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First Look: Microsoft Office 2013
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.'"
Subscription model: HELL, No.
New look and feel means that the IT department has to give each user training on the new interface. Usually just because a couple of the managers refuse to spend a few minutes to "play" with it and learn it themselves.
It's funny that everytime I am asked to do Office training, 50% of the students are more skilled at Excel (acct. especially) and Outlook (admin asst. especially) than I am. So I am standing in front of a room baffeling the people that have no idea what a pivot table is, and looking like an idiot trying to explain it to the people that know it better than me.
although those are thankfully optional and not mandatory
One without the other would have been a disaster.
I'm still using Office 2003 at work, and will for the forseeable future. Microsoft still provides a compatibility pack to read and write docx. What reason is there to upgrade?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
... the less I want.
Anyone else long for the days when a word processor was for editing formatted text, a spreadsheet for mathematical calculations, and an email client sent and received emails?
Easy integration with Skydrive sounds really cool until you think about this inside any organization which doesn't want its files stored on a public cloud. Can this be disabled across an enterprise install easily? Can it be switched to an organization's private cloud?
Here come all the FSF FOSS shills to derail MS.
Not just FOSS "shills". Anyone with a lick of common sense will try to find their way out from under the thumb of an extortionist.
Microsoft is going to replace the hated "Ribbon" with a more-hated "Bow".
On the downside it will require untying to get at the menu item you want. On the bright side it will be configured as a Moebius strip, so if you don't find the menu item your looking for you can just keep clicking and you'll eventually get there.
I'm sure that he, along with other good staunch conservatives, would be unhappy with a Metro-centric interface, because it's only a short step from that to some sort of Cross-Platform interface, and from there it could end up completely Homogenous and involve multiple machines.
I am officially gone from
How do I embed an ActiveX object, with property bag, in an OpenDocument file?
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Arstechnica has a more comprehensive review.
Also they were kind enough to divide the new features by individual product. Word is here, so is excel, outlook, as well as powerpoint.
I just briefly went through them but the general improvements is that you can share documents with your coworkers with its cloud add ons as well as import and export your work documents with integrated skydrive from your work/home pcs. For individual programs, Excel has a new intellisense that works in cells so you can select commonly used names and formulas with a transparent window that wont obstruct your data. MS calls this ghosting. Outlook has Bing and map integration for directions and travel data as well as having a multiview pane so you do not have to close the calendar to view your todo list for example. Word, well I didn't see anything worthwhile except for some extra formatting options for brochures and other material and a souped up track it list where you can even do text messages in them for things like "Bob redo these figures - boss". Does this mean they are axing MS Publisher? They seem to be covering the same functionality. There is some other stuff that I will read later because it is detailed.
What is clear is this is surprisingly strongly aimed at corporations. MS is getting back to its strength as a groupware product that ties to corporate infrastructure.
The ones who still are holding on to IE 6/8, XP, and Office 2k3. College students or home users will not see that much improvement. Also Neowin mentioned MS is killing both Vista and XP support with Office 2013. This office suite is aimed to get those corporations dragging their feet with Windows 7.
http://saveie6.com/
Sure. Welcome to the 1980's. It is called a firewall
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
You could start by not using an ActiveX object. Also, how is being able to embed executable code into a document a good thing?
To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
Now THAT'S productive. Because having to juggle Open Office, Office 2003 and 2007 aren't enough. Now we need a UI for an Office suite that purports to not require any physical input at all.
Still using Office 2000. I still don't see any reason to upgrade. It's Office, not heart surgery.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
The only thing they need to do to improve office at this point is purge the blasphemy of the ribbon UI abomination and restore good pure drop down menu's to their righteous glory.
Also, how is being able to embed executable code into a document a good thing?
An entire generation of crackers built their careers on exploiting executable code in Office documents. If not for Microsoft, they'd be cooking fries at McDonald's.
Will this be the first office to have a good formatting engine in place. Features such as auto numbering, auto bullets and the rest, are they all going to work? I say this after fighting with office 2007 and 2010 today as the auto numbering system completely corrupted my document. Office doesn't need any more cosmetic updates, it doesn't need any more ribbons, any more hidden menus or any more flash. What office needs is to be redesigned at its core, features like its formatting system need to redesigned to work. Features like it's grammar and spell check engine need to be worked on, if Microsoft tries hard they might be able to release a document system as good or better then Libre Office, but I doubt it!
You could start by not using an ActiveX object. Also, how is being able to embed executable code into a document a good thing?
Embedding an ActiveX object into a Word document does not embed any executable code. Rather, it embeds the data as an opaque blob (more or less; look up "OLE compound storage" for more), along with information about what app has created it, so that the editing service offered by that app can be embedded within Word editor. This is how Excel spreadsheets embedded into Word work, for example. You can embed other stuff, too - e.g. Adobe Reader offers a similar service for PDF, so you could have a PDF embedded into a Word file, and displayed in an embedded viewer within Word (though god knows why you'd want to).
Do you also hate KDE when it does that kind of thing? KParts allows all that, same as ActiveX (though arguably somewhat better designed from a technical perspective).
Because MS is almost totally balkanised. The OS group had a come to Jesus moment (facilitated by some visits from Their Owners) and came up with Metro / Win8 etc. The rest of the company is thinking "WTF?" So when it came time for the new Office, rather than implement The New Wave of MS OS garbage, they're sticking to the product plans that have been in place since the Clinton Administration. "Steady as she goes - the Office division will weather this storm... The OS team will get its telephony ass kicked by Apple. Apple's going to stop making serious computers, anyway, go back to developing for serious computers, and churn out the same old shite we've been peddling since the President of Sierra Leone, Valentine Strasser, was deposed by the chief of defence, Julius Bio. Then, we'll be back to the same old same old and own the world for another day."
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Wonder if the aforementioned, longstanding issue is fixed in Office 15 or not...?
Just happened to have to deal with it a few days earlier, and was reminded that it's still there (in Office 14). It's been reported for, >10-year I think...?
Ref: http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/calendar/changing-date-recurring-appointments/
You need good code and a functional interface. Not a pice of "art" designed by a wannabe retard that thinks that is good because looks good. It is good when it works without crashing. Go and change your Armani suit and your Gucci shoes for jeans and t-shirt and write some code (If you can)
and I just made friends with the Ribbon interface and finally found everything again..... Why Microsoft? Why?
Gee, what if apps were skinnable and people could make them look like whatever they want?
This is hell at work. Change of shifts. Temps and volunteers. You need to have people who can sit down at any desk at any time and be productive,
At my last job, I did some tech support in addition to my "real" job. I had to help users with QuickBooks regularly, and we had 3 people sharing 2 jobs.
The simple ribbon bar across the top of the window in QuickBooks became a living hell as the three gals switched computers. "My QuickBooks isn't working", "I can't search [because the button is gone]" were just part of the endless nightmare. Only one of the three could handle a different interface (and it really wasn't that different). I cannot imagine the chaos that skins on top of Office would have created.
this reverse snobbism is annoying. what's wrong with something that works and looks good? this is why most "normal" people think people like you are weird.
Don't ever use the words "Ballmer" and "naked" in the same sentence again.
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