
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