Looking for:
New features for microsoft office word 2013 free - |
Discontinued features and changed functionality in Word .10 killer new features in Word
New features for microsoft office word 2013 free -
See options for work. Bring out your best writing Go from blank page to polished document in no time with the Researcher and Editor tools. Coauthor with anyone anywhere Invite others to edit and comment, manage access, and keep track of versions. Take Word on the go Review and edit files at work, home, or anywhere in between with mobile apps.
Always up to date Get exclusive, new features and security updates available only for Word in Microsoft Payment Methods. Visa MasterCard Invoice. Credit Cards can be used for all purchases. This product is currently unavailable for your country or region. Word Compare Microsoft Office Product features.
Improved formatting features. PDF conversion. Collaborate with anyone. Not included. Take Word on the go. Advanced research features. Language assistance tools. Not inlcuded. Write your best resume. Always up to date. Always have the latest Office apps, features, and services. Swipe to view more plans.
Ready for Microsoft ? Expand all Collapse all. Microsoft plans include premium versions of these applications plus other services that are enabled over the internet, including online storage with OneDrive and Skype minutes for home use.
Learn more. How do I know if my computer can run Microsoft ? Is internet access required for Microsoft ? However, internet access is required to install and activate all the latest releases of Office suites and all Microsoft subscription plans. For Microsoft plans, internet access is also needed to manage your subscription account, for example to install Office on other PCs or to change billing options.
Internet access is also required to access documents stored on OneDrive, unless you install the OneDrive desktop app. You should also connect to the internet regularly to keep your version of Office up to date and benefit from automatic upgrades. To reactivate your Office applications, reconnect to the internet. Will I still have control of my documents with Microsoft ? If you cancel your subscription or it expires, you can still access and download all your files by signing in to OneDrive directly using the Microsoft account you used to set up Microsoft You do lose the additional storage that comes with your subscription, so you must save your files elsewhere or buy more OneDrive storage if your OneDrive account exceeds the free storage quota.
When would my subscription start? How do I share Microsoft with the rest of my household? Word has a new screen for creating templates, accessed when you first launch the application. This "backstage" area is like an amalgamation of the Word File menu and the New screen, presenting links to Recent documents on the left and a selection of new templates on the right. Here you'll find a good selection of new and improved templates, covering everything from blog posts and Thanksgiving invitations to annual reports and live music flyers.
Naturally, these can all be edited as before to produce work tailored to your own needs, and a search tool at the top of the page provides access to templates online. Where appropriate, search will display suitable templates for other applications in the suite. Justification, indentations and text wrapping all continue to be present in Word , but the way in which images or other embedded element can be placed has been improved thanks to the live layout system.
This feature allows you to left-click the image before dragging it around the page, placing it exactly where you want. Text can be set to flow around, behind or in front as before, but it is with the fluid positioning of elements that this feature really stands out.
Changes to wrapping can be made by the contextual popup icon that is displayed see image. While we're talking about embedding media, online images and videos can finally be embedded into a Word document in Office , via the Insert tab. While Microsoft spent so long pushing its own document imaging system, Adobe's PDF grew into the de facto standard. As a result, versions of Microsoft Office have been slow to adopt the file type.
Word builds on this by providing support for creating and editing PDFs. Simple layouts should convert without too much trouble, however. Note that editing takes place once the file is converted to DOCX format, and as such you will need to select the PDF file option in the Save as dialogue box to keep your changes.
If you regularly work on documents with others, then the improvements to Microsoft Word's collaboration and review tools might prove interesting. This revision enables much easier collaboration by including a simplified markup view and support for cloud drives. Both of these features enable a streamlined commenting system, resulting in real-time feedback and discussion within the body of the document!
Handling comments is so much easier. Your thoughts can then be entered into the box with your name and picture displayed, and subsequent comments will appear threaded. Meanwhile, tablet users can make comments using a stylus, while the previously slow task of comment removal in a finished draft is easily done by checking off each one in turn.
Also on the Review tab you will find a new tool to help with language and grammar. On first use of this feature, you may be prompted to download a dictionary. Among those available is the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Did you know that the basis for the first complete electronic spreadsheet software VisiCalc was inspired by a blackboard-based calculation?
Or that Microsoft Office owes its existence to this application? Microsoft Excel has come a long way since its initial release on early Apple computers as a competitor to VisiCalc, but remains eminently flexible. It's in use variously as a time management tool, database, statistical analysis software and much more. In fact, it's surprising that Microsoft can continue to add features to what is essentially a counting program. However, in the face of threats from hardcore data analysis tools , Microsoft does make improvements to Excel that maintains the application's multi-purpose versatility.
Excel includes several upgraded functions and features. Following the chart presentation improvements of Excel and , the new version does away with the focus on the chart wizard, instead offering the Recommended Charts tool. The way in which this works is pretty intuitive: a table with a simple layout of two rows and four columns will result in a suggestion of a simple chart such as a line bar. Meanwhile, a more complicated table will result in the suggestion of a more detailed chart, and the beauty of this new recommendation system is that you can choose a different chart if you don't like the results.
When entering a table, the Recommended Charts button can be found on the Insert tab. Remember to select the table before clicking the button. If your table features a lot of different data types, these can be hidden if necessary using the Filter button displayed to the right of the chart in Chart Design view. This Chart Filters option streamlines the process of adding and removing data from a chart with simple check boxes and also enables the switching of the chart design between 2D and 3D. You can also get some good reactions from anyone viewing your chart by changing a value in your chart's table -- the chart's adaptation to the new figures will be animated, always great for the "wow" factor.
Note that online collaboration still isn't possible for Excel. Look out for the memorable "File is locked" warning when you try to edit an already open file. Introduced in Excel , conditional formatting enables the user to apply formatting based on the contents of the cell a prime example might be coloring the text red to represent a loss. In Excel , conditional formatting has been made easier to apply, thanks to the Quick Analysis icon that appears at the bottom right of a selected table or portion of data.
This enables you to quickly select from a common selection of conditional formatting such as the example above. With this tool, you can also quickly display sum figures, calculate averages and count values in your table. There was a time when to be a master of Excel you had to understand PivotTables inside-out. With Excel there is still a requirement to be familiar with this feature, but a new tool, Suggested PivotTables , enables casual users to take advantage of the software's ability to handle interconnected data.
Like Suggested Charts , this feature is easy to use. Once you've selected your data, use the Insert tab to find the Suggested PivotTables button and observe the results. Unavailable in the smaller packages is Power View , which comes as part of the Office Professional Plus version of Excel. This tool is Excel's key weapon in the battle against various business intelligence packages and can turn a huge table of numbers into striking, meaningful graphics for instance, complex information with reference to locations -- perhaps sales data -- can be displayed by making use of Bing Maps.
The addition of the PowerPivot add-in turns Excel into an application that can potentially rival successful business intelligence software such as Business Objects.
Every day, in offices across the world, people are struggling to stay awake in presentations. This is rarely the fault of the software, and almost always due to the unimaginative content and the ability or inability of the speaker. Making presentations more compelling is a challenge that Microsoft sets itself with each new release of PowerPoint.
Over the years this has been attempted with the addition of embedded rich media and improved performance, and this time around Microsoft has delivered improvements to slide design, new swipes and zooms, and even a new view. One of the things that you will need to bear in mind with Office is that although the new Modern-style user interface is intended for use by fingers, it isn't perfect for this use.
This is typified in PowerPoint , where you should be very careful about using anything other than the traditional mouse and keyboard to create and edit new presentations. Elements such as the window controls in the top-right, the zoom slider at the bottom and even the touch mode switch are clunky and difficult to access with fingers. Aimed at users who will be displaying their presentations via a projector or large display it offers a different view to the one being displayed.
The Presenter View enables the user to plan ahead by displaying notes about the slide and providing a preview of the next and offers various other controls, including a pen tool for drawing the audience's attention to a particular slide or detail.
A new Navigation grid in Presenter View enables you to easily navigate between slides, while Slide Zoom allows you to zoom into a slide either with the finger-thumb "pinch" gesture or by clicking the mouse.
Zooming and swiping is common in PowerPoint For instance, there is a new dialogue box that sweeps in from the right-hand side of the screen, although curiously this isn't a design element that is carried across Office Although the use of fingers for editing presentations is not advised see above , viewing a PowerPoint presentation on a touchscreen tablet brings a whole new dimension to the finished product, enabling you to swipe left and right to navigate through the presentation, pinch or tap to zoom and overall enabling you to focus on the presentation.
The possibilities of impressing your audience by delivering a PowerPoint presentation through a handheld touchscreen device are evident! Although there isn't anything considerably different in PowerPoint , Microsoft has nevertheless introduced a few useful tools to improve the experience of creating a new presentation. If you're using a modern laptop or a tablet, the chances are that it is a widescreen device.
New templates in format have been added to the application and to Office. Themes included in PowerPoint come with several variants, enabling you to change the color of backgrounds, headings, and other elements. You can think of these alterations as "sub-themes" and they add a new dimension to creating new presentations. Elsewhere, pictures, text boxes, and other elements can be easily aligned and arranged on a slide by dragging them into place, and color matching is made easier with the addition of an eyedropper tool.
You will have seen in the section about Microsoft Word that support for embedding online content has been added and the same is true in PowerPoint , with embedding available on the Insert tab.
Along with the focus on the cloud as explained earlier and in more detail in Chapter 8 , PowerPoint boasts the same collaboration enhancements as Word. Presented in a very similar manner, the upgraded comments are indicated by a small speech bubble, with a provision for inline replies. If you're using PowerPoint in a corporate setting and have Lync installed, the Presence system will let you know if collaborators are available to chat.
Unlike Excel, PowerPoint enables multiple users to work on the same presentation at the same time with OneDrive, a corporate network and PowerPoint Web App as the source location. The excellent Present Online tool has also undergone a revision; this makes it possible to webcast slideshows, and you can manage these via the Presenter View.
Unfortunately for Outlook , the new look doesn't quite work. This is most evident when viewing the emails list pane, where a distinction between the displayed messages is less-than-clear. Functionally, meanwhile, Outlook features a few overdue enhancements, such as inline replies in emails and the much-vaunted integration with Microsoft's recent acquisition, Skype.
While the icons in the lower left corner have been replaced with Modern-esque buttons for Mail, Calendar, People and Tasks, the rest of the interface is limited to the theme chosen when you initially setup Office Traditionally, in Outlook, replies could only be written in a new window, activated when the Reply button was clicked. With Outlook this has been revised at last! This saves some time, as do the majority of improvements in the email view.
Many people opt to delete messages once read, and this has been made much simpler in Outlook with the provision of a contextual Delete button that appears when the mouse is hovering over a message.
Revisions to the new mail notifications in Windows 8, this is integrated with the operating system's own notification system result in less information, and no option to delete messages. The useful calendar preview displayed in the Outlook inbox view remains in Outlook , while the Calendar label now displays forthcoming appointments when the mouse hovers over it. On the whole, however, little has changed in the calendar itself, which takes most of its update queues from Outlook.
As a result, weather icons appear along a strip beneath the ribbon menu while the current time of day is indicated by a colored strip across the Daily and Weekly views. Another Windows 8 influence is the renaming of the Outlook contacts list to People. In Outlook it duplicates the operating system app, unifying contacts from LinkedIn, Facebook and Windows Live, and enables the additional unification of duplicates into a single card.
Additionally, favorites from your People list can be added to the to-do bar on the right-hand of the Outlook window along with the calendar preview which is useful for checking their status or whereabouts.
Like PowerPoint, Outlook features a so-called touch mode, but this is disappointing. To begin with, the small drop-down menu used to start touch mode requires the use of a mouse to access it! Once activated, Outlook's touch mode is little more than a simplified version of the main app, with the addition of a white border around various elements and some shortcut buttons along the side of the screen. All in all, as touch-friendly apps go, Outlook isn't even close.
Various touch gestures such as Calendar view's pinch-to-zoom, which switches between day, week and month work well, but Outlook's functionality is left wanting in touch mode. If using Office on a Windows 8 tablet you might be better off relying on the native Mail, Calendar, and People apps Arguably the most underrated application in the Microsoft Office suite, OneNote features some useful enhancements including an alternative version for tablets. If you're not using OneNote already you really should consider it.
Microsoft has released versions of this cloud-synced note-taking app for all popular mobile platforms, and its flexibility is such that if you haven't tried it already you'll probably keep going back to it once you do! First introduced in Office , OneNote has evolved carefully over the years, reaching its current state of OneDrive-reliant syncing notebook that can be accessed from Windows Phones and other mobile devices.
In OneNote there has been a slight reorganization of key tools but little to indicate a wholesale rethink of the application. Making notes is easy thanks to the large notebook portion of the screen, while navigation through notebooks can be performed via a new dropdown menu that appears via an arrow below the notebook title. Probably the most notable addition to OneNote comes with the improved spreadsheet tool, which enables you to create Excel tables within notebook pages.
This is a long-awaited improvement on the previous tablet tool, and existing Excel documents can be embedded and edited, another overdue improvement.
Comments
Post a Comment