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First Look: Microsoft Office 2013

Posted by samzenpus on from the go-ahead-and-peek dept.

snydeq writes "Ever since the first beta editions of Windows 8 appeared, rumors have circulated over how Microsoft would revamp its other flagship consumer product, Office, to be all the more useful in the new OS. Would Office become touch-oriented and Metro-centric, to the exclusion of plain old Windows users? A first look at Office 2013 provides the short answer: No. 'Office 2013 has clearly been revised to work that much better in Windows 8 and on touch-centric devices, but the vast majority of its functionality remains in place. The changes made are mostly cosmetic — a way to bring the Metro look to Office for users of versions of Windows other than 8. Further, Office 2013 has been designed to integrate more closely with online storage and services (mainly Microsoft's), although those are thankfully optional and not mandatory.'"

3 of 369 comments (clear)

  1. all your document by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    are belong to us.

    Really.. we're not as dumb as you think, chairboy.

    1. Re:all your document by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Here come all the FSF FOSS shills to derail MS. Facts are MS Office is the best office suite on the planet and this is only going to make it better. Also, unlike Linux where every app has its own look and feel because the developer decided to use "Joe's Random GUI Kit" instead of standardizing, this one will actually integrate well with the Windows 8 look. Flame on trolls.

  2. Re:Business Software Doesn't Change by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Tell that to the idiots who designed Ribbon.
    Tell that to the idiots who designed Windows Vis7a / Windows 8.
    Tell that to whatever actual serious moron designed the new Explorer. The thing is such a terribly inconsistent user experience it hurts.

    I think the only user interface design they have changed recently and has actually worked nice is the start menu and some context menus for windows. (such as Peek and the ability for program hooking useful commands to the context menu unlike the painful hack of a job you had to do in XP and previous)
    Whoever designed those should replace THE ENTIRE UI design team. Completely serious. The rest of them are worthless.

    It still kills me when they tried to defend Ribbon on their blog when they recorded some stats on the things people used most turned out to be menus and context menus, and they COMPLETELY glossed over that part because obviously people like HUGE TOOLBARS designed FOR FINGERS AND BLIND PEOPLE clogging up all their screenspace.
    Toolbars and toolstrips are the most efficient quick-access system for lots of common features in large applications.
    Don't force that crap Ribbon on people when they don't want it. Make toolbars, ribbon and other stuff snap-ins to the program that the user can enable or disable by default. I definitely know what I would be doing with the Ribbon definition file, deleting it. Most worthless UI in existence.

    Microsoft needs to stop hiring college design grads. They are horrible, horrible people.