Office 2013: Just what on earth has the Office team been doing?(arstechnica.com)
arstechnica.com
Office 2013: Just what on earth has the Office team been doing?
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/01/office-2013-just-what-on-earth-has-the-office-team-been-doing/
102 comments
Is the argument that a touch version of Office is more important than a web-friendly version? Moving to a JavaScript-based add-in model and adding native support for SkyDrive seem like fairly big, worthwhile, and forward-looking additions to me. In contrast, I don't think that touch-friendliness is really very important - it would be nice to have, but I doubt most office workers are going to be doing a lot of editing on tablets.
There are also plenty of nice new features too, like flash-fill in Excel and PDF reading in Word. I really think Office 2013 is a nice, if not critical, update.
There are also plenty of nice new features too, like flash-fill in Excel and PDF reading in Word. I really think Office 2013 is a nice, if not critical, update.
They've certainly used Office as a major selling point of Surface RT. So there's at least some conflict in the message they are sending there. Is Office meant for tables or not? If yes, then why haven't they made it more touch optimized? If not, then why are they making such a big deal out of it with Surface promotion?
And don't think you're getting Office for "free" in there anyway. The hardware specs are almost identical to a $200 Nexus 7. There's little in there, hardware wise, that could justify a $300 increase. So obviously most of the difference is to pay up for the Windows and Office licenses. They are included in the price. they are not "free".
And don't think you're getting Office for "free" in there anyway. The hardware specs are almost identical to a $200 Nexus 7. There's little in there, hardware wise, that could justify a $300 increase. So obviously most of the difference is to pay up for the Windows and Office licenses. They are included in the price. they are not "free".
The answer is pretty plain: The Office division cut the team that was supposed to ship the Metro-styled Office apps for 2013 despite the Windows division objection. Windows then relented and added 'desktop mode' for ARM just to keep Office in the release. Office tweaked the existing UI to make buttons 'bigger.' The original plan called for the Metro UI to be available whenever a user interacted with his hands -- Surface was the primary objective, but Office 2013 should work great on the Toshiba tablet as well.
The decision to cut Metro support was made in Q1 2011 and distributed to all Office managers by Kurt himself. The team that was working on Metro (called Modern Office eXperience, MOX) shrunk and merged with OneNote. Hence, why we see OneNote has Metro and no other app does. The reasoning was "the Win8 APIs are not stable enough for us to finish on schedule with the team we have. We either ship 10/11/12 or slip by a year to support Windows 8." They decided to ship (RTM) on 10/11/12. We should see a 'surprise' SP1 that supports Metro and iOS by the end of this year (this is pure speculation from me -- I have no NDA knowledge about plans past 10/11/12).
You are seeing a classical "ship the orgchart" dilema from Microsoft with Office and Windows this season. It's sad, really, but these tensions are why I don't work there.
The decision to cut Metro support was made in Q1 2011 and distributed to all Office managers by Kurt himself. The team that was working on Metro (called Modern Office eXperience, MOX) shrunk and merged with OneNote. Hence, why we see OneNote has Metro and no other app does. The reasoning was "the Win8 APIs are not stable enough for us to finish on schedule with the team we have. We either ship 10/11/12 or slip by a year to support Windows 8." They decided to ship (RTM) on 10/11/12. We should see a 'surprise' SP1 that supports Metro and iOS by the end of this year (this is pure speculation from me -- I have no NDA knowledge about plans past 10/11/12).
You are seeing a classical "ship the orgchart" dilema from Microsoft with Office and Windows this season. It's sad, really, but these tensions are why I don't work there.
Shipping WinRT support for all of Office within a year sounds aggressive if it was only OneNote at the end of Office 2013!
I wonder why MS did not make Win8 on ARM fully open to desktop apps like NT on Alpha was.
Is the Surface really a tablet? From the marketing, it seems clear that the presence of a semi-integrated keyboard is considered a selling point, so I'm not sure there's really much of a conflict here.
As an owner of both devices, I don't think that the Surface hardware is really all that comparable to the Nexus 7. Aside from the obvious size difference, the build quality is vastly better on the Surface, it has a rear camera, it has a USB 2 port that can be used to charge other devices or attach a wide variety of peripherals, etc. Whether that's worth what they're charging is another question, of course.
As an owner of both devices, I don't think that the Surface hardware is really all that comparable to the Nexus 7. Aside from the obvious size difference, the build quality is vastly better on the Surface, it has a rear camera, it has a USB 2 port that can be used to charge other devices or attach a wide variety of peripherals, etc. Whether that's worth what they're charging is another question, of course.
Office workers are going to do a lot of work on tablets, but the work they will do on tablets mightn't fit into the Microsoft Office paradigm.
For example, when it comes to meeting minutes, Microsoft Word doesn't stack up well against Evernote.
For example, when it comes to meeting minutes, Microsoft Word doesn't stack up well against Evernote.
Sure, but that's what OneNote is for (and there's a touch-optimized OneNote app). The current weak touch support is still good enough to do basic editing on tablets, and is definitely fine for viewing. Touch-optimized interfaces for all parts of the suite would be nice, but I find it hard to fault the Office team's prioritization.
I personally feel that OneNote is vastly superior to Evernote.
With the Web version going to have an update every 3 months, I think setting up the foundation would have been higher priority. The improvements will keep coming in I hope.
I couldn't tell you what the major "advancements" in Wordprocessing have been in 20 years. I haven't had Office installed on my personal computer in about 10 years, but when I use Word or Excel they just feel like... well, spreadsheet and wordprocessing tools. Excel still feels really inadequate and slow compared for processing complex and large datasets. Word feels like a slightly different UI of wordprocessing software I had on Windows 95.
The changes for so long have felt like they haven't done anything really positive. If i need to write a letter, I just use Google Docs. If I need to tabulate some simple data, I just use Google Docs. I just don't get it.
Powerpoint still feels smooth to me than Keynote, but Keynote looks better in output generally. Pages almost always produces better looking output than Word for me for some reason (although I'd rather just use LaTeX for real document layout). Numbers by Apple is a mess compared to excel and not worth using.
The changes for so long have felt like they haven't done anything really positive. If i need to write a letter, I just use Google Docs. If I need to tabulate some simple data, I just use Google Docs. I just don't get it.
Powerpoint still feels smooth to me than Keynote, but Keynote looks better in output generally. Pages almost always produces better looking output than Word for me for some reason (although I'd rather just use LaTeX for real document layout). Numbers by Apple is a mess compared to excel and not worth using.
When it comes to minor tasks like making a shopping list, Google Docs is great (it even syncs with my phone). But IMO it's not very useful for serious use, and that is probably one of its most detracting points. It has trouble displaying some docx files (probably because it's such a complex file format) and because it doesn't offer the level of control a word processor like Writer or Word offers. When it comes to editing complex documents prepared in Word with tables of contents and embedded Excel tables (which isn't uncommon in legal documents), Google Docs just doesn't cut it.
In any case, a lot of people won't be able to do their jobs properly without full-fledged document editors. I do agree that there haven't been any major advancements in word processing; if Google could solve the issue of compatibility and maybe throw in some grammar checking or autocompletion, then I would drop whatever I use now and switch to Docs in a heartbeat.
In any case, a lot of people won't be able to do their jobs properly without full-fledged document editors. I do agree that there haven't been any major advancements in word processing; if Google could solve the issue of compatibility and maybe throw in some grammar checking or autocompletion, then I would drop whatever I use now and switch to Docs in a heartbeat.
This is undoubtedly true. For complex documents, and those specifically for print publication, MSOffice is light years ahead of GDocs, and probably always will be.
However, my feeling is that this is a relatively small proportion of the MSOffice market (I'd love to see figures on how many word docs have embedded spreadsheets in, for example). For straightforward business docs, GDocs is almost as good, and has a couple of absolutely killer features. Firstly, collaborative real-time editing (e.g. during a conf call) is fantastic.
Secondly, and most importantly, no files to copy, backup, lose, mis-version, etc - just an URL. This is a totally killer feature: once non-techies grok that they never have to mess around with files, just point their browser at an URL, they (IME) love it, and don't want to go back.
However, my feeling is that this is a relatively small proportion of the MSOffice market (I'd love to see figures on how many word docs have embedded spreadsheets in, for example). For straightforward business docs, GDocs is almost as good, and has a couple of absolutely killer features. Firstly, collaborative real-time editing (e.g. during a conf call) is fantastic.
Secondly, and most importantly, no files to copy, backup, lose, mis-version, etc - just an URL. This is a totally killer feature: once non-techies grok that they never have to mess around with files, just point their browser at an URL, they (IME) love it, and don't want to go back.
What do you use for complex and large datasets? Last time I dabbled in office software, the gist was the the openoffice versions were missing a lot of advanced features in the spreadsheet.
Ruby, R, Perl, Processing, Hadoop, etc...
When I say big data sets, I'm normally talking in at least the millions, if not several billion rows.
I've got grad student friends who strain to deal with their 'huge' (10,000 row) datasets for weeks in Excel.
When I say big data sets, I'm normally talking in at least the millions, if not several billion rows.
I've got grad student friends who strain to deal with their 'huge' (10,000 row) datasets for weeks in Excel.
I'm using Google Docs for mostly everything. I've typeset one book using LaTeX and several using QuarkXPress on Mac computers.
We're simply not the target for Microsoft Word.
But with less and less need to write letters (we've got emails now) and more and more totally free and convenient solutions like Google Docs, the "target" keeps shrinking for Microsoft Word.
The corporate world won't change anytime soon: MS Office is their way of doing business.
But SMEs are fleeing fast: I'm seeing more and more shared Google Docs (both text and spreadsheets) used inside SMEs and even to exchange doc with the outside.
Want an invoice and you're on GMail? OK, I'm sharing the invoice with you so you can print it. Why bother printing it and sending a letter? Why even bother exporting it as a PDF and sending it as an attachment? Shared invoice (read-only) just so that the recipient can print it.
I'm not saying it's "great" from a security point of view to share a Google Doc with a customer / contractor but that's where we're at now: lots of SMEs aren't even bothering with Word and its incompabilities (whether they still exist or not not being the point: they do exist in the users' mind).
MS did a 180 degree with Office 365 because they know it's very real.
We're simply not the target for Microsoft Word.
But with less and less need to write letters (we've got emails now) and more and more totally free and convenient solutions like Google Docs, the "target" keeps shrinking for Microsoft Word.
The corporate world won't change anytime soon: MS Office is their way of doing business.
But SMEs are fleeing fast: I'm seeing more and more shared Google Docs (both text and spreadsheets) used inside SMEs and even to exchange doc with the outside.
Want an invoice and you're on GMail? OK, I'm sharing the invoice with you so you can print it. Why bother printing it and sending a letter? Why even bother exporting it as a PDF and sending it as an attachment? Shared invoice (read-only) just so that the recipient can print it.
I'm not saying it's "great" from a security point of view to share a Google Doc with a customer / contractor but that's where we're at now: lots of SMEs aren't even bothering with Word and its incompabilities (whether they still exist or not not being the point: they do exist in the users' mind).
MS did a 180 degree with Office 365 because they know it's very real.
I realize that, 15 years ago, I used Word for things like writing manuals, printing cover sheets, formatting resumes, writing newsletters -- everything that was designed to be printed.
I haven't used Word in years. Every workplace of mine has used Google Docs instead. And for the first time, I realize it isn't just because of Google Docs collaboration and use-anywhere -- it's the fact that all the "power" features of Word, particularly formatting and layout, are all geared towards the printed page.
But I literally produce nothing designed to be printed anymore. Everything that used to be printed, is now thrown up the web. Fancy formatting is useless now if it can't be translated into HTML.
(For spreadsheets, there are still big reasons for power usage of those, so I don't see Excel going away anytime soon. But except for producing PDF versions of nicely formatted resumes, it's getting harder and harder to see why Word should even exist. And of course graphic designers need to produce typeset pages, but that's what page layout programs are for.)
I haven't used Word in years. Every workplace of mine has used Google Docs instead. And for the first time, I realize it isn't just because of Google Docs collaboration and use-anywhere -- it's the fact that all the "power" features of Word, particularly formatting and layout, are all geared towards the printed page.
But I literally produce nothing designed to be printed anymore. Everything that used to be printed, is now thrown up the web. Fancy formatting is useless now if it can't be translated into HTML.
(For spreadsheets, there are still big reasons for power usage of those, so I don't see Excel going away anytime soon. But except for producing PDF versions of nicely formatted resumes, it's getting harder and harder to see why Word should even exist. And of course graphic designers need to produce typeset pages, but that's what page layout programs are for.)
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Honestly the change from 2010 to 2013 is bigger than the change from 2007 to 2010 - particularly all of the cloud stuff. (It's actually quite cool to have the same most recently used documents when you open up an Office app, regardless of which computer you're on).
In any case - overall I somewhat agree with the article, though I'd be surprised if Microsoft isn't aware of this themselves. I think Office 2013 is a solid upgrade for the desktop - though a solid touch version is indeed lacking. Here's to hoping they have one on the way, hopefully sooner than 3 years from now...
In any case - overall I somewhat agree with the article, though I'd be surprised if Microsoft isn't aware of this themselves. I think Office 2013 is a solid upgrade for the desktop - though a solid touch version is indeed lacking. Here's to hoping they have one on the way, hopefully sooner than 3 years from now...
Agree the cloud integration looks quite useful. I'd love to just open and save files directly to SkyDrive and have that list of recent files available to me in any office client I use. This is an awesome functionality. Worth 2.5 years or not... don't know but I'm sure there is more cool stuff to office 2013 than just that. Love the OneNote app on metro.
Why is opening and saving files to SkyDrive superior to opening and saving files to DropBox or Google Drive? Is the big benefit that the recently opened files list moves with you from machine to machine? I feel like I am missing something.
It is because you can access your "Office" from any copy of Office 2013. As long as a computer has 2013 installed, you can access your files. No downloading and setting up the dropbox app, or logging into dropbox.com and grabbing the files from there.
Just log in, edit, save, log out.
Just log in, edit, save, log out.
It's not necessarily superior, but it can have a big impact on streamlining your workflow. Pulling a file from SkyDrive directly from within the application (or "opening" it directly from the SkyDrive website), and being able to save directly to the cloud version with Cltr+S or the Save button is extremely useful. It doesn't require having a third-party software like Dropbox downloaded (useful if you're not on your own computer), and it doesn't require downloading and editing a local copy before re-uploading it back online.
You can also use the Office Web Apps to edit your documents online, whereas in Dropbox/Google Drive, you'd have to have Office installed.
In your office, SkyDrive is SharePoint.
Office 2013 is a visual nightmare. The lack of any dividing lines gives me a headache; it feels like a snowstorm.
And just to be more insulting, the UI has random caps. There's no design or reasoning for the caps. They don't indicate clickable things, they don't seem to indicate anything. I spend a fair amount of time in Outlook and Lync - why would I want to subject my eyes to this?
And just to be more insulting, the UI has random caps. There's no design or reasoning for the caps. They don't indicate clickable things, they don't seem to indicate anything. I spend a fair amount of time in Outlook and Lync - why would I want to subject my eyes to this?
Have you used the release version (not the preview)? Outlook has both dividing lines and a light grey theme (which slightly greys adjoining portions of the UI to make divisions more clear). Also, basically everything is clickable...
There are plenty of dividing lines
http://i.minus.com/ibm6UEFR5wXRGJ.png
I personally like the new UI, I find it refreshing.
http://i.minus.com/ibm6UEFR5wXRGJ.png
I personally like the new UI, I find it refreshing.
I agree, but only because the office installation in this screenshot is set to use the darkest theme -- by default all that gray is just more white.
WP8 suffers from similar problems, including the schizo approach to capitalization.
agreed. I like the Metro design the for the OS but for Office it's terrible. I think Metro is only good for designs that have a lot of white space. For something like Excel you need a little bit more detail to show what's clickable, ect...It's the same problem for Rdio's app.
Well, for me they ruined it somewhere in the transition from '03 to '07.
Of course, my take on this is heavily skewed because I am more of an engineering user of these tools than a typical office worker. And, although I have used it extensively for such things as invoices, purchase orders, financial calculation, presentations and business documents I still think of these tools as part of my engineering tool set.
Examples:
I devoted about three months to write an Excel VBA tool to help automate the creation of components for the EDA package we were using at the time. Creating a component such as a 1000+ pin FPGA went from almost literally days to an hour or two after this tool was in place.
Use Excel and the built-in Solver tool to find solutions for programming a clock synthesizer to output a given set of frequencies.
Use Excel + external voltage, current and temperature sensors to log and analyze test data.
Use Excel to easily produce and maintain lookup-table-driven state machine code in C, including all the callbacks for each state.
Use Excel to produce CNC G-code to run a Haas VF3-SS milling machine to produce patterned holes and threads.
Automate Powerpoint with VBA to simulate the control panel of a piece of equipment, complete with a small dot-matrix LCD display and functioning menu buttons. This was used to for training purposes when the actual piece of equipment was not available.
Use Word and VBA to automate parsing of documents and extraction of data.
Anyhow, just some examples that come to mind.
I had to install '07 when we switched to a Vista 64 to be able to run FEA and other tools that would benefit from that platform. I remember going from being a "power user" to feeling like an utter idiot. The UI change was brutal and I am still not sure that it was an improvement. They also modified automation and put in all of the roadblocks that just made it painful to use.
Office 2013? Nope. Thanks.
Of course, my take on this is heavily skewed because I am more of an engineering user of these tools than a typical office worker. And, although I have used it extensively for such things as invoices, purchase orders, financial calculation, presentations and business documents I still think of these tools as part of my engineering tool set.
Examples:
I devoted about three months to write an Excel VBA tool to help automate the creation of components for the EDA package we were using at the time. Creating a component such as a 1000+ pin FPGA went from almost literally days to an hour or two after this tool was in place.
Use Excel and the built-in Solver tool to find solutions for programming a clock synthesizer to output a given set of frequencies.
Use Excel + external voltage, current and temperature sensors to log and analyze test data.
Use Excel to easily produce and maintain lookup-table-driven state machine code in C, including all the callbacks for each state.
Use Excel to produce CNC G-code to run a Haas VF3-SS milling machine to produce patterned holes and threads.
Automate Powerpoint with VBA to simulate the control panel of a piece of equipment, complete with a small dot-matrix LCD display and functioning menu buttons. This was used to for training purposes when the actual piece of equipment was not available.
Use Word and VBA to automate parsing of documents and extraction of data.
Anyhow, just some examples that come to mind.
I had to install '07 when we switched to a Vista 64 to be able to run FEA and other tools that would benefit from that platform. I remember going from being a "power user" to feeling like an utter idiot. The UI change was brutal and I am still not sure that it was an improvement. They also modified automation and put in all of the roadblocks that just made it painful to use.
Office 2013? Nope. Thanks.
A bit off topic, but are you sure Excel was the right tool for communicating with instruments, power point for simulating instrument front panel etc?
I think LabVIEW or any other appropriate tool with Excel used for data presentation would have been better.
Not sure it was the best, but they worked very well. Powerpoint with some automation code under the hood can be absolutely brilliant in a presentation. All of a sudden your presentation isn't just a bunch of slides but you have a real instrument's control panel come to life and be usable on slide 59 (or whatever).
> Well, for me they ruined it somewhere in the transition from '03 to '07.
> Of course, my take on this is heavily skewed because I am more of an engineering user of these tools than a typical office worker
Agree to disagree.
Excel 2007 was a radical improvement over it's 2003 counterpart from an engineering standpoint. The row limitation was increased almost 20 fold, from 65k to 1.5 million. Filters and pivot tables both became noticeably more responsive and performant.
> I remember going from being a "power user" to feeling like an utter idiot.
Most of Office 2007's failings were of a UX nature, beginning with the relatively infamous "ribbon". While this is a problem of a subjective nature, IME it wasn't a major sticking point.
> Of course, my take on this is heavily skewed because I am more of an engineering user of these tools than a typical office worker
Agree to disagree.
Excel 2007 was a radical improvement over it's 2003 counterpart from an engineering standpoint. The row limitation was increased almost 20 fold, from 65k to 1.5 million. Filters and pivot tables both became noticeably more responsive and performant.
> I remember going from being a "power user" to feeling like an utter idiot.
Most of Office 2007's failings were of a UX nature, beginning with the relatively infamous "ribbon". While this is a problem of a subjective nature, IME it wasn't a major sticking point.
The UI change was pretty brutal, I guess you could think of it as a "breaking change". Many people complain about it to this day, and it's been what, 5 years now?
Having said that, I've found the 2007 UI to be vastly superior to the older one, for most common tasks. On a reasonable screen (1900+ wide), the main ribbon contains a significant portion of the most used basic functions, reducing the amount of menu navigation and tab-switching. The rest of the tabs are pretty self explanatory (once you unlearn your Office 2003 lessons). E.g. most of the "page layout" functionality used to be hidden in some arb place in the depths of the file menu; it is now one click away.
So yeah, while these types of conceptual breaking changes are irritating, as long as they really are for the better, I'm all for it.
Having said that, I've found the 2007 UI to be vastly superior to the older one, for most common tasks. On a reasonable screen (1900+ wide), the main ribbon contains a significant portion of the most used basic functions, reducing the amount of menu navigation and tab-switching. The rest of the tabs are pretty self explanatory (once you unlearn your Office 2003 lessons). E.g. most of the "page layout" functionality used to be hidden in some arb place in the depths of the file menu; it is now one click away.
So yeah, while these types of conceptual breaking changes are irritating, as long as they really are for the better, I'm all for it.
I'm not sold on the argument that customers even desire the ability to produce long-form text content on a touch-based device, or that it's ergonomic to do so. Touch-screens are great for reading and basic editing, but beyond that I'm skeptical; the line-of-thought that leads to "word processing... on a tablet!" seems haphazard and reactionary.
Additionally, I'm reminded of the old Dvorak-vs-Qwerty keyboard layout wars that would occasionally flare up on Slashdot. Eventually, most people realized that it was a neat idea that wasn't practical and moved on. I think that's where this is going.
Additionally, I'm reminded of the old Dvorak-vs-Qwerty keyboard layout wars that would occasionally flare up on Slashdot. Eventually, most people realized that it was a neat idea that wasn't practical and moved on. I think that's where this is going.
> I'm not sold on the argument that customers even desire the ability to produce long-form text content on a touch-based device, or that it's ergonomic to do so.
Not with a tablet, but when you've got a touchscreen laptop it feels pretty natural to go between touching controls with your fingers and entering text with the keyboard.
Not with a tablet, but when you've got a touchscreen laptop it feels pretty natural to go between touching controls with your fingers and entering text with the keyboard.
I can't speak for the entire Office suite but the things happening in Excel are impressive. First, Excel 2013 has the PowerPivot engine built in. If you don't know about PowerPivot, it allows data analysis over very large data sets (think millions of rows). It has other features like pulling data from multiple sources, tabular data modeling, and others. Power View is another option that is now built into Excel 2013. And there are a bunch of plugins available like the Data Mining. They are throwing all of this into Excel for no additional cost.
You have Office 365 now, is that not something? You can get a hosted version of SharePoint now with it. Again, is this nothing?
Windows 8 has a new OneNote app available that has a very innovative interface. Again, no recognition on this?
Like I said, I don't know what's going on with the rest of the suite but I do not think this article is warranted.
You have Office 365 now, is that not something? You can get a hosted version of SharePoint now with it. Again, is this nothing?
Windows 8 has a new OneNote app available that has a very innovative interface. Again, no recognition on this?
Like I said, I don't know what's going on with the rest of the suite but I do not think this article is warranted.
Yep, and flash fill, too, which if it were introduced by Google instead would probably be hailed as evidence that the strong culture of AI at Google gives them an innovation advantage in the long run.
In my humble opinion, Touch devices are "computers for people who don't need computers" and their needs are much simpler and more generalised.
Building a full featured Office for touch is a waste of time and a waste of opportunity for Microsoft. They could have breathed new life into Office if they built a simpler touch based experience and kept the existing experience for desktops.
Eventually you would probably want those advanced features as touch devices go mainstream and replace desktops, but by designing for everybody (touch and desktop) they've ended up with a shitty experience for both.
Building a full featured Office for touch is a waste of time and a waste of opportunity for Microsoft. They could have breathed new life into Office if they built a simpler touch based experience and kept the existing experience for desktops.
Eventually you would probably want those advanced features as touch devices go mainstream and replace desktops, but by designing for everybody (touch and desktop) they've ended up with a shitty experience for both.
Good article and agree that Microsoft has been awfully lazy about upgrading their bread and butter but i don't think Microsoft cares to appeal to the hacker / bleeding or even cutting edge community with Office. Office is meant for productivity; and despite the tablet sales figures, when you need to bang out 1000 word essay or make a pivot table you're doing it with a keyboard (maybe even a keyboard attached to a touch device)--anything else would be silly. Input by touch is not productive yet; once so, this is a valid discussion.
The problem is that word is a flawed product from the outset. It is like a very poor quality version of InDesign with a writing tool clamped on. Its bad for writing and bad for design. Instead they should have users do writing in OneNote and have a separate tool for turning the documents into print versions. This would be much more natural in touch and be much easier to use.
>The problem is that word is a flawed product from the outset.
That must be why Word is the most widely used word processing a program in the world.
That must be why Word is the most widely used word processing a program in the world.
And its a very good word processor. But word processing isn;t really a thing. You can write, design, take notes, draw, calculate, and assemble print documents. Those are real things. What ties the functions of a word processor together are the fact that they are things traditionally done on paper. That is a legacy issue.
At this point Office would be hard pressed to change anything without annoying a lot of people. We see this all the time, people complaining about lack of new features in mature products.
There are so many functions that need to be exposed via the UI that it is always going to be hard to make something that works for everyone.
Making something like word touch friendly while maintaining the right level of functionality is going to be very hard. Pages for iOS has been annoying to use due to the amount of features it lacks.
There are so many functions that need to be exposed via the UI that it is always going to be hard to make something that works for everyone.
Making something like word touch friendly while maintaining the right level of functionality is going to be very hard. Pages for iOS has been annoying to use due to the amount of features it lacks.
There was no new functionality in 2013 useful to me so I ended up going back to an old version just because of the new UI. The layout is fine. I've always liked the ribbon UI. The problem is the entire UI is this block of whiteness dotted with icons. I had a very difficult time finding items that hadn't even moved much or at all. I never realized before this just how important the 3D-ish look of buttons/toolbars/etc was to me. The whole flat UI look isn't working well for me at all.
It is possible we've reached the stage, with office productivity software, that there isn't really anything you can _do_ to one except put better cup holders on it.
As far as features are concerned, yes. But as far as usability is concerned, not by a long shot.
I am not so sure.
For me, word processors have gotten progressively stupider and harder to use since WordPerfect, circa 1996.
Excel is pretty good.
I may be biased - I've been using emacs for the last two years and keep finding more ways to use it, and far less for Office or NeoOffice.
For me, word processors have gotten progressively stupider and harder to use since WordPerfect, circa 1996.
Excel is pretty good.
I may be biased - I've been using emacs for the last two years and keep finding more ways to use it, and far less for Office or NeoOffice.
They most likely spent 2 years porting the code to ARM. Can you imagine the decade of legacy code they had to wade through to get that done?
Good point. This reminds me of a previous workplace where we made EEG software - basically 20-odd squiggly lines progressing across a screen.
Going from nothing to version 1 is huge. At first you don't record EEG, now you see the squiggly lines.
Going from version 1 to version 2 is not so huge. The squiggly lines are still there (a little prettier) and there's a ton of analysis tools. Far, far more work went into version 2, but take a punter's opinion and it'll be 'meh, not much'. Little change in basic UI does not mean little functionality added.
Going from nothing to version 1 is huge. At first you don't record EEG, now you see the squiggly lines.
Going from version 1 to version 2 is not so huge. The squiggly lines are still there (a little prettier) and there's a ton of analysis tools. Far, far more work went into version 2, but take a punter's opinion and it'll be 'meh, not much'. Little change in basic UI does not mean little functionality added.
See, I just don't get that. We aren't talking about an OS kernel here, we're talking about a graphics toolkit. What is it about their libraries that weren't capable of running on different versions of Windows capable of running on different architecture?
Unless, of course, the issue is in porting the toolkit...
Unless, of course, the issue is in porting the toolkit...
Remember the Excel calculation bug introduced in 2007? That was because of assembly code that only then got updated to 32 bit. You can be fairly sure that Office is a lot more than just a graphics toolkit.
I work at a big company. This is hell. Really. People never understanded why office upgraded it's interface since 1997.
This flat design madness has to stop.
Id bet that the office team have been crazy busy overhauling the product suite to deeply integrate touch.
2.5 years was not long enough, so this is a Metro skinned release of office 2010 so that the gap is less (visually) noticeable and keeps up with the change in branding.
Looks like a service pack release, 'cause it is one.
Looks like a service pack release, 'cause it is one.
How do you "deeply integrate touch" if the UI still doesn't look touch-ready? Seems like they skimped on a pretty important.
Re-read the comment you replied to. It said that this UI doesn't look touch-ready because it's just a reskin of 2010 while they make that touch-ready version.
I've got Office 2010 on a machine, I use Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. Something I don't like is the impact this has on a 2G laptop. (I know they are all 4G now, get with the program) Office 2013 continues the grand engagement that Microsoft started on but didn't get a chance to fully consummate (in my opinion of course) with a fully integrated Enterprise. They left people like me, who want to do documents, spreadsheets, and presentations some what out in the cold.
I wonder if the Libre Office stuff can take advantage of that. I wonder if a group targeting the most resource efficient word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation builder could find success in the burnt out landscape behind the Office juggernaut. Something not 'cloud' based but simple. I'm probably just suffering from nostalgia but sometimes ...
I wonder if the Libre Office stuff can take advantage of that. I wonder if a group targeting the most resource efficient word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation builder could find success in the burnt out landscape behind the Office juggernaut. Something not 'cloud' based but simple. I'm probably just suffering from nostalgia but sometimes ...
You don't have to save things to SkyDrive though. How can you be "left out in the cold" if that functionality is unaltered?
I am a heavy office 2003 user. I tried Office 2007 and Office 2010. Neither lasted more than a week. The non-standard, non-intuitive and inflexible ribbon ruined Office. It has no redeeming value.
The only reason I can see for the change was marketing.
The only reason I can see for the change was marketing.
If you're not trolling, you may be interested in Jensen Harris's fairly detailed blogs posts on the rationale for the new UI [1], which I found informative.
[1] http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jensenh/archive/tags/why+the+new+ui_...
[1] http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jensenh/archive/tags/why+the+new+ui_...
Excel has very useful increased functionality
(I know, I know... use R or something but shh)
(I know, I know... use R or something but shh)
Can you give some examples? I looked into upgrading from Office 2007, but it didn't seem like it was worth the hassle. Better data analysis functions in Excel would probably tip the balance.
I am holding out for Office on iOS, which current rumors point to March 2013.
The current Office on OSX is quite nice, Excel performs really well and in Powerpoint there is this nice 3d layer editor.
Office on Tablets needs to be re-thought. What do you really do on a tablet? Looking at the use cases in the corporate world, it is not about creating complex spreadsheets from scratch. It is about viewing, filtering and data entry.
Hey, please enter your forecast numbers and send back. Hey, these are our numbers, columns B, N and Z are super important, etc.
Excel and Powerpoint are key in corporate. Word is dying, killed by Outlook.
Tablet users need to be able to open an email attachment, browse through it efficiently, maybe correct a bit and then send back.
This points to a separate Office for Tablets. MS had special Office viewer apps in the past. Apple has Keynote, etc on iOS. If it is a separate team at MS working on this, they just might have enough freedom to pull it off.
The current Office on OSX is quite nice, Excel performs really well and in Powerpoint there is this nice 3d layer editor.
Office on Tablets needs to be re-thought. What do you really do on a tablet? Looking at the use cases in the corporate world, it is not about creating complex spreadsheets from scratch. It is about viewing, filtering and data entry.
Hey, please enter your forecast numbers and send back. Hey, these are our numbers, columns B, N and Z are super important, etc.
Excel and Powerpoint are key in corporate. Word is dying, killed by Outlook.
Tablet users need to be able to open an email attachment, browse through it efficiently, maybe correct a bit and then send back.
This points to a separate Office for Tablets. MS had special Office viewer apps in the past. Apple has Keynote, etc on iOS. If it is a separate team at MS working on this, they just might have enough freedom to pull it off.
The ability to collaboratively edit Word documents in realtime a la Etherpad would be huge. Our organization uses Google Docs and Workflowy because they're real-time-collaboratively-editable.
Though I use Scrivener for most things these days because it has much better modularity and change control.
Though I use Scrivener for most things these days because it has much better modularity and change control.
What are they doing? Justifying Software Assurance?
We just "upgraded" to office 2010 at work, and....it still stinks. I admit that many Windows applications are very well designed, but the Office suite suffers from the worst of the worst -- whether it's the horrid options menus, where the menu layering goes 4-5 levels deep at times, or the complete trainwreck that is the "ribbon" and everything associated with it.
They could certainly take some design cues from products like those from Apple and Google.
They could certainly take some design cues from products like those from Apple and Google.
I think the ribbon is great. Prior to the ribbon, Word, for example, had all of these different components, each with its own UI, all fighting among themselves for screen real estate (the UI version of how this article describes MS, I suppose). The ribbon came along with the expressed intent of unifying all of those UIs so that people could actually use all of Word's features without clobbering the space allocated for, you know, editing their documents. I think it's pretty successful at that, but you have to go back to those old versions of Office to remember just how awful it was.
Sure, it's different. It takes getting used to and that's unfortunate (if only they'd gotten it right the first time!). Ultimately, I realize that some people will never like it, and that's reasonable but I hardly think it qualifies as a "train wreck."
Sure, it's different. It takes getting used to and that's unfortunate (if only they'd gotten it right the first time!). Ultimately, I realize that some people will never like it, and that's reasonable but I hardly think it qualifies as a "train wreck."
In my personal experience I've found very few (in fact I can think of none) people who've really got used to the ribbon, in terms of knowing where they can find things on it. Obviously this is an anecdote rather than statistics, but I'm talking a lot of people, who spend much of their working life in Word and Excel. I'm in the same boat too - it just frustrates me that so much of the feature placement within it seems illogical, and I don't quite understand why I've had such a hard time getting familiar with it. I've been using it for years now, and I was completely open minded at the start (when I got the first beta with a ribbon I thought it was an awesome idea), it just hasn't worked out for me.
I think the ribbon is okay. I had just as hard a time finding things in Word/Excel 2003 as I did in Word/Excel 2007 but after a while the design started to make sense. I still had to google things but I also had that problem with the older versions.
Word 2007 worked much better for mathematical documents than 2003 and once you learned the shortcuts (it even allows some tex like functionality) short reports work out much faster than emacs+auctex or lyx while still looking generally good.
Word 2007 worked much better for mathematical documents than 2003 and once you learned the shortcuts (it even allows some tex like functionality) short reports work out much faster than emacs+auctex or lyx while still looking generally good.
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It's a train wreck. It's not discoverable (some of those ribbon buttons are god-awful small) and is a huge burden for any existing users to accomodate to (now that it's 7 years old, it's more tolerated and understood, but is still reviled by most users I talk with).
Seriously those who know how to use it, don't use the ribbon, or the old toolbar. Those who don't know how to use it, whinge.
Double click a ribbon tab to hide and use the keyboard.
I will say that I actually had word 97 and word 2010 side by side a few months back with toolbars off and its not all that different. Makes me wonder what I've been paying for all these years. Same with the excel versions.
Double click a ribbon tab to hide and use the keyboard.
I will say that I actually had word 97 and word 2010 side by side a few months back with toolbars off and its not all that different. Makes me wonder what I've been paying for all these years. Same with the excel versions.
Also, just realized that doing so put's it in auto-hide mode (at least in 2010); when you click a tab, it shows up only long enough to let you select something, then it hides again. Great compromise.
> Double click a ribbon tab to hide and use the keyboard.
Best advice I've gotten in a long while! It's now gone.
Best advice I've gotten in a long while! It's now gone.
biased opinion here, i helped build Excel 2013.
We did a lot of investments in making it easier to work with your data. Off the top of my head here are some of the top things we did:
Flash fill : Automatically detects what you are trying to fill/parse and does it for you.
Suggest Pivottables: Select a range and ask excel to aqutomatically create a Pivot for you.
-Suggest charts: Excel suggest what type of charts work best with selected data.
Data model - Although you need Pro Plus to use powerpivot and powerview, basic functionality that "converts excel into a database" is built in. You can combine data from multiple sources and create relationships between data.
Apps for Office : A new way of programming against the productivity suite in javascript and html5
Chart enhancements: creating beautiful charts is easier and the options are more accesible.
A lot of this information is on our blog: http://blogs.office.com/b/microsoft-excel/ Twitter account: @MSEXCEL
and if your particularly inclined to data analysis and business intelligence I blast cool features and how tos on my personal account: @doppenhe
A lot of this information is on our blog: http://blogs.office.com/b/microsoft-excel/ Twitter account: @MSEXCEL
and if your particularly inclined to data analysis and business intelligence I blast cool features and how tos on my personal account: @doppenhe
"just what on earth has the Office team been doing?"
should read
"just what on earth has Microsoft been doing for the last 5 years?
should read
"just what on earth has Microsoft been doing for the last 5 years?
Breaking backwards compatibility may be ok for windows, but it's pretty much a nonstarter for office -- i still run office 97 on an old machine because of some add-ins
Doing the standard "guess the conclusion" game with the title, I assumed that it would pick on the devastating changes in Visio (the ERD has gone from the prior weak state to the now disastrous), or the "move stuff around, call it a day" tactic that has been the standard for every Office release. I did not expect it to harp about tablets.
I do not expect Office to work well on tablets, and that isn't a reasonable concern for every application to pander to. A rich mouse and keyboard interface does not carry over to a meat-sausage interface without a profound rethink of every aspect of the interface. We've already seen the worst-of-both-worlds approach with metro, and it simply needs to stop.
I get that people want rich apps on their tablets. But they should be different rich apps that start from the ground up built for this entirely different interface medium. Every desktop app should not be diluted to support tablets, and personally I think that has already been a detour on a backroad that Microsoft has found themselves on.
I do not expect Office to work well on tablets, and that isn't a reasonable concern for every application to pander to. A rich mouse and keyboard interface does not carry over to a meat-sausage interface without a profound rethink of every aspect of the interface. We've already seen the worst-of-both-worlds approach with metro, and it simply needs to stop.
I get that people want rich apps on their tablets. But they should be different rich apps that start from the ground up built for this entirely different interface medium. Every desktop app should not be diluted to support tablets, and personally I think that has already been a detour on a backroad that Microsoft has found themselves on.
Office is a $20 Billion business with a 60% profit margin (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/technology/business-comput...).
There is no excuse for leaving these vectors uncovered for so long.
Though I'm pretty sure they're caught up in a painful conversion to WinRT right now.
There is no excuse for leaving these vectors uncovered for so long.
Though I'm pretty sure they're caught up in a painful conversion to WinRT right now.
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I have Office 2010, is it worth getting 2013?
I have been loving Office 2013. SkyDrive is fantastic for keeping my notes and documents automatically synced between my desktop and laptop. While DropBox can do the same thing, it's a bit smoother when it's integrated right into the app. Also I think it looks much nicer than 2010, but that's personal opinion.
You might still be able to download the free preview version from here http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/en
It should work for 60 days after 2013 came out. It should give you a good idea if you like it or not.
You might still be able to download the free preview version from here http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/en
It should work for 60 days after 2013 came out. It should give you a good idea if you like it or not.
Excel and PowerPoint have seen some nice new features added however Word is mostly the same. The new UI is different but mostly just cosmetic over 2010. Although the ribbon has more options.
The biggest changes in 2013 are SkyDrive integration. If you don't really need SkyDrive you can probably live without it until the next version of Office.
I do find 2013 uses less memory than 2010 and generally performs better which is the reason I have stuck with 2013 more than anything else.
The biggest changes in 2013 are SkyDrive integration. If you don't really need SkyDrive you can probably live without it until the next version of Office.
I do find 2013 uses less memory than 2010 and generally performs better which is the reason I have stuck with 2013 more than anything else.
Word has improved "track changes" and commenting. Definitely my favorite changes specific to word. Other than that, it can also embed videos (nice to be able to play a video instead of clicking a link to open a browser and watch the video...) and it can also finally open and edit PDFs.
Seriously though, check out the new tracked changes. Much nicer than before.
Seriously though, check out the new tracked changes. Much nicer than before.
Yeah Word does have a few nice new things but I wouldn't say they are worth the price of the upgrade.
The advanced embedded stuff scares me a little. I can see people adding huge videos into a word document and emailing it to 100+ people on a DL. I can see it being abused.
The advanced embedded stuff scares me a little. I can see people adding huge videos into a word document and emailing it to 100+ people on a DL. I can see it being abused.
All that's been seen was a pre-release preview version that came with Windows RT. You can't get Office 2013 yet, it's not out.
I've been using it for a while. There was a beta version available for free, and I believe most enterprise customers have had access to the final RTM version for months. I know that some MSDN subscriptions include a production license, and I was able to purchase a consumer copy from Microsoft's Home Use program last week, as well.
The RTM update to Office on Windows RT was delivered the week before Windows RT went on sale.
Office 2013 is out. I know because I bought it yesterday.
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/buy-microsoft-office-and-m...
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/buy-microsoft-office-and-m...
It's been available for a while via bizspark http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/default.aspx
"Microsoft switched to Word (from Internet Explorer) as its rendering engine with the introduction of Outlook 2007 and hasn’t looked back (errr, forward?) since. Despite the email community’s efforts and a well-intentioned response from Microsoft, this means that HTML and CSS support in Outlook has remain virtually unchanged between versions 2007, 2010 and now 2013."[1]
Nice.
[1] http://litmus.com/blog/outlook-2013-still-powered-by-word-no...