Crabby Office Lady

Oprah's—I mean Crabby's—favorite things: Word 2010

on December 20

I know I know: Another version of Office. If we didn't think it would be of value to you, we wouldn't keep making them. So before you pass judgment, I think you should take a look at some of the improvements and new features we've added. We really listened to what our customers wanted...and gave it to them.

(And anyway, new things are cute.)

Backstage view

Backstage view is where you manage your files—creating, saving, inspecting for hidden metadata or personal information and setting options.

Open a document, and click the File tab to see the Backstage view.
The Backstage view is where you manage your documents and related data about them—create, save, and send documents, inspect documents for hidden metadata or personal information, set options such as turning on or off AutoComplete suggestions, and more.

Read more about Backstage view

Picture corrections allow you to fine-tune your images. Word 2010 has added some great ways to enhance your images without using a photo/image editing program.

You can make your images look more like a sketch, drawing, or painting—in fact, Word 2010 has 20 new artistic effects.
You can automatically remove unwanted portions of a picture, such as a background.
You can quickly capture screenshots to incorporate visual illustrations into your document.

Prevent changes to a final version of your document:

Before you share a final version of a document with other people, you can use the Mark as Final command to make the document read-only and communicate to other people that you are sharing a final version of the document. When a document is marked as final, it’s typing, editing commands, and proofing marks are disabled, and people who view the document cannot inadvertently change the document.

I think you're going to like the new Word; I've been working in it for a while and some of these new features are really, really helpful (and even fun!).