Office 2013: A closer look
Summary: Microsoft has officially unveiled the consumer preview of Office 2013. The new edition has a dramatically different look and feel, as well as tight connections to cloud-based services. Here's what you'll find inside.
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Talkback
Large, but never really has what you want . . .
Large, yes, but never really has what you want -_-.
Large, but never really has what you want . . .
Large, yes, but never really has what you want -_-.
So make your own
Then, use it yourself privately. Or, if you believe there is at least one other person in the world who shares your special needs for that template, publish it on Office.com.
But, above all, don't whine and don't spread misinformation!
@Ed
New features I hadn't even thought of!
Bookmarks and Where You Left Off have been long overdue in Word and Powerpoint, since Excel does this by default (you look at the last screen you were looking at when you exited). Nobody else does it, but it would still be useful.
In Excel, selecting appropriate charts based on analysis of the data is fantastic! So many people use the wrong chart type, and whilst MS isn't responsible for finding the right chart type, at least by seeing a filtered selection (instead of the whole lot of charts), it will get people to think for themselves a little more.
I'm a convert.
BUT - when you wrap text in Excel, does it make the whole row extra high, or does it only make visible rows extra high (compare with the Mac Sheet, which always fits as many rows onto the screen as it can)
Nice so far
ZDNet *still* needs a better photo gallery, though. Sigh. It's a royal pain.
Feedback heard loud and clear
Ditto
I do not want my data in the Cloud.
So ugly!
But it ain't too bad, MS change look philosophy every 3-5 years, so it'll change again by the time of next Windows and Office releases, I'll just skip these versions.
They may say Aero desktop is "cheezy", then I like "cheezy".
Agreed. Metro just does not scale.
On a large laptop/desktop display though, it just unfinished, as if this an early alpha. Everything is just a SEA of white.
Chrome is *necessary* in some aspects to separate user input sections from control elements. Mashing them all together in some misguided corporate attempt at "cohesion" means that yes, they'll all share the same design philosophy and work the same, but at the cost of usability depending upon your device and screen. Cripes, I get eye strain looking at the pics when they're not even full screen.
Tailor the GUI to the form factor. Oh well, MS at least continues it's tradition of having absolutely no clue with regards to aesthetics.
I agree
Ugly
That's OK ... Win7, Office 2003 and VS 2008 work fine for everything I'm doing. I'm going to continue to get my money's worth out of 'em!
Sorry MS ... I just can't follow you this time. :-/
Same here
At least Microsoft should let us choose theme for older look, like when XP came out you could still use a Windows 2000/98 theme, how about a Windows Vista/7 theme for Windows 8?
Let's hear it for maximum eyestrain!
Operationally the new Office may be excellent. Functionally it takes several steps backwards. Indeed, I don't remember any version of Office that was harder to use, visually. I hope everyone who must use this new Office suite has eye care coverage in their health insurance. They're going to need it. And good disability benefits as well when their work incapacitates them. Clearly the overpaid executives who dictate such design standards don't actually use the products they mandate their engineers create. Which is SOP for bad product design.
And what about that all CAPS titles
I couldn't agree with thewhitedog more.
It's a feature
It's better for us. It makes us stop every 15 minutes to rest our eyes. :)
Wish I could
Apple?
Apple at least understands that design paradigms need to be different for wildly different form factors, and they understand fit and finish - so even if some of their consumer apps can be a little "busy", they get the details right (fonts, shadows, consistency if icons, etc).
The small screen of phones with Metro works because you need that space for content, but also a text-heavy design is far more palatable when the DPI is high and the text rendering is good, which it is on Windows phone. It looks *clean*.
Here, the massive amount of whitespace, and the fact you're viewing these on a much lower DPI screen than a phone really makes the jagged text rendering stand out. It's amplified by the fact that due to (once again) Win8 making a desperate ploy for the tablet market, Cleartype is now gone, so text rendering is actually worse in Win8 (cleartype was removed because when oriented vertically on tablets it is more susceptible to colour fringing).
I like the animation in Office 13 very much, but holy moses so many other design elements are a huge step backwards.
And for those of you who are about to shout "It's a preview! It's not done yet!" - this has barely changed since the Feb technical preview, and the same defence of Win8 was given, when it too barely changed in appearance from DP->CP->RP.
This what MS thinks actually looks good. This is why for a company that wants to play in the consumer space, you need executives at the top you really *care* about design. Does anyone get the sense Ballmer has any knowledge or skill in this area at all? Really?