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Office 2013 Early Thoughts and a PDF

Picture of Richard Edgerton

Richard Edgerton

Richard Edgerton Richard has over 20 years experience in the IT industry, ranging from green screen mainframes through the birth of the PC to the technologies of today. Richard has gained experience across dozens of projects of all shapes and sizes understanding, deploying and training on many versions of business applications throughout most sectors of industry and public organisations. He has recently completed being involved in the beta testing programme for Microsoft Office 2010.

Posted by Richard Edgerton
on 16 August 2012

Office 2013 provides a crossover from the most widely used desktop software suite into a cloud app in one installation.

On opening Office 2013 for the first time it is clear that Microsoft have taken the idea of the fluent interface to new levels. Traditionally, new versions of software load layer upon layer of functionality in such a way that even simple tasks become buried. The introduction of the ribbon in Office 2007 and its evolution into Office 2013 meets the design tenet that the tools you see should be clean, easy to use and only there when you need them.

The first view of Office is Backstage and you are asked to sign in. Sign in to what? Well it's simple. Sign in to your Live ID, employee network login, Office 365 or whatever you use to connect. Office 2013 is a combination of a powerful desktop set of applications which can link seamlessly with your cloud based document storage whether that be SkyDrive or a SharePoint solution. This means that you can work on your documents anywhere that you have an internet connection using the forthcoming Office 365 Pro Plus suite of enhanced web apps.

Not only is Backstage looking to sign you in, it also presents a set of choices whether they be recent documents, locations or templates to pick up and work with. Backstage looks like a big app tile and that's exactly what it is.

Once you're into the document you need to work on you will see the ribbon presented as a cleaner view. There is less emphasis on the appearance of the commands you use and more on the document you are working on.

Backstage then changes in a similar way to the ribbon by presenting the commands you need to be available to you now you are in the document. Instead of it providing a starting place when you first open the application, the commands and features are document specific.

As ever Office 2013 will present challenges to anyone moving to it from a version prior to Office 2007. Here at QA we took the view that the approach to the new versions as they were released should be on two fronts. Firstly, we looked at an overview of major changes that affect a user of the software by creating a successful Experience Office course. We then concentrated on the individual applications and the new or revised features and capabilities they offer.

The same approach is being taken with Office 2013. On the face of it there are so many changes and yet with a little time invested it is apparent that the features are easy to get to, only there when you need them and simple to use.

I started with a challenge and opened a pdf file in Word 2013 because I needed to edit it. No problem. Word 2013 opens those as well let me edit it and save it back into a pdf. Wow.

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