The new Office software was released at the beginning of the current year. You are perhaps aware of the two names used for the new Office: Office 2013 and Office 365. Why two names? These aspects will be discussed in the next lines.
Microsoft Office 2013 and Office 365 – What’s the difference?
Microsoft Office 2013 is part of the traditional Office suite, with which you are familiar from previous editions. It includes the following applications: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, etc. When you purchase this product, you will receive a license for a computer that never expires. At least in theory, you can use the software for an unlimited time period. When Microsoft releases a new version of Office, it can be purchased separately.
Office 365, on the other hand, is a service provided by Microsoft. It has been there for a long time, but so far it was offered exclusively to companies. This is the first time Microsoft provides this service to all users.
Office 365 provides Microsoft Office 2013 suite as a service. In order to use it users have to pay an annual or monthly subscription in addition to this product. They will, however, receive a number of benefits. One of them is that they will always have access to the latest version of Office on all devices used by their account. As Microsoft releases a new version of Office, the Office 365 subscription will give you automatic access to it without additional charges. If you decide not to pay the annual subscription, access to Office tools expire, as well as additional services included in the subscription.
Important features of the new Office
The list of new features is long, but here are some of the most important additions:
- Integrating cloud – users can save documents directly to SkyDrive or SharePoint, just as they would do on their local disk. Then they then share documents and collaborate with others very easily. In addition, all documents stored in the cloud are automatically synchronized.
- Support for touch devices – although support offered is not exactly ideal, the new Office suite is first venturing into this space. As a result you will be able to use tablets with Windows 8 and Windows RT to work with Office documents.
- Office Application Support – the new Office allows small applications that can be used to view or manipulate the document data in new ways. These applications can be developed by anyone and are offered in the so called Office store.
- A new home screen for all Office applications – inspired by Windows 8, this screen provides quick access to Office templates, user-created documents and settings for various applications.
Some important changes were also made in Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook and OneNote. In Access and Publisher the changes that were made are less important. Here are some features that you may be interested in:
- The ability to quickly return to the last viewed or edited location in Word and PowerPoint.
- Word is now able to edit documents in PDF format. It also includes a reading mode, which is for reading documents with no editing permissions.
- Word can also embed videos and can play them directly from the document.
- When you work with different people, you can insert comments and get responses for your comments as part of the document.
- Excel introduces a feature called Flash Fill, which automatically recognizes patterns that exist in the data and autocompletes the remaining data without using formulas or macro files. It also facilitates the creation of Pivot Tablets (Spikes), effective data visualization, using features such as Quick Analysis.
- PowerPoint introduces native support for the 16:9 aspect ratio used for flat screens. It also offers a new presentation mode, which includes new tools to zoom, easy viewing of next slide and notes, highlighting tools, etc.
- Outlook finally gets the ribbon and introduces the concept of in-line responses to messages without opening them. It also has a new navigation bar that improves the way in which messages are accessed, as well as the contacts, calendar and tasks.