Yes, there’s a lot of power in Word 2010. Last month we talked generally about the good and the bad about Office 2010. In this article we will cover Word, PowerPoint and Excel 2010—the powerhouse Suites.
Word
The average user has never made the most from Word, using only portions of the program. Now, there’s even more to ignore or love! Great for small businesses, Word 2010 brings:
- Impact to documents through SmartArt which transforms basic, bullet-point text into compelling visuals and special picture effects with built-in picture editing tools.
- Special picture effects without additional photo-editing software, making it easy to do powerful proposals, etc.
- Writing, editing, and organizing documents more efficiently with improved document-formatting tools.
- Easy document editing through co-authoring, share ideas with others at the same time by posting your documents online and then accessing, viewing, and editing them from almost any computer or your Windows phone, if you have one.
- Document recovery, even when you think you’ve lost the file or never saved it. Wow, we can all use that!
- Working and communicating effectively across different languages, allowing for new and improved global communications.
- Browsing, sorting, and finding what you need quickly with the new and improved Find command, eliminating the frustration of wondering where you saved the file.
You can also browse, sort quickly.
PowerPoint
Microsoft put the power in PowerPoint 2010. If you use PowerPoint for presentations, you will totally enjoy the increased versatility of this product. This version allows you to:
- Deliver a presentation to anyone, anywhere and at anytime by sending them a link via the internet. Again making it easier to do business globally.
- Have viewers in many different places watch the presentation at the same time through their web browser.
- Create professional presentations with help from the Photo editing tools in Office 2010. With these tools you can add versatile artistic effects, correct color, and crop pictures. This will help you look like the professional.
- Use 3-D when you transition through slides.
- Put video directly into your presentation and edit it without any additional programs. This will help the average user with little or no video editing background.
- Share files and increase playback performance easily by compressing video and audio in your presentation. You’ll need to use the Microsoft Office Backstage™ view which replaces Microsoft’s traditional File menu in all Office 2010 applications.
- Share your presentation with others even though they don’t have PowerPoint installed on their computers. And, once you’ve broadcasted your presentation, you can create a video of your presentation to share with whomever you want.
- Co-author and edit the same presentation, at the same time, with people in different locations. You can even communicate as you work, directly from PowerPoint. However, this feature requires Windows Live. And, an instant messenger account is required to view presence of authors and start an instant messaging conversation.
Excel
If you’re an analyst, number cruncher or just like to make graphs to prove your theories, you’ll enjoy the changes in Excel 2010. It may take special add-ins to complete your tasks, but you’ll find it worth it.
Some add-ins are:
- PowerPoint Pivot which pulls data from multiple sources into Excel so it can be analyzed. This works great if you are dealing with a very large dataset that does not fit in one Excel spreadsheet.
- Sparklines allows you to add miniature visualizations into a table, showing trends, etc.
- Slicer functionality enhances your PivotTable and PivotChart visual analysis.
- Search Filter quickly narrows down the available filter options in your tables, PivotTable, and PivotChart views. Find exactly what you are looking for from up to a million or more items, instantly.
If you work with massive amounts of information ― more than 2 gigabytes you’ll want to purchase the 64-bit version of Office 2010. You can also:
- Work with other people simultaneously on the same workbook in almost any Web browser when you use the Excel Web App.
- Co-author workbooks simultaneously by using Windows Live ID.
- Share your workbooks in a browser through SharePoint Excel Services.
- Recover data even though you haven’t saved it.
Many of the new features in these applications require Microsoft’s Web Apps. Office Web Apps are free web-based version of Microsoft's Office productivity suite. It includes the web-based versions of Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Microsoft OneNote. The web apps allow users to access their documents directly from anywhere within a web browser as well as share files and collaborate with other users online. (From Wikipedia)
So, are you excited about the power in Word, PowerPoint and Excel? The new ribbon also allows for customization of your most used commands. You know that I am totally enjoying Office 2010 and can’t say enough wonderful things about it, but then I am an IT geek. But, the average person, with a little patience, will learn to love it too.
An update on Office 2010
After last month’s article on Office 2010, a friend purchased it, installed it and found out that Google Calendar Sync does not work with Office 2010. She has an Android phone. Google is working on the challenge, and she found that may other Droid users have found a way around the problem. In this case, patience should win out. But, if you need Google Calendar Sync, you might want to wait before you buy Office 2010.
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