Microsoft Updates Office Web Apps

Microsoft Updates Office Web Apps

For years Google ran away with the show when it came to productivity tools in your web browser, but when Office web apps hit the scene, they changed everything. Sure they’ve had a tough time with marketing and rallying up mind share, however you’d be hard pressed to find a single thing Google apps can do that Office web apps can’t do better at this point. Microsoft as usual has been a bit slow to innovate next to its much more nimble competition, but a recent update has added a ton of new features to help level the playing field.

Here is a great list of what's new courtesy of ZDnet’s Mary Jo Foley:

Word Web App: Better layout tools, allowing users to change the page size, orientation, margins, paragraph spacing, indentation, etc. Also more granular control over pictures and shapes. Word count calculation added

PowerPoint Web App: Ability to author animations and transitions inside the app. More responsive drawing tool support and more granular control over pictures and shapes. Ability to display videos in PowerPoint Web App. Slideshows also now will show movies

Excel Web App: Support for PivotTable editing, Query Tables and richer charts, among other data-analysis enhancements

OneNote Web App: New "find" textbox added to navigation pane

Across the suite of Web Apps: Improvement in speed in typing, selecting, formatting in larger documents. Right click/context-sensitive menus now supported in more places. Better copy/paste, improved undo, and the ability to print in Excel.

It’s not the most exciting update in the world, but at least it’s something. Anyone out there using the online version of Office? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Read More