14 DAY TRIAL // The free Cloud-based components of Office 2010 have evolved with a range of new features, among which: Word printing, Excel charts and the auto fill handle, PowerPoint clip art and more themes. With the advent of Office 2010, Microsoft stretched its productivity suite from the desktop into the Cloud and unveiled Office Web Apps.
Without offering an alternative to the Office desktop suite, Office Web Apps bring to the table free online variants of the product’s main components, such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote.
Microsoft is offering Office Web Apps free of charge via SkyDrive and in Hotmail, and is through there two services that customers will be able to experience the refresh and the new features.
“When we shipped Office Web Apps in June, we set out to make the Office experience more accessible so you could work from anywhere and share with anyone,” revealed Nick Simons, Program Manager, Office Web Apps.
“We love to get input from the people who use Office Web Apps. That feedback helps us decide what features we offer next and when we make those features available.
“The latest updates to Office Web Apps add some much requested functionality to Word Web App, Excel Web App and PowerPoint Web App,” he added.
Microsoft revealed that the ability to print documents straight from Office Web Apps’ Word was one of the most requested features by end users since the Cloud version of Office 2010 went live.
With the August update to Office Web Apps, Microsoft managed to offer customers just what they wanted.
“Word Web App's viewer includes the ability to print but what we realized as we looked through all the customer feedback is that you wanted the print command in the Word Web App editor as well,” Simons said.
Now, when users editing a Word doc will access the File menu will see the Print command available. “Not only will this make the print command easier to find but it will also reduce the number of steps required to print a document you are editing,” Simons noted.
The Excel Web App received two updates, namely inserting charts and the auto fill handle.
“Now in Excel Web App you can go to the Insert tab and insert charts. You will then be able to manipulate the data and elements of the chart in much the same way you can in Excel 2010,” Simmons revealed.
“Also, you can now use the auto fill handle in Excel Web App. The auto fill handle is a time-saving feature in the Excel desktop client that allows you to use the contents of one cell to fill in adjacent cells.”
With the refresh of the PowerPoint Web App, users now have access to clipart from Office.com’s image library. This means that customers can enhance their presentations with high quality photos and illustrations.
“Choose from over 200,000 high-quality, royalty-free images, including selections from partners like iStockPhoto and Fotolia. Use the Insert tab to add clipart to slides with image placeholders,” Simmons explained.
“We are also happy to report that you can now select more themes when you create a new presentation in PowerPoint Web App.”
Office Home and Business 2010 RTM Build 14.0.4760.1000 is available for download here.
Office Home and Student 2010 RTM Build 14.0.4760.1000 is available for download here.
Office Professional 2010 RTM Build 14.0.4760.1000 is available for download here.