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Ian Paul Wed Jun 16, 11:23 am ET
Microsoft officially completed its rollout of Office 2010
on Tuesday by releasing its new productivity suite to retail stores, and ending
the Office 2010 free beta testing program. One of the most discussed pieces of
the new Office 2010 suite is Microsoft's new free Office Web Apps including
browser-based versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote.
Overall, the new Web App suite is a pretty good start for Microsoft, and will
likely encourage users to stick with Microsoft Office instead of switching to
online competitors like Google Docs or Zoho. The new online version of Office
is not meant to replace the desktop version, but is something you can use to
collaborate online with other users or to use when a full-fledged version of
Office isn't available.
Despite the fact that Web Apps aren't supposed to be as full functioning as
their desktop counterparts, there are several things Microsoft could do to its
Office Web Apps. Here are 5 trouble spots that are top of my mind:
Add Autosave to Word
Autosave is an obvious feature. Google Docs has it, as does Microsoft's Excel
Web App. But for some reason, Microsoft has left autosave out of Word--meaning
you are vulnerable to losing your work if you don't regularly click the save
button. Microsoft figured out a long time ago how important autosaving was, and
added a version of it called AutoRecover to the desktop version of Word. So why
not add a similar feature to the Word Web App, and save people the hassle of
worrying about losing their work?
Warn Me If I Accidentally Close A Tab
Another problem I found was that Word will not always warn you if you try to
close a Web App tab with unsaved work in it. So if you use the Word Web App,
keep in mind that regularly saving your work is up to you and not the app.
Support More Document Formats
If you want to use Microsoft's Web Apps you can only save and download your
documents using the DOCX, XLSX, and PPTX file formats that were first
introduced with Microsoft Office 2007. The problem is many users prefer to use
the DOC, XLS, and PPT formats used by Microsoft until Office 2003. It would
also be convenient if you could download your documents in other popular
formats like plain text, rich text, CSV, HTML and PDF; Google Docs and Zoho
both offer this functionality.
Clearly, Microsoft wants to encourage people to update their Office software
and switch to the newer file formats, but that "encouragement" comes at the
cost of convenience for Office Web Apps users.
Browser Parity
One of the more interesting and helpful features in Office Web Apps is the fact
that, with just one click of a button, you can open a document directly in its
desktop counterpart. If you're editing monthly sales projections in Excel, you
just hit the 'Open in Excel,' button and your work opens up on your desktop
software but is still saved online. The problem is that this feature only works
with Firefox and Internet Explorer browsers on Windows, and doesn't work at all
on a Mac computer.
The reason for this is that the Open in Excel, Word, OneNote, or PowerPoint
function relies on Microsoft's ActiveX framework, which is not available for
Macs or other major browsers in Windows like Chrome, Opera, and Safari. It
would be better if Microsoft could figure out a way to extend this
functionality to all browsers and Mac computers that have Microsoft Office
installed.
Word Is Not OS Friendly
Mac users will find another annoying feature in Word, this one tied to how the
keyboard shortcuts function. Mac programs, including Microsoft Office for Mac,
typically rely on the 'command' key plus a letter key for shortcuts such as
bold (command + b), cut (command + x), copy (command + c), and paste (command +
v).
But in the Word Web App, Mac users have to use their 'control' key instead of
'command' for keyboard shortcuts. The reason for this oversight is probably
tied to the fact that Microsoft Windows uses the 'control' or 'CTRL' key
instead of 'command' for keyboard shortcuts across most programs.
But this failure by Microsoft to adapt its Web Apps to multiple operating
systems, as Google does, shows a lack of understanding about how people are
accustomed to using their computers. Even more puzzling is that the other Web
Apps, including Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote, allow Mac users to use the
command key for keyboard shortcuts. Only the Word Web App forces the control
key onto Mac users.
As I said, overall Microsoft's Office Web Apps are pretty good, but these five
tweaks would make the product even better and more competitive with online
offerings from Google and Zoho.