On Tuesday, Microsoft Office 2010 began appearing on retail shelves, and a lot of people have asked me whether they should upgrade. The answer, as always, depends on what you are going to do with the product.
In general, I think this is a more important upgrade for larger businesses than for home users and small businesses. But it does have a number of neat features many individuals will like.
View Slideshow See all (27) slides
MoreI've been using Office 2010 as my primary office suite, and have to say I've been very happy with it. Here are the five new features I think will be most attractive for home and small business users:
The Return of the "File" Menu: A lot of people liked the "ribbon" user interface that Microsoft introduced with Office 2007; and a lot of people hated it, at least at first. If you currently use Office 2003 or earlier, you will still find the change a bit jarring and it will take you some time to get used to it, but after a few weeks, you probably won't notice it unless you were a power keystroke user.
But one thing that tripped up a lot of people has been notably fixed. There is again a "file" tab in all of the applications, so it's pretty familiar for users of the older version. Clicking on it brings up all the controls for saving, sharing, printing, and so on, in what Microsoft calls a Backstage area.
The name is a bit hokey, but the organization of the page gives you much easier access to all sorts of options, such as previewing what you are printing and saving to different file formats. It can be a real time-saver. One suggestion: I added the "Quick Print" option to the "Quick Access" toolbar on the very top of the Window, so I can again print without going to a menu.
Word's Navigation pane: A version of this, called Document Map, existed in earlier versions, but it's been markedly improved. You first use styling to indicate the different levels within your document--title, headings, and so on. Then, when you turn on the navigation pane, all the headings appear in an outline fashion on the side of the screen. You can just click on a heading to navigate to it, or rearrange your document by dragging headlines. I find myself using this all the time.
eBook Description
Teach yourself exactly what you need to know about using Office Professional 2010-one step at a time! With STEP BY STEP, you build and practice new skills hands-on, at your own pace. Covering Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Excel, Access, Publisher, and OneNote, this book will help you learn the core features and capabilities needed to: