What’s New with Office 2010

Published:

by Rich Wagoner, CITP.CPA | Principal, Technology Services Group

If you have been considering the upgrade of Microsoft Office to the latest version, Office 2010, here are some new features that might make the decision a little easier.

Co-Authoring: Breakthrough technology that connects team members on a single project. Allows multiple people to update and share a notebook simultaneously. Each person on the team can see who is working on the document online and start a conversation with that person in real time. And edits are highlighted, so you can see what’s been changed.

Outlook Conversation View: Get control of your e-mail. Improves the tracking and managing of related e-mails while saving valuable inbox space, letting you manage large amounts of e-mail with ease. It also hides entire conversations you don’t care about and condenses them with just a few clicks.

PowerPoint Broadcast Slide Show: Instantly broadcast presentations to clients and team members who are not in your office. Instantly broadcast your slides to a remote audience, who can view your presentation online and on any device that has a Web browser, even if they don’t have Microsoft PowerPoint® 2010.

Video Editing and Formatting: Create professional materials that set you apart. Allows you to edit videos right in PowerPoint 2010, no additional software required. You can even insert a video link from the Internet into your presentation to create rich, dynamic work but keep your file size manageable. And video controls let you pause, rewind, fast-forward, and stop audio and video content without leaving slide-show mode during your presentation.

Microsoft Excel 2010 Sparklines: Make quicker and better-informed business decisions. Sparklines are small charts in a worksheet cell that provide a clear and compact visual representation of your data. You can use them to show trends in a series of values, such as seasonal increases or your monthly expenditures, or to highlight maximum or minimum values.

Backstage View: Helps you quickly get to the commands you use the most and complete your work more efficiently. Provides a single location for essential information about your document, such as permissions and version information—and increases sharing options for print, online, and e-mail. And printing is faster and easier than ever with the new Live Preview. Now you can see your document and settings automatically before you print, without multiple clicks.

Microsoft SharePoint Workspace 2010: Keep productive on the go with a seamless offlineonline experience. Allows you to work on a document offline in SharePoint Workspace, and when you connect back online, your edits are automatically synchronized so your content remains consistent and you can keep your team up-to-date instantly.

Microsoft Office Mobile 2010: Do more that just read e-mail on your phone. Office Mobile 2010 enables coworkers in different locations to share, edit, and comment on documents with their Microsoft Smartphones, without losing content or formatting, all within a familiar Office experience.

The Ribbon: All the tasks you need are right at your fingertips enhances productivity. Every application in Office 2010 now has the Ribbon. The Ribbon brings new features such as Microsoft Outlook® 2010 Quick Steps to your attention. Through the Options menu in Backstage View, you can easily create new tabs that bring together your favorite commands and groups, or customize existing tabs to fit your needs.

Be sure to check with your key software vendors to make sure any Office functionality you have with the application is compatible with Office 2010 before any major purchase. We are available to chat about Office training, your licensing options and any other questions you might have about the new version.