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Microsoft Office 2010 launches three years after its predecessor, the 2007 edition, blew us away completely. That edition caused pretty massive upheaval with its brand-new Ribbon interface which turned our perceptions of the productivity suite completely on their heads. The new 2010 version by comparison has only a few cosmetic changes to offer, so it seems that the various programs are now struggling to come across as fresh. First off, the programs are all back to being called by their own names, ie Microsoft Word and Excel rather than Microsoft Office Word and Office Excel, which nobody used anyway. The Ribbon interface now makes its way to every program in the suite. Outlook had previously been left out (or spared, depending on your opinion) with the official reasoning that its functionality didn’t demand such a change. Nevertheless, Outlook 2010 now has a ribbon. Each app’s ribbon has been tweaked a bit, but the major news is that you can reorganize the tabs and chunks so that everything you need is right where you need it. You can put any control pretty much anywhere, and even turn off entire tabs if you like. The freedom is welcome, but could make button placement even less predictable for those who aren’t sure which commands live under which tabs. The three available color schemes are also tweaked, but we found that Silver was the only background against which button labels and sidebar text were readable.  The next big interface change is that the round ‘Office’ button is nowhere to be seen. Each app now has a color-coded ‘File’ button, which rather misleadingly brings up what’s called the ‘Backstage view’. This is a full-screen dialog box that’s a bit confusing, but actually quite useful once you figure it out. Classic File menu operations including ‘Open’, ‘Save’ and ‘Print’ can be found here, while the rest of the screen is filled with your document’s properties and shortcuts to common tasks. Sadly, the list of recently opened documents is now an extra few clicks away. ‘Open’ and ‘Save’ launch their usual dialog boxes, whereas ‘Print’ and the new ‘Save & Send’ options use the Backstage space to lay out all their options for you to see (including a new one, Save to Web, which uses Windows Live SkyDrive for storage). The new Print dialog includes page previews, which lets you see how the options affect your pages without stepping through dialogs, but also gives you less space. Once you’re done setting options, the final ‘Print’ command button is in the top-left corner of the dialog, exactly the opposite of where we’re used to finding it. Outlook Already a superb, powerful email client, Outlook has received the most attention in Office 2010. The ribbon is actually quite pleasant to use, exposing new options but making some others harder to find. The neatest improvement is a block called Quick Steps, which are like one-click macros. You can create Quick Steps to forward the current message to a particular person, compose a new mail to a fixed set of recipients, categorize and archive messages, etc. On the other hand, Backstage View makes little sense in Outlook, and all account management functions are now inexplicably found here.  Mail display is much the same, except for a new option to group messages into Gmail-style threads. It’s convenient, but will break if the mail subject is changed during your conversation. Category markers are a little less prominent than before, but the search bar now shows helpful modifier options as well as a contextual Ribbon tab that makes filters easier to select. A new People Pane tries to aggregate social networking sites including LinkedIn (and soon Facebook) to show contextual information about the people you communicate with. It’s a great idea, especially the tab that summarizes your prior email exchanges with that contact, but the pane can’t be repositioned and it really does clutter up your screen. The Calendar and Schedule views have better color coding options for appointments. Those who use Outlook with an Exchange server will notice many more improvements, including signatures and address autocomplete lists that roam with you to whichever computer you use. |
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