OFFICE 2013 New Features–A new Office

Office 2013 preview got released recently and got time to install and test it out. Some features are really amazing and nice implementation. Here are my views on it.

New Office is Cloud friendly and ready to use on the touchscreen. This is really an amazing feature to Office. Another top new feature in office 2013 suite is the cursor. When you are typing the text, the cursor just move forward just like a line. It don’t appear like blinking anymore. I am liking this much and like to type more and more…

The new interface is looking clean but not with much colors though. A plain and clean white color ribbon. The ribbon and icons are a bit big when compared to office 2010 icons. This will be good for touchscreen users. 

Top Features:

Word:

• Import, edit and save PDF: We can import an existing PDF file directly to Microsoft WORD 2013 and then do edits and then save back to either word or PDF format. This is the number one feature which I liked much in Office 2013 suite.
• Ability to connect to online services: You can directly search web using Bing for keyword search, images or Videos without leaving word. And then you can use/embed the HTML code in the word directly. You can also play the video directly in the word.
• You can embed the online services like Flickr, SkyDrive etc. with document without leaving word.
• Expand and Collapse: Now you can use the expand, collapse option in the word text. This is called "read" mode. You can expand, collapse a paragraph once you read it.
• Resume Reading: Office 2013 will automatically bookmark the user last position in the document. After you reopened the document it can pick you where you left off.

Excel:

• Flash Fill: If you have two columns and based on the first column, if you type the data in second column first row, then the Flash Fill predicts and fills the data accordingly for remaining rows in second column.
• Quick analysis: If you select a range of values in Excel then the quick analysis tool will automatically conditional formats which helps us to understand the data easily.
• Many chart options: There are many chart options and features available in Excel 2013.

Outlook:

• Weather: New outlook has the best option to show the weather reports for next 3 days in the calendar. This helps us to change the plans in meetings and plan according to weather reports.

• Reply, Forward in POP-IN window: You can reply, forward emails in the pop-in window. When you are moving out of inbox, send items etc. and come back to same email the pop-in window still there and you can continue in typing text.

OneNote:

• Onenote is now more powerful and looks very good. It is described as digital notebook from Microsoft.
• Integration to Outlook: You can save the emails to Onenote directly from Outlook.

PowerPoint:

I didn’t spend much time in PowerPoint. I like to see how they improved the functionality in presenting something on projector… And there it wins me.

• When we are presenting the PowerPoint presentation the presenter can see on his screen what is the next slide to present. This will give much information and help to the presenter what to give in next slide.
• Clock on the screen: The presenter can keep tracking of the time how long she/he has been speaking.

Many more features are there. I will document and post them as soon as I can. The bottom line I like Office 2013 much and it is going to be a huge success in Office suite so far which makes Microsoft to sit at top position.