First Impressions from Beta-toasting Microsoft Office 2010 | Word

Posted on Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Filed under Microsoft, Software, Word 2010

For all those who want to give the new Office 2010 a try...go to the following:

http://www.microsoft.com/office/2010/en/whats-new/default.aspx

Clink on Get it Now and it's all yours FREE...

And don't be afraid, if you have Office 2007, it will install it without overwriting your previous copy.

To start off, I wanted to give you all a firsthand look at how this new version plays out...Will it be as powerful an upgrade as the previous version was? Will it flop? Let's check out the facts and you can decide for yourself....

The first little screen that greeted me after installing was this little beauty...not exactly encouraging...

I'm not really sure what this means, but now it shows up for my other version of Office...but just click ok and think of it as a friendly startup greeting...because it will start up just fine after that....

To be completely honest, when I first opened up the new Word, I wasn't exactly blown away...in fact if it hadn't been for the cool new startup screen, I would have thought I accidently clicked on my old version.

The following is a side by side comparison of each of the ribbons from Word 2007 and the new Word 2010...the major differences are circled for you...

Home Ribbon

Insert Ribbon

Page Layout Ribbon

Review Ribbon

View Ribbon

Developer Ribbon

Having compared the two, let's look at what Word 2010 can do...

The Good:

Builds off a successful, intuitive interface from 2007

Snapshot tool - Favorite! The snapshot tool, under the insert ribbon allows the user to incorporate an image from a current open window into a Word doc. Pretty awesome!

Image edit options - With the ability to erase background, and other basic photo edits, Word 2010 bypasses going to an outside photo editor to make changes.

New Smart Art, clip art, security measures, and overall visuals make this a prettier program to stare at for hours...

Awesome new print settings makes it much easier to print what you want.

Jumplist integration with the new Windows 7, and a much easier way to open recent docs

Finally, check this one out! One of the coolest features that Word 2010 builds upon is collaboration...Just look at the info pane under the File Ribbon...you can actually load up past drafts of your doc, edit authors, and other collaborative features from this pane...

As stated by Micrsosoft (www.microsoft.com):

"Accomplish more when working together - Brainstorm ideas, provide better version control, and meet deadlines faster when you work in groups. The co-authoring experience for Microsoft® Word 2010, Microsoft PowerPoint 2010, Microsoft® Excel Web App and Microsoft OneNote shared notebooks let you work on a file with several people at once - even from different locations."

Pretty smart move since the internet is moving to be THE way to collaborate...

Now let's look at

The Bad:

For those who are expecting a new, stunning interface (like me) you will be disappointed...as you can see from the first clips above, there isn't a heck of a lot of difference between the two versions...Looks like Microsoft is playing it safe...(as usual)

One big disappointment for me is not including an integrated way to open up a .pdf in Word. Sure you can save a doc as a pdf, but there is still no way to open a pdf in Word...guess Adobe and Microsoft are good friends...

I would have liked more integration with social networking sites such as flickr, Facebook, blogger, etc...I mean sure you have the ability to upload a post, but it still takes a lot more effort on my part if I want to upload a post with pictures. Flickr wouldn't even let me upload pictures...and for the common layman, a nice little button that integrates with Flickr, either for inserting images or otherwise would be leaps over what Word does now...

They took away the big yellow button...I liked that giant thing in the left-hand corner...now it is just a tiny File text link...

The Bottom Line:

With some added collaborative features that makes multiple authorizing easy and secure along with some pretty visuals, Microsoft has definitely improved upon Word 2007. Where it comes short is the guarded conservativity that Microsoft is known for. Add in the fact that Google Chrome OS will be coming out, and undoubtedly the collaborative tools and other features Google will bring to the table will be mind-numbingly cool. Microsoft must be a little scared...

Bottom line is that while this is a great program, it is definitely not a major impetus to lay down a $100+ to get a new copy. Word 2007 has just about the same features, just with a bit different layout.

If the final release doesn't change much I wouldn't recommend the switch...

Final Toast Rating: