Microsoft has made available their Office 2010 Technical Preview to invite only participants and we got it too. Thanks Microsoft!

Office 2010 system hits its first major milestone, we have just installed it and covered few aspects of Office 2010 Technical Preview. This time, Microsoft has made available both 32bit and 64bit versions of Office System. The build string is 14.0.4006.1110, i.e. different from leaked one. Ribbon UI is the default interface for all Office applications now, adding a host of new features to individual applications such as video editing in PowerPoint and improved mail handling in Outlook and introducing a number of Office-wide productivity enhancers, including photo editing tools and a much-improved paste operation.

Office 2010 SKUs

  • Office Professional Plus
  • Office Professional
  • Office Standard
  • Office Home and Student
  • Office Home and Business

(In Office 2010, the Enterprise, Small Business and Ultimate editions are no longer exist)

Notable Changes:

The Ribbon UI is in center now
In Office 2010, all applications now share the common Ribbon interface, including Outlook, OneNote and all other Office applications. The Office button in upper-left corner has been tweaked and slightly moved down from its previous location.

ribbon

OutSpace
It’s a new addition to Office 2010, when we click on Office button, it brings up Outspace, that covers information about documents and common tasks such as printing, save and save as etc. beside it, The Info tab has taken place this time, which is particularly useful, giving important information about current file, such as the author and last time it was modified etc.

outspace

Paste Preview (Word)
It appears when we paste text or images into a document. It helps, when something is copied from a formatted Web site and pasted into Word, a hovering window appears titled "Paste Options" and it lets us choose to paste with formatting or without before committing it to the document.

PastePreview

Sparklines (Excel)
These are pretty much smaller charts that usage data from cells and show into a cell, which gives an easy way to represent complex numbers and data without chunking it into one graph.

Video Editing (PowerPoint)
A new feature is basic video editing tools built into PowerPoint, it adds functionality to play videos through PowerPoint slide show.

video-editing

It plays AVI and WMV files only and may requires third-party codec for other file types. Beside it, we can embed videos from online video-sharing sites such as MSN Videos, YouTube etc. To do this, just copy the video code shown on website and paste into PowerPoint slide. It’ll play video as part of presentation, although it requires an Internet connection.

Quick Steps and Jump List(Outlook)
Quick Steps perform common tasks with one click like Forwarding, Reply, Move To etc.

QuickSteps  jumplist

Additionally outlook got jump list too that includes tasks and locations.

Path to RTM

As we blogged earlier, Microsoft also revealed that it planned to introduce Office 2010 to manufacturing in first half of 2010 at WPC09. It’s a Technical Preview only, so it’s quite expected that Office 2010 still has a long way to go before it reaches Beta and RTM release.

9 responses to “First look Microsoft Office 2010 Technical Preview, A brief review”

  1. Louis A Murphy Avatar
    Louis A Murphy

    I downloaded and reviewed MS Office 2010 and I find that I prefer MS Office 2007 over it. I dislike all the crap it loads in startup as I do not intend to upload docs. etc. to the net. As I read earlier; “If Microsoft wanted to improve MS office they SHOULD have!” I think it leaves something to be desired. Apparently they did not upgrade Sharepoint Designer, as it does not work like it does in 2K7. Iit looks as if they worked it over with business, corporations in mind and not thought to the individual user. Oh well I guess I will stick with 2K7.

  2. boe Avatar
    boe

    Nothing beneficial for most businesses – no reason to upgrade/purchase –

    Like Vista – all bling – no function.

    If they wanted to improve Office they SHOULD have –
    1. Made outlook open multiple e-mail accounts as full exchange -not an additional mailbox with some functionality or pop/imap with very limited functionality but two seperate exchange profiles simultaneously from multiple exchange servers.

    2. Full OLE support for pictures in access – umm wasn’t that functional with Office XP – why take that out? Why should someone have to code to add pictures to a personal database? Might was well use oracle or a real database if you are going to have to use code. Adding Office XP photo editor is the work around but why not just add photo editor back into office if that is the solution?

    3. Offer the old menu bar for people (most of my clients) who don’t want to learn the new menu bar. You can finally modify the ribbon to some extent in 2010 however my clients just want their old ribbon bar. Frankly I have no issue with the new menu bar but I’m one person and most of my clients don’t like it so prefer to stick with office 2003. MS could make money selling the new version if they just offered the old menu as a choice with the new ribbon.

  3. Nitin Avatar
    Nitin

    thanks RK, nice tutorial there……office 2010 TP looks cool…..and engaged with new features…..

  4. Sid Avatar
    Sid

    Amazing damn if i had the net connection at home i would have tryed this this office work sucks…

  5. Ganesh Avatar
    Ganesh

    Amazing…….i can’t express.
    In past i thought menu bar is compusary for any program but after seeing Windows 7 RC and now Office 2010 screenshots, now my thinking is completely changed.
    Ribbon UI would be essential part for future applications.

  6. Tweakwindows Avatar
    Tweakwindows

    Office 2010 looks promising. Thanks for the nice review.
    Btw, WindowsValley theme is really awesome. Keep up the good work.

  7. ArvindK Avatar
    ArvindK

    Awesome look and powerful features. Thanks for review.

  8. Mr. Spark Avatar
    Mr. Spark

    wow… video editing in Powerpoint….

    Going to try it now ;)

  9. AnandK Avatar
    AnandK

    Nice read :) 2010 sure looks good!

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