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We've been patiently waiting to talk with you about what we've been working on for the last two years, and the wait is over. Today we'll introduce Word 2010 at a very high-level, and then dig deeper and deeper into specific topics and features in the coming months.
Of course, please let us know what you want to hear about.
The way we work with documents has changed dramatically. In the past, individuals worked on relatively simple, local documents, from their office. Today, it is common for groups to work on rich, shared documents, from anywhere.
Given this shift, we've focused Word 2010 on dramatically improving document collaboration, graphics, and navigation…and then taking the richness and familiarity of Word, and putting it into the browser and onto the mobile phone.
With Word 2010, you can co-author right within Word. You don't need to hassle with email attachments, or documents with names like TSP_final_2_reallyFinal_FINAL.docx. Instead, just open your document, and start co-authoring. You can see who else is working with you, and where they are editing.
Note how "pear" and "shooze" are squiggled. That's because they are just really rich text in the document, not a picture, WordArt, or any other object.
The other big piece of Word 2010 is giving you the power and familiarity of Word everywhere you need it. In short, you will be able to view, navigate, and edit your Word documents from the browser and from your mobile phone without compromising your document's richness.
I know that was really high-level, but hopefully you have a sense for how Word 2010 will dramatically improve how and where you work on documents.
We'd love to hear your initial thoughts, and what you'd like to hear more about.
- Jonathan Bailor
PS Here's some fun Word 2010 videos of note:
Comments: (38) Collapse
Sparkly drop-caps that spin around like a disco ball? We're on that! After all, the secretaries need some kind of amusement between checking out the latest LOLcats and forwarding that hilarious email that everybody will love. Real tools for real writers? Not so much.
I'd like to see a more standards-compliant HTML renderer in Word or Office in general but I think it's too late now (technical preview stage) and Microsoft complains about fidelity loss. I copy lots of content from web pages into Word as the browser doesn't give me flexible enough printing and page layout options. However with Word's layout engine, most of the page appears totally different and broken. I know there are WYSIWYG HTML editors but for quickly editing and printing, Word is easier, so I wish Microsoft really made the engine fully standards compliant (at least better CSS and full HTML 4.01/XHTML 1.0 support for editing and save as, not just blog publish? so we don't need tools like these: textism.com/wordcleaner) @pauldg, I think you can reinstate the old track changes box using Tools => Customize and also change the behavior to use strikeouts instead of balloons like pre-Word 2002.
Please put live preview (ligatures etc too) in the Font dialog box/increase the size of the preview box in the dialog so it's visible at larger font sizes.
Hi Yves, Yes, we're tracking the issues you note in your comment above, and hope to address them (along with a set of other related issues we've already addressed) in Word 2010. Thanks for the link. Given your expertise in the area, we'd be interested in connecting w/you offline to hear more feedback about the feature. Would you be able to post contact info on your codeplex site? Scott Stiles (MS)
Hi Brian – Unfortunately we didn’t bring marching ants back :) On a more serious note, what “real tools for real writers” are you hoping for? Also, what type of “real authoring” do you focus on? - Jonathan Bailor (MS)
In my case, academic writing. For starters, How about getting master documents right? Even if it means starting over from the beginning. Just do it...it'll make you feel good inside. Also, how about a document format that we can trust won't go obsolete and that we can retrieve our data/writing from if need be? Doing something based on XML had such potential...but...A 9,000 PAGE FORMAT SPECIFICAITION?? WTF?? OK, I know what that's about...a juvenile attempt to befuddle your competitors. News flash: they aren't the ones keeping you in doggie biscuits. And as for the citation/bibliography thing: to quote a great wise-man: "Do, or do not. There is no try." If you couldn't get it right in-house, then just use some of your pocket change and buy EndNote. A half-assed version is worse than useless.
I specifically joined this blog to say to the Microsoft Word team that numbering on Word 2007 is the worst piece of garbage ever invented which just doesn't work. How on earth do you get it to renumber properly. You have had 10 years to fix it!
Could we get more details about what is broken around your experience with lists (whether numbering or bullets)? I am the PM who worked on lists in 2007 and am so sorry to hear that we haven't fixed the problems that are plaguing you -- we made a lot of changes to address the problems we knew about but I hear your frustration and know that means there's more for us to do. Can you educate us further about what you're seeing? I'm not as involved in this area this release but I know that those who are will be listening as well. Thank you so much for your feedback and help in helping us improve our product. -Stuart
@Scott Stiles
Feel free to contact me either through my CodePlex profile or directly by email. You can find my email at the top of (almost) every XSL file you can download from my CodePlex site. Yves
Stuart, as soon as I have time I will give you plenty of feedback. However I am currently engaged in revising a 70 page policy document and this task is being very considerably impeded by persistant issues with the numbering. And before you ask, I've tried everything recommemed by the help function over the years and none of it helped. If I had kept a swear box specifically for swearing prompted by bullets and numbering since I started using Word in 1994, the charity of your choice would be considerably richer. I sincerely hope that you have addressed the myriad issues in this area with the latest release. If you weren't aware of them, which alternate universe have you been visiting?
CMYK
since 10 years I am waiting for CMYK support in Word, just ad to RGB / HSL drop down menu CMYK, It would be a very quick task for your team. Word for the Macintosh has the CMYK choice for more than a decade.
I have a lot of troubles to change the RGB values in the PDF document with Pitstop to get things right before I send the files to the printer shop.
You did a great job adding full Open Type support to Word 2010!!
Hi Michael Mueller - Thanks for the excellent feedback. In the meantime, have you tried using Microsoft Publisher? Publisher supports CMYK and Pantone color models. - Jonathan Bailor(MS)
I very much like the changes in Word 2010 (except Backstage, which has blown all my muscle-memory keyboard shortcuts out of the water and is disorienting.) Still, I have a couple of questions:
1. What's happening with the new text boxes? I take it they're DrawingML replacements for 2007's VML, but they do not work properly with fields, especially TOCs and cross-references. This really needs to be fixed by shipping time. Ideally, the text boxes would be as transparent as frames are to fields.
2. Do features like Drop Caps still use frames, or have they migrated to the new, much more powerful text boxes?
3. Is there any way you could add hex color support to Office? It drives me mad converting colors back and forth for the web. All you'd need is a Hex option along RGB and HSL (the values'd still be stored as RGB.)
4. Borders and Shading hasn't been changed. I'd love to see Borders and Shading that have been upgraded to match the new text boxes & effects. Perhaps Borders and Shading could be phased out and replaced with more powerful (the ability to control character vs. paragraph) text effects?
5. Why isn't kerning on by default?
6. Not a question, but I'd love to see a more intuitive section interface in the next version. Thanks!
Hi
in office 2003 it was simple to add a picture from scanner to doc you were working by clicking "insert"and highlighting scanner and was made live simple but newer virsions this was dropped and it made more work and unnesserary files you dint need. this was dropped in 2007. Is this facility being returned to office 2010
Francis - 1) The new textboxes are built on architecture similar to that used for the old textboxes (where they contain text, not the paragraph formatting model of frames. But many of the issues that you've identified are ones we are working to fix. 2) Drop Caps still use frames. We're looking at improvements in that are in a future release. 3) This is outside my area of knowledge. We tend to use standardized units but that doesn't seem like that would preclude hex numeric values. 4) Curious as to what you mean by something that can control character versus paragraph text effects. Have you looked into the style model of Word? As to improving borders, also something we hope to address in a future release. 5) Something we're considering for this release. Factors are performance for long documents and whether there is noticeable improvement for the typical user (particularly with the default fonts). 6) Me too! -Stuart
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