Like Windows 8, Office 2013 has a light touch to its dialogs — as shown by this splash screen from the installer.

The Office 2013 installer is based on Microsoft's click-to-run technologies, and on its application virtualisation and packaging tools. Features are streamed down from the web, so you can get started before all the application features have been installed.

Although the Office UI is a white, chromeless host for your documents, you can still give it a touch of design, with a menu bar decoration — just choose the design you want, and it'll be installed with Office.

Office 2013 includes a new extensions model, which lets you add HTML5 and JavaScript applications to your documents — extensions that will run in Office, or in Office Web Apps.

Office's new web apps come from the Office Store, where you can purchase add-ins or install free tools.

The new Office 365 web apps take much of the Office 2013 user interface and translate it to the web — even the backstage view.

When you launch an Office 2013 application without a document, it opens in a new Start screen view, where you can choose a template for your document — either using local files or an online document library.

Word's new reading view makes it easy to navigate through a document, reformatting content for the screen rather than for the printed page.

Metro design isn't just for the Office applications. It's also at the heart of the design tools built into Office, giving your content a crisp, clear, modern look and feel.

Excel 2013's Start screen comes with links to templates and sample applications for home users and small businesses — ready to get you started taking advantage of its analytics tools.

Microsoft's Metro design language is at the heart of Office 2013, from PowerPoint templates to the chromeless user interface that focuses on your content rather than the menus and buttons around it.

Touch mode for Outlook adds a new set of icons to the far right of the screen — where you can quickly tap to select the most common functions for a message, from replying to deleting to filing a message.

Outlook 2013's new Peek feature lets you quickly check your calendar by rolling a mouse over the menu bar. You can then see your appointments, and make appropriate decisions without leaving a message.

If you tap the small blue button in the Quick Access toolbar, you're switched into Office 2013's touch mode. Buttons are further apart, and icons are resized to make them easier to tap.

OneNote 2013 is designed to store your notebooks in the cloud. If you're already using SkyDrive, you're automatically connected to your existing notebooks as soon as OneNote runs for the first time.