Microsoft Office 2010 Review

Few days ago, we came to knew about the release of leaked version of Microsoft office 2010 Technical preview on Torrent trackers. There are many new features which came packed with this version to be noticed if you have tried hands on it after downloading. Let’s take a sneak-peak of all the new improvements and features in this thorough review and analysis of Office 2010.

First noticeable thing is that performance has improved a lot compared to Office 2007. Just as with Windows 7, Office 2010 not only requires the same resources as requested Office 2007 to run, but the same resources to work better than its predecessor. And now there are 64-bit versions also helpful when using an operating system of this kind.

Image Editing and Management

ms-office-image-clipThis is a new utility included in Word to make screenshots. It works in a way very similar to the “cuts” already included in Windows to begin using Word is minimized and let us select the desktop area to capture. But it comes with an interesting advantage, by taken screenshot is saved in the gallery, regardless of whether the use or not, and stays there even after closing Word without saving changes. Thus it is easy to find an image within this “Gallery captures” for inclusion in a document.

It has incorporated several tools to make a simple image editing in Word. For example, applying artistic effects to images can be very interesting . We also have a powerful tool to eliminate the background of the photos (which would be an evolution of the tool “to define transparency“), whose results are so good that almost seem out of professional retouching tools such as Photoshop.

Interface improvements

Something we can see that Microsoft has done is to create a consistent appearance for all applications. They have eliminated all traces of the interface for Office 2003 (except for minor utilities, such as Picture Manager, or the gallery, which follow exactly the same), and the Ribbon has been implemented in all applications of the suite.

But mainly, I think Office 2010 wins in many parameters with the new behavior of the “Office Button”. Now this button displays a menu with options, but it shows a box that holds all the options window that allows us to quickly perform actions such as selecting a template for a new document, change metadata, or print a file, all without having to open new windows and from an extremely user-friendly.

Button behavior on MS Word

Button behavior on MS Word

Office Button in Outlook allows us to perform tasks with few clicks in Office 2007/2003 which required a huge amount of navigating menus and dialog boxes, such as adding a new email account or set up automatic responses. Also, thanks to the implementation of the Ribbon, the Outlook interface is much easier to customize according to our needs.

Other New Features

Translation Tool now comes pre-installed (and before we could only use them after you have installed an add-on for Windows Live Translator), new SmartArt templates that have been added, and new animations and transitions in PowerPoint. In addition, we have Word 2010 that allows us to save files directly to SharePoint sites, and there is native support for open and save documents in ODF format, along with the ability to export documents to PDF (without installing any add-on ).

Also, the context menus for editing applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc) are now more powerful and incorporating the Live Preview technology previously only available if used in the Ribbon. This technology allows us to see the results of the edit option to just put your mouse over them. For example, now simply move the mouse over buttons as “Paste and preserve format” and “Paste text only” to see the difference between the two, or move the mouse over different types of bullets to see how the text is each. Furthermore, the context menu will become semi-transparent while using the Live Preview, to see clearly how the document with each option.

Protected Mode – Security feature that works every time you open a document downloaded from Internet. What it does is lock the file so that we can not do any work without first edition we have explicitly allowed (something similar to what Windows Vista / 7 with the files you have downloaded from the web).

So, if you know of any more features or discover something yourself then please share it us via comments.

Related Update : BeingManan.com has a list of new features included in Technical Preview edition of MS Office 2010.

Click Here to Leave a Comment Below 3 comments
boe - November 9, 2009

Nothing beneficial for most businesses – no reason to upgrade/purchase –

Like Vista – all bling – no function.

If they wanted to improve Office they SHOULD have –
1. Made outlook open multiple e-mail accounts as full exchange -not an additional mailbox with some functionality or pop/imap with very limited functionality but two seperate exchange profiles simultaneously from multiple exchange servers.

2. Full OLE support for pictures in access – umm wasn’t that functional with Office XP – why take that out? Why should someone have to code to add pictures to a personal database? Might was well use oracle or a real database if you are going to have to use code. Adding Office XP photo editor is the work around but why not just add photo editor back into office if that is the solution?

3. Offer the old menu bar for people (most of my clients) who don’t want to learn the new menu bar. You can finally modify the ribbon to some extent in 2010 however my clients just want their old ribbon bar. Frankly I have no issue with the new menu bar but I’m one person and most of my clients don’t like it so prefer to stick with office 2003. MS could make money selling the new version if they just offered the old menu as a choice with the new ribbon.

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sushil kumar - November 17, 2010

Hi, I have downloaded the MS Office 2010 Professional Plus and lost the activation key so it doesn’t work :’( Could you please send me one ?

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