The landing page of PowerPoint 2013 has received the much needed facelift. The landing page of the previous version, Microsoft Office 2010, looked very bland and even confusing to some users. In the newer version, the landing page has been revamped to provide users with quick access to locally available templates, as well as the online database. The online templates are divided into several categories such as Business, Industry, Small Business, Presentation, Orientation, Design Sets, 4:3, Media, Nature, Marketing etc. While new presentations can be created from the main window, the left sidebar shows all the recently accessed presentations.
Color Themes For Templates
The templates can be used with different color themes. For instance, if the theme comes with a light color scheme, and you want to use darker colors, just click the template and all the available color schemes will be displayed. You can select the required one to use in your presentation. Just like the previous versions, you can also manually change the color and style of elements in a template.
Enhanced Presenter View
The Presenter View in PowerPoint 2013 displays the Active slide on the left side, the Next slide at the top right, while the Notes for the current slide are displayed in the bottom right corner. A timer appears above the preview of the current slide, and extra controls are available at the top and bottom of the Presenter View window.
Even though, Presenter View was also available in the previous versions of Microsoft PowerPoint, it was not activated by default. Users had to navigate to the Slide Show tab, and enable Presenter View in order to display it on secondary display screen. For this reason, a lot of people were not aware of its existence in the previous PowerPoint versions. Microsoft seemed to realize this in the latest release, and has enabled it by default. Now, whenever you run the slide show, the Presenter View will be displayed, if there are multiple display devices connected to the computer. Some changes have also been made to the console. Now you have an extra Laser Pointer Pen Tool, option to zoom parts of a slide, see all slides at a time, and ability to switch Slide show and Presenter Views between the connected display monitors.
Account Management
The Account Management window allows you to connect to your SkyDrive account, and add services to use with PowerPoint. Sign in to your Microsoft Account, and it will automatically connect to your SkyDrive account. You can use the same account to sign in to Microsoft Office 2013 on different devices. This way, all your saved documents will be synced to the cloud and will be available for viewing and editing from any device. This eliminates the need to carry your documents in removable storage drives. Using the SkyDrive account, you can easily share your presentations and invite others to collaborate on required presentation projects.
Share Documents To View & Edit In The Browser
The Share option offers a number of ways to share the document with others. You can Invite people by specifying their Email addresses, Send them a link to View and Edit the document, Post the document to Social networks, Email it to others as an attachment (PPTX), as a URL, as PDF, as XPS, or as internet Fax,Present it Online so that others can check out your presentation from their browsers, and Publish Slides to any Library or a SharePoint site. The person on the receiving end does not need to have Microsoft Office installed on his/her system in order to view or edit the document. If they have a Windows Live ID, everything can be performed from inside the browser.
Widescreen & Fullscreen Support
PowerPoint 2013 offers a slew of Widescreen templates and themes. The previous version also allowed you to switch to widescreen mode, however, you had to manually change the aspect ratio of the slide, which also changed the size of the slide elements. The new version of PowerPoint has built in support for Widescreen monitors. Moreover, there is also a new full screen mode available for editing. It allows you to view your slides, and edit them while consuming the available screen space. The Ribbon, containing all the editing options, can be activated and deactivated from a conveniently placed button at the top right corner.
UI Changes & Pane View
There are various UI related changes in PowerPoint 2013. First of all, everything feels smoother, from the movement of the cursor when you type, to the way animations appear in your presentation. Microsoft has also tried to improve the look and feel of the interface. There are now buttons available on the main interface to switch to the aforementioned Fullscreen View, and to access Notes and Comments.
Another welcome change to the UI is that a lot of options, which used to appear in separate dialog boxes, are now accessible through panes, appearing on the right side. For instance, in PowerPoint 2010, if you right-click a slide and select Format Background, a separate dialog box opens up. You can make changes to a slide, but the dialog box covers the slide, and you have to move it manually in order to view all the slide elements. Moreover, when you select Format Background option, instead of opening a separate dialog box, a pane is added to the right side. Anything that you change using from the pane is reflected on the slide in real time. It means that you don’t have to open and close the dialog box again and again to view the changes. Just like other Office 2013 suite applications, it includes an Online pictures option to let you quickly add background to the slide from your favorite online image resource; you can choose an image from the Office.com Clip Art Library, the Bing Image Search, or from your own SkyDrive and Flickr account.
A new feature, included in PowerPoint 2013, as well as Word 2013, is the Alignment Guides. It allows you to easily align objects and text in a slide, relative to each other. You can use the object alignment option to merge different shapes with each other. For instance, If you want to merge together two shapes, the alignment guides help you in quickly adjusting them together according to top, down, left and right margins. Another very useful, and much needed, feature added to PowerPoint 2013 is auto-text wrapping. When an image is added to a slide with text in it, the text automatically readjusts itself around the image so that there is no overlapping of any kind.
Insert Online Video, Image And Audio
PowerPoint 2013 now allows you to add videos, images and audio files directly from the internet, without first downloading them to your PC. Think of it as the object being embedded in your presentation. The previous version of PowerPoint also had the option to add videos from the web, however you had to copy the embed code of required video and paste it into PowerPoint. The latest version allows you to Insert an online video in your presentation using the integrated Bing Video Search, SkyDrive Account, YouTube, or From a Video Embed Code. For instance, to add a YouTube video, just search for it, select the required one from the search results and click OK to embed it into your presentation.
The image results are, by default, set to show the images that are licensed under Create Commons, so it eliminates the chance of copyright violation when you use an online image in your presentation. You can also choose to view all the web results for your search.
Export Presentation As WMV & MPEG-4 Video
PowerPoint 2010 also lets you save the presentation as a video, but only in WMV format. In PowerPoint 2013, another format, MPEG-4 is added to save converted presentation in video format. Due to the addition of MPEG-4 format, the presentation video can directly played on a lot of media players and devices. Now, users don’t require Windows Media CODEC installed on non-Windows devices to watch the presentation. Also, portable devices, as well as a lot of LCD/ LED TVs have built in support to play MPEG-4 format. Just go to Export, and select Create a Video. All the other options, including the Resolution, and whether to use recorded timings and narrations are available with the MPEG-4 format.
Start at the new Start screen
As with the other key Office 2013 applications, PowerPoint 2013 shares the new Modern-style interface and a revamped Start screen. Instead of the blank presentation you started with in PowerPoint 2010, this screen is packed with options including a range of templates. Also on the Start screen is a link to your current online SharePoint or SkyDrive account, a list of recently accessed PowerPoint files, and an Open Other Presentations link which you use to access files on disk or stored in the cloud.
You can also search online for templates and themes from the Start screen; a list of suggested searches helps here.
Now you can preview layouts before selecting a Theme to use.
Themes are sleeker, and Variants more varied
PowerPoint Themes are predesigned slide designs that spare you from doing the design work yourself. In PowerPoint 2010 there was a plethora of Themes, Color Schemes, Font Schemes and Effects to choose from. PowerPoint 2013 simplifies everything. The new Themes default to a 16:9 aspect ratio and each has a small subset of Variants, which provide variations in color and some design elements for that Theme.
You’ll find Themes from both the Start screen and the new Design tab. On the Start screen you can click a Theme, preview its variant,s and scroll through previews of the Theme Title, Title and Content, Smart Chart and Photo layouts before committing to one to use.
The old Merge Shape tools are now easier to find.
Shape tools get improvements
Although some of the Merge Shapes features that are touted as being new in PowerPoint 2013 were in PowerPoint 2010, they weren’t accessible from the Ribbon toolbar. In PowerPoint 2013, though, the Join, Combine, Fragment, Intersect and Subtract tools are accessible by selecting the Drawing Tools, Format tab and clicking the Merge Shapesbutton. You’ll use these to create your own custom shapes by combining and merging simple shapes to make more complex ones. These tools have a handy live preview as well.
In addition, new alignment guides show when shapes are lined up to each other, to slide elements, and to borders and they make it easier to line up and space objects evenly on your slides.
Formatting options have become more visible.
Find new formatting tools
In PowerPoint 2013, you’ll find many formatting features from task docked to the right of the screen as you work. In earlier versions of PowerPoint, these options appeared in dialogs over the slide, which you had to move or close to continue working.
To access these new task panes, right-click a shape, for example, and choose Format Shape to see the available options for a shape in the task pane. Click a picture and the task pane changes to show picture formatting options. While most of the formatting options are not new, this makes them easier to find.
New is the Eyedropper tool, available when you are making a color choice. Use this to match colors by sampling a color to use from a shape or photo.
Lok online for videos to include in presentations from within PowerPoint.
Video input and output improve
PowerPoint 2013 supports additional video formats so it’s more likely videos will play in your presentation without you needing to install additional codecs. For example, PowerPoint 2013 supports the MP4 and MOV formats for playing video, and you can export a PowerPoint presentation to video in MP4 or WMV formats.
The new Video button on the Insert tab includes options that let you search for a video from an online source and drop it into your deck without first downloading it to your computer.
At long last, there’s a button to play audio tracks in the background and across slides.
Audio playback options expand
PowerPoint 2013 supports a wide range of audio formats without requiring you to download and install additional codecs. Supported formats now include AIFF, AU, MID, MIDI, MP3, M4A, MP4, WAV, and WMA.
You can click a button in PowerPoint 2013 to play audio tracks across the entire slideshow or across slides. While this has always been possible, it was ridiculously annoying to set up. Now all you need do is to insert the audio file, select it, and chooseAudio Tools, Playback tab and click the Play In Backgroundoption.
Only have one monitor? You can finally take advantage of Presentation View.
Presentation View becomes rosier
While the PowerPoint Presenter View was available in earlier versions of PowerPoint most users didn’t know it existed. Plus, if your computer only had one monitor you couldn’t access it —even to rehearse your presentation!
Now you can access Presenter View even on a single monitor by pressing Alt + F5. In Presenter View you can swap monitors for Presenter View and Slide Show View if desired. You can also view a thumbnail view of your slides, and click to view a slide out of sequence.
The new Zoom option lets you look close-up into an area on a slide to draw attention to it. There’s a new laser pointer tool here, too.
The new Comments task pane makes it easier to converse when working with others.
Work better with your team
When you’re designing a presentation with others, the new Comments feature will make it easier to discuss your slideshow with collaborators. When you add a comment, it appears in a Comments task pane down the right of the screen and stays visible while you work.
There are also options to add a comment from the Insert tab or the Comments task pane. The Comments task pane lets you navigate through comments, and see if there are comments on other slides. You can view your presentation with or without comments by selecting the Show Comments from the Review tab, and deselecting Show Comments.
The new Office Presentation Service expands features for Presentation View and video in online presentations.
Bring your presentation online
Now you can present a deck stored in the cloud or on your PC to the Web in real time. To use the new Office Presentation Service, choose File, Share, Present Online. You can also allow attendees to download the presentation to their own PC.
You’ll also see Presenter View while making your presentation. Plus, you can play video at presentation time, and viewers get their own set of video controls. In addition, viewers can navigate back to previous slides if they need to check or follow up on something.
Switching accounts / SkyDrive integration
I’ll admit, I really wasn’t crazy about the idea of “logging in” to Office initially. I also admit that this isn’t the most exciting or even impressive feature, but it is one that I am thankful for. As someone with several Microsoft Accounts, a couple Office 365 accounts, and therefore many SkyDrive accounts, it was a bit inconvenient having to go to the web, sign in to a SkyDrive account, and then download whatever file I needed. I really love being able to quickly switch between profiles to quickly access files in the cloud right from PowerPoint.
Having two Microsoft Accounts gives me a nice little “fence” to separate my personal and work files. All I have to do is click on “Switch account” to access my other accounts.
If I didn’t want to separate files via multiple Microsoft Accounts, I can also just add two different SkyDrive accounts to one profile. In other words, I sign into PowerPoint with one Microsoft account, but add all my SkyDrive accounts by clicking on “Add a Place” from the backstage open screen.
The only thing I don’t like about this second method is that at first glance there is no way to distinguish between my two different SkyDrive folders. As you can see in the above picture, PowerPoint only displays the user name (which is the same) next to each account. On the Open screen, I would love to see the email address display below the name like in the Accounts screen. Other than that, this is a wonderful addition, one that makes me utilize my free cloud storage more than ever before, and limits my need to “remote desktop” into my work computer.
Threaded comments
When collaborating with others, it is now a lot less complicated to follow conversations. Comments are now “threaded” and a lot easier on the eye.
Play From and Motion Path End
Technically, these are two separate but similar features that tie for third place in my book. I work with a lot of animations, and these two new additions have saved me a ton of time when working with and creating them.
Play From
The old Play button in the Animation Pane is now a Play From button, allowing you to preview a portion of the animations on a PowerPoint slide. Simply select an animation in the animation pane before pressing the Play From button.
Motion Path End
When drawing motion paths, PowerPoint now “ghosts” your object so you can see exactly where that object will appear when the animation completes, so no more guessing!
Color Picker
PowerPoint now includes a color picker! Better late than never, right?
The Eyedropper tool is found in the Shape Fill drop menu located from both the Home tab and the Drawing Tools Format tab. To select a color on the slide, simply click on the Eyedropper button, and then click on the desired color. To select a color from outside of the PowerPoint application window, click and drag.
Presenter View
The presenter view received quite the overhaul. It now is much darker, so presenting from behind a computer screen will not create a creepy glow.
It also includes three resizable panes: a slide preview, a next slide preview, and a notes area. To resize any of these areas, simply hover your mouse over any of the divider bars, then just click and drag.
Personally, I don’t need to see my current slide or the next slide. So my view usually looks like this:
In the above picture, I’ve completely collapsed the current slide view, resized the next slide view to a teeny-tiny thumbnail, and maximized my notes area to act as a kind of teleprompter.
There are also a lot of tools at your disposal that were once buried in hard-to-reach menus. All buttons are touch-friendly sized, making it easier to navigate a presentation from a touch-enabled monitor or tablet. The only problem is that these buttons appear in the Current Slide pane, so if you are like me and minimize that area, they are no longer easily accessible; however, you can still get to those options by right-clicking.
Also very useful, you can now jump to any slide or section in your presentation by clicking the Slide Sorter button (the one next to the pen tool) or by right-clicking and selecting “See All Slides.
Your view will change, but your audience will still see your previously selected slide. As you select a different slide, your audience will just see a flawless transition to a new slide and will never know you are presenting out of order.
But perhaps the best addition to the presenter view is the ability to zoom into a portion of a slide.
Simply select the Zoom In button (Magnifying Glass icon), hover your mouse over the area you’d like to zoom into, and click.
Well, now that PowerPoint 2013 has released to manufacturing, it’s time to publish my big list of new features. This is my list of new stuff in PowerPoint 2013, definitely not the same list Microsoft marketing publishes. So here we go…
Start UI. PowerPoint 2013 gives you a whole new experience from the get-go. Choose from a bunch of new templates and variants and see previews of a few slide layouts before you begin your presentation.
16×9. This is the new default slide aspect ratio. (The old one was 4×3.) Don’t worry, you can still set your default template to 4×3 if you want.
13.33″ x 7.5″. This is the new default slide size. (The old 4×3 was 10″ x 7.5″, and the old 16×9 was 10″ x 5.76″.) Personally, I think this is a very good thing.
Before I forget, Scale to Fit Paper is now ON by default in the File | Print dialog. I’m sure this is directly related to the 13.33×7.5 slide size feature above. (So the whole 16×9 slide will print on the page.)
Slide Size tool. There’s a new tool on the Design tab to help you switch your slides from 4×3 to 16×9 and back without completely wrecking all your content. Yay!
Variants and SuperThemes. We now have variations of a theme that are built-in. Most variants are very similar to the “base” theme, with changes to the color or font set. Themes that include variants are called SuperThemes.
Format panes. Instead of having a Format dialog, we now have a Format pane that is docked to the right side of the work space.
Insert Online Pictures. The Office programs now distinguish between inserting pictures from your hard drive and inserting them from online. Similar settings exist for Video and Audio.
Logging in. Log into your Microsoft.com account, and you’ll see more content and have more options. For example, if I’ve logged onto my MSFT account, my SkyDrive will show up (along with office.com, Flickr and Bing image search) when I click Insert Online Pictures.
Saving. When you save, online locations such as SharePoint team sites and Skydrive are in the forefront. Don’t forget to click Computer before browsing to a location if you’re saving to your hard drive!
Present Online. This is really the equivalent of Broadcast Slide Show, but the presenter has the option of letting people download the presentation as well (or not). Be aware — if you allow the audience to download, then they’ll also have the ability to navigate through the broadcast presentation at their own pace while you’re presenting.
Save as Video. By default this now creates an MPEG-4 Video. WMV (Windows Media Video) is still an option.
New Slide button. They finally added this to the Insert tab! (Only took three versions, sheesh. Unfortunately it’s still in the wrong place — it should be on the other side of the Images group, but nobody listens to me!) Don’t worry, it’s still on the Home tab also.
Popup menu in Slide Show View. The buttons that show in the lower left corner during slide show view have been tweaked for a better touch experience. They’re not as subtle as they could be, but they’re not as bad as they could be, either.
See All Slides. When in a slide show, we now have a view that looks kind of like Slide Sorter View. (There’s no longer a Go to Slide menu with an option to navigate by slide title, though.)
Presenter View. This is all kinds of new and all kinds of cool. And if you only have one monitor, use Alt+F5 to see and practice with Presenter View!
Page Curl transition. Yes, you heard (read) me right — we finally have a page turn transition! It’s actually called Peel Off, but what’s in a name? Actually, we have quite a few new transitions, including Page Curl, Curtains, and Fracture (among others). Also, while we’re on the subject of transitions, the bounce has been removed from the end of the Pan transition.
Play From. The animation pane now lets you play from the selected animation.
Motion Path End. A ghosted object now shows up to show you the end position of a motion path. Very, very helpful!
Animation Zombies. Some of the old animations (Stretch and Collapse, for example) are baaaaack!
Threaded Comments. Comments have been enhanced with a Comments Pane that shows the comments thread and avatars for those commenting.
Enhanced Smart Guides. Those whisker things that showed up in PowerPoint 2010 to help you align and position objects on a slide? Well, they got even better in 2013 because now they also help with distribution.
Enhanced Guides. We now have the equivalent of lockable, colorable guidelines, people! Wahooo! Put one set of guides on your slide master (to indicate margins, for example). Add others to any layouts that might require different guides. And add even more to the regular slides as you’ve always done. When you’re in Normal (editing) View, only the guides on the slides will be selectable — otherwise you’ll need to go to Master View to move them. Oh, and did I mention that you can recolor all of these? Just right-click a guide…
Color Picker. We now have eyedroppers to pick up and apply fill, outline and font colors. All together now: Thank you, PowerPoint Team!
Merge Shapes. These tools, which are similar to the Pathfinder tools in Illustrator, are now on the Ribbon (on the Drawing Tools Format tab). The group is called Merge Shapes instead of Combine Shapes. There is also a new tool, Fragment, to complement the other four.
Semantic Zoom. We can zoom and pan in Slide Show View now.
Charts. Charting is a lot better in many ways and a lot worse in others. Now a small Excel datasheet opens above the chart instead of Excel opening and taking up half your screeen. The interface is vastly improved. They added a combo chart to the types of charts (yay!). They added new chart styles (good) but removed the 2007/2010 chart styles (bad). They made the default chart font size 12 points (good or bad, depending if you like it or not) and the default chart font color a tint/shade of Dark 1/Light 1 (horrible if Dark 1/Light 1 is anything besides black or white).
PowerPoint Web App. This has lots of new features. We can now add, edit and format shapes, apply a new theme, and use animations and transitions. We also have audio and video playback in both Reading and Slide Show views. It still supports co-authoring, but now it supports co-authoring with regular ol’ PowerPoint, too. And if you embed your presentation into a web page or blog, it’s no longer just static pictures — it’s actually like a regular presentation with animations, transitions, audio and video. (Old embedded presentations will automatically update to behave this way, too.)
Default Office Theme is a bit different. The colors are different and the default effects set is way more subtle.
SmartArt graphics. We got some new SmartArt diagrams.
Backstage. Along with the overall interface overhaul to a newer, flatter look, Backstage has been reorganized once again.
WHAT’S MISSING (WELL, KIND OF…)
Save as HTML. Gone. Done. Kaput. It’s not in the interface, and it’s not accessible with VBA either.
Insert ClipArt. This has been replaced with Insert Online Pictures. No clipart or picture collections are installed with Office 2013.
Not missing, just moved. Theme Colors, Fonts and Effects dialog are no longer on the Design tab, but they are available in Slide Master View. Background Styles are available in Slide Master View.
Broadcast Slide Show. This isn’t really gone — it’s just morphed into Present Online.
Outline pane. Again, this isn’t actually gone, it just doesn’t show up any more next to the Slides pane in Normal (editing) View. Go to the View tab to turn the Outline pane on and off.
Combine Shapes. For those of you who used these, they’re not gone. They’ve been promoted to the Drawing Tools Format tab of the Ribbon and are now called Merge Shapes.
In Slide Show View, there’s no longer a Go to Slide menu with an option to navigate by slide title. Instead, we have the new See All Slides view, which looks similar to Slide Sorter view.
Microsoft’s updated spreadsheet tool isn’t getting a lot of new, whiz-bang features, but it is becoming more functional. That’s something both new and experienced users will enjoy—especially a new approach to an old problem that used to require a cumbersome workaround. Complex tasks become easier to perform, thanks to tools such as Recommended Charts and Recommended PivotTables tools. Other changes place choices closer to your data, and use big-business brawn to crunch data right into Excel.
Excel’s new Start Screen helps you get to work more quickly. Along its left edge are the most recently used worksheets, any of which can be pinned to your Recent list so they will always be visible. Here, too, you can click Open Other Workbooks to access your files from a disk or the cloud. The Start Screen’s top-right corner also shows the SkyDrive (or SharePoint) account you are currently connected to.
A range of templates appears here to help you quick start a project. These can also be pinned, or you can use the search feature to look online for other templates. A list of suggested searches can help you get started.
New users will appreciate the template choices, and existing users will likee the Recent file list and quick access to existing files. Although the Start Screen can be disabled, I find it useful enough to stick with it.
The Open tab has links to recently accessed files and locations.
Enjoy a new Backstage View
The Backstage View, introduced in Office 2010, is accessible from the File menu. In Excel this has been revamped to show exactly what you’re doing so you can choose the appropriate task.
The Open tab now gives you access to recently accessed workbooks, making it a combination of the Open and Recent tabs from Excel 2010. You can pin worksheets to this list or click Computer to access recently accessed locations (any of which you can pin permanently here, too). There’s also access to your SkyDrive account, and the option to set up additional SkyDrive or SharePoint accounts.
Want to split first and last names into two columns? Look to the new Flash Fill feature.
Make Flash Fill magic
The most whiz-bang new feature is the Flash Fill tool. Its predictive data entry can detect patterns and extract and enter data that follows a recognizable pattern. It solves some common problems that currently require cumbersome workarounds to achieve.
One such problem is extracting a person’s first name from a column of full names. In a blank column adjacent to the one that contains full names, you simply type the first name and then click the Home tab, and select Fill, Flash Fill. The first names of everyone in the list will be entered into that that column immediately. You can use the same process to extract last names, to join first and last names, to extract months, days or years from dates and even extract values from cells. While you could have always done this with formulas, now Flash Fill ensures anyone can do it very quickly and easily.
Take the guess work out of which chart to choose to best display your data.
Simplify choices with Recommended Charts
This falls somewhere between a whiz-bang new feature and something that makes working in Excel more intuitive. Recommended Charts shows only a subset of chart types that are appropriate to the data you’ve selected. It will help inexperienced users create charts that help explain the data and don’t confuse the viewer.
To use the tool, select the data that you want to chart, click the Insert tab and selectRecommended Charts. A dialog appears with a range of charts to choose from—click each in turn to see how your data will look plotted on that chart. Select the desired option and click OK, and the chart is created automatically.
Change the look of your chart by selecting options from the pop-up menu.
Chart tools get smarter
In previous versions of Excel, when a chart is selected, the Chart Tools tab revealed three additional tabs: Design, Layout, and Format. The interface is simpler in Excel 2013, with only the Design and Format tabs to choose from.
In addition, a set of icons appears outside the top right edge of a chart when it is selected. Click any of these buttons—Chart Elements, Chart Styles or Chart Filters—to reveal additional chart formatting options. Click Chart Elements to add or remove elements, such as axis titles and legends; click Chart Styles to change the style and color of your chart; or click Chart Filtersto view filtered data using a live preview.
Quick Analysis offers formatting, totals and charts for analyzing your data.
Quickly analyze your data
The new Quick Analysis tool can help both new and experienced users find options for working with selected data. To use it, select the data to analyze, and the Quick Analysis icon appears in the bottom-right corner of the selected data.
Click that icon, and a dialog appears showing a range of tools for analyzing the data, such as Formatting, Charts, Totals, Tables and Sparklines. Click any option, and a series of selectable choices appear; preview those choices by mousing over them. Next, click the option you like to apply it to your data. This feature speeds up the process of formatting, charting and writing formulas.
PivotTables just became ridiculously simple to create.
Answer questions instantly with Pivot Tables
Pivot Tables are a powerful tool for analyzing and answering questions about your data, but they’re not easy for new users to create. For the first time, though, if you can click a mouse key, then you can create a meaningful Pivot Table, thanks to the new Recommended PivotTables. To use it, select your data, including headings, and chooseInsert, Recommended PivotTables. A dialog appears showing a series of PivotTables with explanations of what they show. All you need do is to select the table that shows what you want to see, click OK,and the PivotTable is automatically drawn for you.
Excel 2013 now integrates Power View for beefy analysis and reporting.
imelines
A timeline lets you filter records in a PivotTable—it works similar to a slicer, but you’ll filter by dates. For instance, Figure E shows a PivotTable and timeline. (I used the same data range used in #3.) Once you have a PivotTable arranged, adding the timeline is simple:
With the PivotTable selected, click the contextual Analyze tab.
In the Filter group, click Insert Timeline.
In the resulting dialog, check the date field (in this case, that’s Date) and click OK. Excel will embed the timeline alongside the PivotTable.
Use the new Timeline with a PivotTable.
To use the timeline, just drag the scroll bar or click a tile to further filter personnel totals by specific months. In the upper-right corner, you can change to years, quarters, months, and days. To clear the timeline filter, click the Clear button in the upper-right corner.
Make quick reports with Power View
The Power View add-in, available for previous versions of Excel, is now integrated inside Excel 2013. Power View is typically used for analyzing large quantities of data brought in from external data sources—just the sort of tool that big business might use.
Incorporated within Excel, it’s now accessible to anyone. To see it at work, select your data and choose Insert, Power View. The first time you use it, the feature installs automatically. Then a Power View sheet will be added to your workbook, and the analysis report will be created.
You can add a title and then filter the data and organize it to display the way you like. The Power View tab on the Ribbon toolbar displays report format options, such as Theme and text formats, as well View options for Field List and Filters Area panels that you can use to filter and sort your data.
Try to work on a worksheet that someone else is editing? You’ll be warned that it’s locked. You can view and download it, but can’t change it.
Share files and work with other people
Working with other people on shared files in real time is a double-edged sword. While it’s useful to do this, you will face problems when two people try to change the same item at the same time. In Excel 2013 you can share and work collaboratively on files with others via SkyDrive using the Excel WebApp, and multiple people can work on the same file at the same time. However, you cannot open a worksheet from SkyDrive in Excel 2013 on your local machine if someone else is currently working in the same worksheet. This protects the worksheet against conflicting changes.
Instead, if one person is editing an Excel file that’s stored online, others with permission can view and download it, but they cannot change the original, whichis locked until the person working with it is finished.
Like other applications in the Office 2013 suite, Excel 2013 saves files by default to the cloud. You can open, view, and edit Excel files online in a browser using the Excel WebApp without having Excel 2013 on the local hard drive.
Share your cloud-stored worksheets with friends on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.
features to explore
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Templates do most of the set-up and design work for you, so you can focus on your data. When you open Excel 2013, you’ll see templates for budgets, calendars, forms, and reports, and more.
Instant data analysis
The new Quick Analysis tool lets you convert your data into a chart or table in two steps or less. Preview your data with conditional formatting, sparklines, or charts, and make your choice stick in just one click. To use this new feature, see Analyze your data instantly.
Fill out an entire column of data in a flash
Flash Fill is like a data assistant that finishes your work for you. As soon as it detects what you want to do, Flash Fill enters the rest of your data in one fell swoop, following the pattern it recognizes in your data. To see when this feature comes in handy, see Split a column of data based on what you type.
Create the right chart for your data
With Chart recommendations, Excel recommends the most suitable charts for your data. Get a quick peek to see how your data looks in the different charts, and then simply pick the one that shows the insights you want to present. Give this feature a try when you create your first chart.
Filter table data by using slicers
First introduced in Excel 2010 as an interactive way to filter PivotTable data, slicers can now also filter data in Excel tables, query tables, and other data tables. Simpler to set up and use, slicers show the current filter so you’ll know exactly what data you’re looking at.
One workbook, one window
In Excel 2013 each workbook has in its own window, making it easier to work on two workbooks at once. It also makes life easier when you’re working on two monitors.
New Excel functions
You’ll find several new functions in the math and trigonometry, statistical, engineering, date and time, lookup and reference, logical, and text function categories. Also new are a few Web service functions for referencing existing Representational State Transfer (REST)-compliant Web services. Look for details in New functions in Excel 2013.
Save and share files online
Excel makes it easier to save your workbooks to your own online location, like your free OneDrive or your organization’s Office 365 service. It’s also simpler to share your worksheets with other people. No matter what device they’re using or where they are, everyone works with the latest version of a worksheet— and you can even work together in real time. To learn more about it, see Save a workbook to the Web.
Embed worksheet data in a web page
To share part of your worksheet on the web, you can simply embed it on your web page. Other people can then work with the data in Excel Online or open the embedded data in Excel.
Share an Excel worksheet in an online meeting
No matter where you are or what device you’re on—be it your smartphone, tablet, or PC—as long as you have Lync installed, you can connect to and share a workbook in an online meeting. To learn more about it, seePresent a workbook online.
Save to a new file format
Now you can save to and open files in the new Strict Open XML Spreadsheet (*.xlsx) file format. This file format lets you read and write ISO8601 dates to resolve a leap year issue for the year 1900. To learn more about it, seeSave a workbook in another file format.
The new Recommended Charts button on the Insert tab lets you pick from a variety of charts that are right for your data. Related types of charts like scatter and bubble charts are under one umbrella. And there’s a brand new button for combo charts—a favorite chart you’ve asked for. When you click a chart, you’ll also see a simpler Chart Tools ribbon. With just a Design and Format tab, it should be easier to find what you need.
Fine tune charts quickly
Three new chart buttons let you quickly pick and preview changes to chart elements (like titles or labels), the look and style of your chart, or to the data that is shown. To learn more about it, see Format your chart.
Richer data labels
Now you can include rich and refreshable text from data points or any other text in your data labels, enhance them with formatting and additional freeform text, and display them in just about any shape. Data labels stay in place, even when you switch to a different type of chart. You can also connect them to their data points with leader lines on all charts, not just pie charts. To work with rich data labels, see Change the format of data labels in a chart.
View animation in charts
See a chart come alive when you make changes to its source data. This isn’t just fun to watch—the movement in the chart also makes the changes in your data much clearer.
Powerful data analysis
Create a PivotTable that suits your data
Picking the right fields to summarize your data in a PivotTable report can be a daunting task. Now you can get some help with that. When you create a PivotTable, Excel recommends several ways to summarize your data, and shows you a quick preview of the field layouts so you can pick the one that gives you the insights you’re looking for. To learn more about it, see Create a PivotTable to analyze worksheet data.
Use one Field List to create different types of PivotTables
Create the layout of a PivotTable that uses one table or multiple tables by using one and the same Field List. Revamped to accommodate both single and multi-table PivotTables, the Field List makes it easier to find the fields you want in your PivotTable layout, switch to the new Excel Data Model by adding more tables, and explore and navigate to all of the tables. To learn more about it, see Use the Field List to arrange fields in a PivotTable.
Use multiple tables in your data analysis
The new Excel Data Model lets you to tap into powerful analysis features that were previously only available by installing the Power Pivot add-in. In addition to creating traditional PivotTables, you can now create PivotTables based on multiple tables in Excel. By importing different tables, and creating relationships between them, you’ll be able to analyze your data with results you aren’t able to get from traditional PivotTable data. To learn more about it, see Create a Data Model in Excel.
Power Query
If you’re using Office Professional Plus 2013 or Office 365 Pro Plus, you can take advantage of Power Query for Excel. Use Power Query to easily discover and connect to data from public and corporate data sources. This includes new data search capabilities, as well as capabilities to easily transform and merge data from multiple data sources so that you can continue to analyze it in Excel. To learn more about it, see Discover and combine with Power Query for Excel.
Power Map
If you’re using Office 365 Pro Plus, Office 2013, or Excel 2013, you can take advantage of Power Map for Excel. Power Map is a three-dimensional (3-D) data visualization tool that lets you look at information in new ways by using geographic and time-based data. You can discover insights that you might not see in traditional two-dimensional (2-D) tables and charts. Power Map is built into Office 365 Pro Plus, but you’ll need to download a preview version to use it with Office 2013 or Excel 2013. See Power Map for Excel for details about the preview. To learn more about using Power Map to create a visual 3-D tour of your data, see Get started with Power Map.
Connect to new data sources
To use multiple tables in the Excel Data Model, you can now connect to and import data from additional data sources into Excel as tables or PivotTables. For example, connect to data feeds like OData, Windows Azure DataMarket, and SharePoint data feeds. You can also connect to data sources from additional OLE DB providers.
Create relationships between tables
When you’ve got data from different data sources in multiple tables in the Excel Data Model, creating relationships between those tables makes it easy to analyze your data without having to consolidate it into one table. By using MDX queries, you can further leverage table relationships to create meaningful PivotTable reports. To learn more about it, see Create a relationship between two tables.
Use a timeline to show data for different time periods
A timeline makes it simpler to compare your PivotTable or PivotChart data over different time periods. Instead of grouping by dates, you can now simply filter dates interactively or move through data in sequential time periods, like rolling month-to-month performance, in just one click. To learn more about it, see Create a PivotTable timeline to filter dates.
Use Drill Down, Drill Up, and Cross Drill to get to different levels of detail
Drilling down to different levels of detail in a complex set of data is not an easy task. Custom sets are helpful, but finding them among a large number of fields in the Field List takes time. In the new Excel Data Model, you’ll be able to navigate to different levels more easily. Use Drill Down into a PivotTable or PivotChart hierarchy to see granular levels of detail, and Drill Up to go to a higher level for “big picture” insights. To learn more about it, seeDrill into PivotTable data.
Use OLAP calculated members and measures
Tap into the power of self-service Business Intelligence (BI) and add your own Multidimensional Expression (MDX)-based calculations in PivotTable data that is connected to an Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) cube. No need to reach for the Excel Object Model—now you can create and manage calculated members and measures right in Excel.
Create a standalone PivotChart
A PivotChart no longer has to be associated with a PivotTable. A standalone or de-coupled PivotChart lets you experience new ways to navigate to data details by using the new Drill Down, and Drill Up features. It’s also much easier to copy or move a de-coupled PivotChart. To learn more about it, see Create a PivotChart.
Power View
If you’re using Office Professional Plus, you can take advantage of Power View. Simply click the Power View button on the ribbon to discover insights about your data with highly interactive, powerful data exploration, visualization, and presentation features that are easy to apply. Power View lets you create and interact with charts, slicers, and other data visualizations in a single sheet. Learn more about Power View in Excel 2013.
New and improved add-ins and converters
Power Pivot for Excel add-in
If you’re using Office Professional Plus 2013 or Office 365 Pro Plus, the Power Pivot add-in comes installed with Excel. The Power Pivot data analysis engine is now built into Excel so that you can build simple data models directly in Excel. The Power Pivot add-in provides an environment for creating more sophisticated models. Use it to filter out data when importing it, define your own hierarchies, calculation fields, and key performance indicators (KPIs), and use the Data Analysis Expressions (DAX) language to create advanced formulas. Learn more about the Power Pivot in Excel 2013 add-in.
Inquire add-in
If you’re using Office Professional Plus 2013 or Office 365 Pro Plus, the Inquire add-in comes installed with Excel. It helps you analyze and review your workbooks to understand their design, function, and data dependencies, and to uncover a variety of problems including formula errors or inconsistencies, hidden information, broken links and others. From Inquire, you can start a new Microsoft Office tool, called Spreadsheet Compare, to compare two versions of a workbook, clearly indicating where changes have occurred. During an audit, you have full visibility of the changes in your workbooks.
Cloud support
Microsoft claims that its cloud support is the true shining star of the Office 2013 suite. If you need it, you probably agree; many organizations aren’t taking full advantage of it yet. If you’re curious, you can quickly hook up to SkyDrive or your organization’s SharePoint team site by using the Save As (or Open) screen, as shown in Figure F. Doing so has two advantages:
You have quick and easy access to your Excel files on any device that runs Excel 2013 (including a Windows tablet and smartphone).
Using Office 365 (you’ll need a subscription), you canreview and edit your workbooks online using almost any web browser.
Data Model and Relationships
Excel 2013’s new integrated data model support is well beyond a simple recommendation tip like this. You’ll want to study and familiarize yourself with all of the possibilities:
Create PivotTables based on multiple tables.
Create one-to-one and one-to many relations between tables.
Easily connect to OData, Windows Azure DataMarket, and SharePoint.
Drill down to detail levels in a PivotTable or PivotChart.
Drill up for a high-end view.
Apps for Office
This new feature provides quick access to specialized programs at Office Store. Just a quick click and you’re shopping! To install an app, click the Insert tab and then click Apps for office in the Apps group. You’ll need an account at the store, which the feature will help you create the first time you use it. Figure G shows Bing Maps as an installed app.
After creating an Office Store account, adding Bing Maps took just a couple of clicks.
Present online
Sharing a workbook online used to take a bit of preparation, but in Excel 2013, on-the-fly sharing is no problem. First, install Lync. If you have Office Professional Plus, you already have it, but you’ll need to configure it. Before sharing, sign into Lync. Then, return to Excel 2013, close all workbooks that you don’t want to share, and do the following:
Click the File tab.
Choose Share in the left pane.
Click Present Online (in the Share section).
Click Present.
Choose a Lync meeting or create one, and click OK.
At this point, you can share the workbook and even allow others to update it.
Share work to your social networks
Here’s a handy way to share a to-do list, an event planning worksheet, or whatever spreadsheet you desire with your social network. You can now share Excel workbooks with Facebook and more from within Excel 2013 itself. To see the Post to Social Networks option, the best way to save the file first to SkyDrive.
If you haven’t saved your file to SkyDrive, then choose File, Share, and click Invite People. You’ll be stepped through the process of saving the file to the Cloud so that Save Asoptions later appear automatically. Once this is done, you are returned to the Share panel where the Post to Social Networks option now appears. Here you can select any social network that you have linked to your Office 2013 account. You can select whether viewers can view or edit your shared worksheet, and you can include a message, and then post it for review.
A word processor is indispensable for anyone who creates documents, be it for work, school, or writing angry letters to your representatives in Congress. Now that Microsoft has finally released Office 2013 to the general public, we’re naming what we think are the 10 best new features in Word 2013. (We reviewed the whole enchilada last December, when it became available to Microsoft TechNet subscribers. You can read our opinionhere.)
Word 2013 boasts new and improved features across the board, spanning document creation to reading, editing, and collaboration. What’s even better is that Microsoft has made these advanced features easier for everyone to use.
The new Design tab includes document formatting options to format the entire document.
A New Look for Word
The first change you’ll see when you fire up Word 2013 is a new landing page (rather than a blank document, as in older versions of Word). In the left pane, you’ll see a list of your most recent Word documents as well as the option to open previously viewed documents. In the right pane, you can pick from various templates, such as blank, invoice, blog post, and so on. You can also search through Microsoft’s library of templates using certain keywords, such as “fundraiser” or “proposal.” The new landing page may take some getting used to, but will prove helpful in accessing templates you might have otherwise overlooked.
The landing page provides you with a sleek interface organized into three sections: the navigation sidebar, account information and product information. The navigation bar allows you to access essential word processing functionalities including sharing, exporting and return buttons. The overall Word interface is highly responsive obeying the click, instantly. As illustrated below, Word 2013 comes with a customizable themes (that can be selected from the Office Background dropdown menu boasting multiple attractive themes). Moreover, understanding the power of social media and its penetration in generating viral content, Microsoft has decided to ride the wave by offering Connected Services that virtually allows you to access documents from any device on the go. Just use your Microsoft or SkyDrive account or connect using Youtube. Still not satisfied with the feature? Why not Add a service and connect your work to your favorite online hot spots. The Product Information on the left allows you toManage account or analyze the overall subscription of the Office Suite with update details.
When adding a new service, Word 2013 allows you to link your existing Microsoft account with another online service like LinkedIn. If you don’t have a LinkedIn account, just click the Join Now button on the top right corner to create one. You can specify the access duration and upon approving the link, the new service will get connected to Word, successfully.
The new Design tab
Document formats can be further extended by choosing Themes, Colors, and Fonts to use with them. If you come up with something you’d like to use all the time, the new Set as Default option allows you to make the current combination of formatting settings the default for all new documents.Word 2007 and Word 2010 added interesting features for styling a document, but the tools were scattered throughout the user interface, and they were difficult to use. The new Word 2013 Design tab consolidates all these tools onto one tab, so they’re easy to find. Microsoft has also added a visual element to its Document Formatting tool that allows you to preview a document style before applying it to the entire document. You’ll also find a range of new document format designs to choose from.
The new Alignment Guides in Word 2013 show you when an object is lined up with another object or page element.
Navigation Task Pane
Bookmarks
When you reopen a document, a bookmark is placed in the last location you scrolled to, and you can keep reading right where you left off.
Object Placement Beyond The Right Click
In all previous versions, placement options relevant to objects like pictures, figures, etc. were accessible from the right-click menu. You may have used the Wrap Text feature, placement and adjustment with text, re-sizing and rotation utilities. In Word 2013, a simple click reveals all relevant functionality with the layout options floating on the right, while re-sizing buttons on and around the object. Options can be easily expanded by clicking See more. Double click on the picture to zoom for a better view of the target. With live layout and alignment guides, you can drag your image wherever you want with the text adapting in real-time, accordingly.
Enhanced Templates Directory
A comprehensive template directory comes to view upon clicking New. It is advisable to load the Welcome to Word document for a quick tour of Word 2013. A large number of useful and popular templates are organized in the New tab as user-friendly tiles. Moreover, the search bar allows you to browse, view and select from hundreds of online templates in the Office Library. Suggested searches enhance the searching experience by highlighting frequently used categories.
Office Apps: Redefining Creativity
Office Apps are a new way of adding creative and useful applications to Microsoft Office 2013 suite. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary and eFax app for Word 2013 are useful ways of increasing productivity while creating and managing documents. Moreover, there are loads of free featured apps and a huge collection in the Office Store awaiting your click. You can manage your apps and refresh to keep track of any updates.
Insert Pictures From The Web, Instantly
The Insert tab on the ribbon reveals some new and useful additions. One such feature is the option to insert online pictures. Microsoft has updated its Royalty Free Photos and Illustrations directory that can be accessed using the search bar in the Insert Pictures window. You can also browse your online SkyDrive storage for clipart stored in the cloud. Too often do we use our Image Search to identify relevant photos in the web browser to paste into Microsoft Word. Now, you can use the Bing Image Search and Flickr account to hunt and insert online pictures for good from within Word 2013.
Alignment with Alignment Guides
If you have text wrapping set to an option such as Square, the Alignment Guides also show when the object is aligned with the top of a paragraph or to a heading.This new feature makes lining up images and other objects a cinch in Word 2013. When you move an object such as an Image, Chart, or SmartArt illustration around in a document, Alignment Guides automatically appear to show you when the object is lined up with other elements on the page. The guides also show you when the object is lined up to key page locations, such as the edge of the page and the left and right margins.
Read mode provides a superior experience for anyone who uses Word primarily to read documents others have created.
Comfortable reading in Read mode
If you use Word more to read documents than to create them, you’ll like Word 2013’s new Read mode. It automatically resizes a document to the full window. Click the on-screen arrows to flip through the pages, or swipe the screen from either edge of the display if you’re using a touch-screen monitor. Switch to page view for vertical scrolling. Right-click on any unfamiliar words to display a definition without existing read mode. You can also click on any image, table, or chart to enlarge it for easier reading.
The new comments tool encapsulates related comments into a single bubble, which makes them much easier to follow.
Smarter collaboration
If you collaborate with others on Word documents, you know how quickly conversations can become difficult to follow, because Word’s comments tool treats every utterance as a new comment.
In Word 2013, you can reply to a comment within that comment by clicking the Comment Reply button. This captures the entire discussion of a given point inside a single comment box, which will appear as a small bubble in the document’s margin.
You can also lock the change-tracking feature, so it can’t be bypassed unless the collaborator provides the correct password.
And with the new Simple Markup option, you can hide complex markups and view the final version of the document. Switch between this and All Markup view from the Review tab or by double clicking the line in the left margin beside a tracked change.
Word can now open PDF files so you can edit and complete them in Word including working with table data in the file.
Open and edit PDFs inside Word
Word 2013 can not only open a PDF document, it also enables you to edit it—without need of a third-party application. You can also edit the data inside tables and move images around the document. When you’re finished, you can save the document as either a PDF or a Word file. This is a must-have feature for anyone who works with PDFs frequently.
Select a picture, chart, or SmartArt object, and the new Layout Options icon lets you configure placement and text wrapping options for it.
Discoverable layout options
You can also select Move with text or Fix position on page to control the location of the object. Click See more to open the old Layout dialog, which offers other options for positioning the object on the page.New layout options in Word 2013 make features such as wrapping text around an illustration much easier to use. When you click an image, a chart, or a SmartArt object in a Word document, a Layout Options icon appears outside its top right corner. Click it to select text wrapping options such as Tight, Square and Through.
As with the other applications in the Office 2013 suite, a formatting task pane opens when you right-click an object and choose, for example, Format Picture or Format Shape. This stays open as you work and shows formatting options relevant to the currently selected object.
If you use tables in your documents, the new Border Painter tool and Border Styles feature simplify and speed up formatting.
New table border tools
Select a Line Style, Line Weight, and Pen Color; or choose a preset from the Border Styleslist and paint the borders onto the table. You can also sample an existing border, using the Border Sampler tool in the Border Styles panel, and then use the Border Painter to paint that style elsewhere in the table.Formatting a Word table by adding different width and style borders has always been a pain point. Word 2013’s handy Border Painter tool makes this task supremely easy. To access it, choose Table Tools, Design, Border Painter.
There are new icons for inserting rows and columns in tables and options on the Mini Toolbar for deleting them, too.
Insert Online Videos And Interactive Content Easily
In an attempt to promote dynamic content in documents, Word 2013 presents to you the option to add online videos may it be from social media sites like Youtube, search engines like Bing Video search or videos from any other website (using embed code). To insert a video successfully, type a keyword in the relevant search bar to view results.
Word 2013 displays all results, mentioning the total number of links. Just click the result to preview the video before actually inserting it into the document. Similarly, multiple video results can be added by selecting, previewing and inserting, accordingly. Text Reflow allows you to fit the interactive content in the most appropriate manner.
Simplified Markup View For Better Collaborations
Working with text had never been so interactive. Online Pictures and Videos already added color and dynamic content to the Word document ensuring fast track follow up on relevant topics. Now, with a simplified markup view meant to highlight changes in your document in a neat, effective manner encourages you to focus on collaborating work. The left sidebar indicates changes while a small cloud on the right indicates comments at the respective places. With Word 2013, you can instantly reply to comments in an organized manner to give rise to useful discussion threads. With Microsoft SkyDrive and SharePoint, working on projects and documents online as a collaborated effort could have never been simpler. These markers and comment threads allow you to highlight necessary details, corrections and pointers for the rest of your team to keep in mind. Similarly, keeping track of the activity around your workspace has thus, been made possible.
More new table features
Word has always had weak table tools, and Word 2013 finally addresses the problem. You can now add a new row to a table by hovering your mouse just outside the left edge of the table at the point at which the row is to be inserted. A small icon will appear; click on it and you’re done. There’s a similar icon for easily adding a new column. New Delete buttons on the Mini Toolbar make it easy to delete columns and rows; if the table itself is selected, the option lets you delete the entire table.
New Expand/Collapse options let you collapse and expand a document to make it easier to work on.
Collapse and expand a document
Long documents can become unruly to manage, especially if you’re working in just a small portion of it. Word 2013 lets you collapse and expand a document, so you see only the portion you need. To do this, you must format the document’s headings using the built-in styles Heading 1, Heading 2, and so on.
Switch to Print Layout view and you can collapse the document by hovering your mouse to the left of a formatted heading. Click the small disclosure triangle to hide the paragraphs between this heading and the next, leaving just the heading text visible.
Right-click a heading formatted with one of the heading styles to access the Expand/Collapse option, which gives you menu control for this feature.
Now you can present a document online to others in real time.
Understand The Impact, Definitely
The Review tab has a new Define feature that presents definitions of words and phrases, instantly using the relevant Word Apps like the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Results and displayed on the right sidebar as soon as you select the text. Say goodbye to right-click menu and dictionary access when your results are displayed at a single click. Now, you can truly understand the impact of your content.
Verdict
It is always beneficial to look at new features objectively. Microsoft Word 2013 has indeed come with new tidings for progress in the area of word processing. You are now in a position to present documents online to people who do not have the latest version of Microsoft Office, how? This can now be achieved using the cloud-based storage and synchronization of documents for access, wherever needed. Just provide your team members with the respective link that can be pasted in browsers for viewing. Thus, with a modern, polished and internet-friendly Word 2013, the new life spells out productivity for us all.
Present a document online
Once everyone is connected to the service—which is run via the Microsoft Word Web App—they’ll be able to follow along as you present the document. The interface supports comments being made during the presentation, and participants can create a printable and downloadable PDF of the document if desired.Office 2013’s new Office Presentation Service allows you to present Word documents online. You must be signed into your Microsoft Account to use this feature. When you’re ready to share your document, chooseFile, Share,Present Online, and click the Present Online button to upload your document to the cloud. You will get a link that you can email or share with others so they can join the presentation.
There’s a lot to like about the new Microsoft Word 2013. The new features collectively will make your day-to-day work much easier to perform whatever that happens to be.
Something More for Research 