Office Web Apps

Webinar: Getting things done with Office Web Apps

Doug Thomas — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 15:32:00 GMT

You can access and share Office documents with browser-based versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote. Learn some of the basics and the latest features of these free tools.

Can't see this video? It's also available at Microsoft Showcase? Need a sneak peek? Here's a 30-second trailer.

What you will learn at Tuesday's webinar

Yes, Office Web Apps are different than Office 365
Storing docs with SkyDrive
New features customers asked for
Working on a doc with someone else at the same time

References for this webinar

Office Web Apps:

Office Web Apps Home Page
Get started with Web Apps (how-to & video)
Edit documents in SkyDrive (how-to)
Sign-in no longer required to edit Office docs in SkyDrive (blog post)
4 new ways to edit Office documents in your browser (blog post)
Co-authoring: Two dudes share a spreadsheet (video)

SkyDrive:

NEW! Download free Office Webinar Apps: Windows 8 App and the Windows Phone 8 App.

Go to http://aka.ms/offweb to join us live every Tuesday for an Office Webinar and a Q&A session.

--Doug Thomas

Office Web Viewer: View Office documents in a browser

Office Team — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 16:00:00 GMT

Do you have Office documents on your website or blog that you want your readers to view even if they don't have Office installed? Would you rather view a document before downloading it? To give your audience a better experience, try the Office Web Viewer.

What is the Office Web Viewer?

It's a service that creates Office Web Viewer links. Office Web Viewer links open Word, PowerPoint or Excel files in the browser that would otherwise be downloaded. You can easily turn a download link into an Office Web Viewer link to use in your website or blog (e.g., recipes, photo slide show, a menu, or a budget template).

Some benefits of the Office Web Viewer include:

You don't need to convert Office files for the web (e.g., PDF, HTML).
Anyone can view Office files from your website or blog, even if they don't have Office.
It keeps eyes on your website or blog, because readers don't need to download the file and they stay in the browser.
One link will work for computers, tablets, and mobile phones.

How to get started

To use Office Web Viewer, click this link: http://officewebviewer.com

Then copy and paste the document's URL in the text box. It looks like this:

To make the URL yourself, you can use the link below, where <Document Location> is a URL to the document.

http://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=<Document Location>

Note: the <Document Location> needs to be URL encoded, and the document must be publicly accessible on the internet.

Here are a few examples of documents in the Office Web Viewer:

At the Microsoft Build conference there were a lot of presentations with PowerPoint decks. If you want to watch a video of one of the presentations, you can also look at the PowerPoint deck that goes with it using the Office Web Viewer. http://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=http%3a%2f%2fvideo.ch9.ms%2fbuild%2f2011%2fslides%2fTOOL-532T_Sutter.pptx
On a popular banking site we found this great Wedding Budget Planner spreadsheet. To preview the spreadsheet instead of downloading it, we created an Office Web Viewer link. http://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=http%3A%2F%2Flearn.bankofamerica.com%2Fcontent%2Fexcel%2FWedding_Budget_Planner_Spreadsheet.xlsx
Here's a school newsletter template we found on Bing. With the Office Web Viewer, you don't have to worry about everyone at the school being able to view a Word document--now all they need is a browser. http://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=newteach.pbworks.com%2Ff%2Fele%2Bnewsletter.docx

If your document is an Office document and is publicly accessible on the internet, then you are good to go. Office Web Viewer links are a great alternative to download links because your readers don't need a special program to view your documents, and they don't have the interruption of leaving their browser.

4 new ways to edit Office documents in your browser

Office Team — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 15:09:00 GMT

If you've been using Office Web Apps for a while, you know that we continually make improvements to them, even since our big update last October. And now that you don't have to sign in, you can try out the 4 latest updates right here, right now.

Copy and paste pictures from the web

Find a picture on the web that you want to use in your document? Now you never have to leave your browser. Just copy the picture and then paste it in the web app, using the keyboard (CTRL+V or ⌘+V). This works in Word Web App, PowerPoint Web App, and OneNote Web App. Give it a try in this sample notebook, in OneNote Web App (be sure to click Edit in Browser when you get there).

Format with tools that follow your cursor

When you select a word or phrase in Word Web App or OneNote Web App, you immediately get a toolbar with formatting commands. That saves time, since you don't have to go back up to the command ribbon to make a bulleted list or apply a style. In PowerPoint Web App, this floating toolbar appears when you right-click a shape. In OneNote Web App, the toolbar includes commands for marking to-do items and tagging notes as well.

Here is a Word document with lots of text that you can have fun formatting. Just click Edit in Browser and start formatting.

Change slide layout and more in PowerPoint Web App

Editing slides in PowerPoint Web App is getting more and more like working in the PowerPoint desktop program. Now you can change the layout of a slide just by right-clicking and picking a different layout.

You can format the text in a shape, and you can copy and paste content from one slide to another (use the CTRL and ⌘ key combos). This sample presentation has shapes with text and other elements you can play with. Click Edit in Browser and then start experimenting.

View comments and do more with touch in Excel Web App

Excel Web App now opens workbooks that contain comments. You might notice that workbooks open faster too, because we worked to make the web app snappier.

If you use Excel Web App on a touch device, now you can move and resize charts, and you can select multiple cells by tapping a cell and then dragging a selection handle.

This sample budget has a chart you can work with, as well as comments and sample data. Click Edit in Browser and then give it a try.

We hope these updates improve your experience with the Office Web Apps. You can always let us know what you think whenever you're working in the web apps by clicking File > Help, and then Give Feedback to Microsoft. We're listening to your suggestions all the time!

Sign-in no longer required to edit Office docs in SkyDrive

Roxanne Kenison — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 18:09:00 GMT

Now you can share your documents so that others can edit them hassle-free, without signing in to a Microsoft account. This works for all four Office Web Apps: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote.

To share your document this way, you just need to get a link and send it:

1. In your SkyDrive, right-click your document, and click Sharing.

2. Go to Get a link, and then under View and edit, click Create.

3. Copy the link and send it out.

The link takes others to your document, where they click Edit in Browser to start working immediately, without signing in. For a few features, like inserting a picture or using their Office desktop program, they'll still need to sign in to their Microsoft account.

You'll know when someone who hasn't signed in is working with you in your document. You'll see them listed as guests.

Removing the sign-in requirement is one of the many enhancements we've recently made to Office Web Apps. For more on this new feature and how collaboration is now easier for the billion Office documents on SkyDrive, please see the Inside SkyDrive blog.

--Roxanne Kenison

New Office Web Apps, now live on SkyDrive

Amanda Lefebvre — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 12:00:00 GMT

The new Office Web Apps are now live across SkyDrive!

Since first available in 2010, Office Web Apps have ensured that the most common Office tools are always within reach. With just a browser, you can access your documents and communicate and work with anyone, from anywhere. And in this new release you'll see new editing and formatting controls, consistent co-authoring/collaboration support across the web apps and expanded device support, including touch-friendly editing from tablets.

...(read more)

Touch-friendly viewing of Office documents in smartphone browsers

Renu Devi — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 16:00:00 GMT

Last month we introduced new touch editing experiences for Windows 8 and iOS tablets. You can read more on that here.

With this release, we'll continue to offer a view-only experience on most smartphones, but we are also making document viewing more touch-friendly in browsers on many popular smartphones. We prioritized such touch-enabled viewing so you can easily access and read Office documents on SkyDrive or Office 365 whether you're using a desktop, tablet, or smartphone browser.

In designing Office Web Apps for mobile browsers, we set out to achieve the following goals:

Touch enabled experience on all major smartphone platforms (Windows Phone 7.5 and up, iOS 5.0 and up, and Android 4.0 and up)
Make good use of the limited screen real estate
Make it simple for people to read and navigate document content

Here are the basic gestures we support:

Flick vertically to navigate through a Word document
Flick horizontally to navigate through a PowerPoint slide deck
Pan in any direction to navigate Excel spreadsheets
To open the toolbar, tap the screen, then tap the toolbar indicator, and you'll see the toolbar on the side of the screen.

Interacting with files

Now let's take a look at how you can interact with files from your mobile device:

Word Viewing

To optimize reading Word docs on your mobile browser, we designed documents to reflow to achieve the best readability. Most of the document's text formatting and content types (images, SmartArt, shapes, text boxes, etc.) are preserved.

If you need to adjust the text size further to read more easily, you can open the Font-size tab on the toolbar.

A common user scenario for working with large documents is the need to navigate to a specific page. With touch-friendly Office, users don't have to swipe repeatedly to move down page after page. Instead, users can drag the page slider on the right side to go to a specific page quickly.

If you see a table that flows over the edge of the screen, you can drag the table horizontally to view all of it. We take advantage of the touch capability to keep the format as close as possible to the actual table, so as not to sacrifice a good user experience.

You can tap on a thumbnail image to enlarge it.

Excel Viewing

Excel Mobile Viewer provides high fidelity viewing of your Excel files.

When a chart extends beyond the screen, users can use the Zoom function to choose a designated view for the chart, which lets you zoom in and zoom out on it.

Often, there is more than one spreadsheet in a workbook. You see a list of spreadsheets on the toolbar and then tap on the one you'd like to open.

You can tap on the Sort button to sort an Excel table in ascending or descending order-if the table you access already had sorting enabled.

You can tap on "+" or "-" symbol in a Pivot table, or the Group Data view, to expand or collapse data.

PowerPoint Viewing

We designed PowerPoint presentations to display so that they best utilize the mobile landscape. For instance, when you hold your phone vertically, the view is divided in half (we call this "split view") so that the top half displays the slide, and the lower half displays the text on the slide, including the notes. This is quite useful when you are on-the-go and want to quickly go through the content of the slide without having to pan around the slide area.

If you wish to view only the slide, you can hold your phone horizontally so that only the slide image is shown.

To zoom, you can simply pinch on the slide no matter which view you are in.

Last but not least, you can join a presentation online in your mobile browser. Imagine that you are stuck in traffic while an important presentation at work is taking place using the latest Office Presentation Service. You can join the presentation by tapping on the link sent to your inbox.

Summary:

We encourage you to try out the new Office Web Apps Preview on skydrive.com or on Office 365 and preview on your mobile phone (if you are using: Windows Phone 7.5 and up/iOS 5.0 and up/Android 4.0 and up)

We want to hear from you, please share your experience. From the toolbar, click "Give Feedback."

We are constantly refining and improving the experience, and are actively listening to what you like and don't like.

Introducing Office Web Apps Server

Nick Simons — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 18:48:00 GMT

We have a post on TechNet discussing our new on-premises solution for organizations that want to host Office Web Apps on their own networks. If you feel like reading a more technical discussion of our new server offering, check out Introducing Office Web Apps Server.

Nick Simons
Senior Program Manager - Office Web Apps

Bringing touch editing to Office Web Apps on Windows 8 and iOS tablets

Renu Devi — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 12:00:00 GMT

We introduced the new Office Web Apps a few weeks ago. We've added new features, improved the performance of our apps and continue to provide access to your documents anywhere in a variety of popular browsers.

Today, we are excited to introduce you to a new dimension for input - Touch - to bring the full-fledged capabilities of viewing and editing in the Office Web Apps to tablets and browsers that support touch, including IE on Windows 8, and mobile Safari on iOS.

In designing the Office Web Apps for touch, we set out to achieve the following goals:

Users should be up and running with touch-enabled Office Web Apps right away
Users don't need to learn to navigate a new user interface
Users can easily move back and forth between touch and mouse/keyboard experiences
The full feature set of the Office Web Apps, including editing tools, must be enabled on touch devices like tablets and touch monitors.

Building the user interface to be touchable and responsive to touch input presented interesting design challenges. In this post, I will describe how we achieved it.

Developing the Framework for Touch

We developed a unified framework consistent with the platforms that we support and Touch Interaction guidelines for Microsoft Office Desktop Applications, Windows 8, and iOS. We also balanced that with the experience and touch manipulations that users expect when using a particular touch device.

We used the following principles to build the user experience across the platforms:

Deliver delightful end-to-end experiences using only touch input
- Focus on scenarios and experiences on a touch device
- Ensure users can touch the user interface with confidence
- Build simple and intuitive touch manipulations
- Leverage browser capabilities
Ensure great end-to-end experiences using a combination of touch, mouse, and keyboard
- Users can easily switch back and forth between using touch, or mouse and keyboard to interact with the application
- The application will respond to the input.

Let's dive into each of these principles:

Scenarios and Experiences optimized for touch

I wrote this post over a few days and edited it a few times. Like most of you, I wasn't sitting at my desk all the time, nor did I carry a laptop out to my kid's fencing practice. I started writing the post on my desktop at work and, with my document up on Skydrive and available anywhere, I continued editing it on my tablet.

Trends and patterns in usage and behavior that emerged from user research helped us target two scenarios:

1. Reading and consuming document content and viewing presentations and spreadsheets will be fast, delightful and captivating.

Reading and consuming information was the favorite activity for most people on a tablet.
People browse through documents and presentations and make comments on content shared by colleagues and friends.
Others wanted to aggregate all the research on buying cars into their OneNote web app and have it on hand on their tablet as they negotiate their car purchase.

2. Lightweight editing will be highly satisfying as people add, modify and revise documents

Moms like me want to quickly sign up to bring dessert for my kid's school potluck shared by the school's PTSA in a spreadsheet.
Students want to make quick edits to the paper they are working on and collaborate on the presentation that they need to polish.

Touch with Confidence

Nothing is more frustrating than touching an unintended control in the user interface. Confidence in the app increases when you reliably touch the control or part of user interface that you intended. We want you to have that confidence when you use the Office Web Apps.

The mouse is a tool for precise and controlled interaction with the user interface. In combination with a physical keyboard, it gives the user confidence in accurately placing insertion points, making selections, hitting buttons and invoking context menus, drop downs and other UI.

In comparison, human fingers come in all varieties of shapes and sizes. They are clumsy in placing an insertion point and imprecise in controlling the interaction with the user interface.

Our goal was for users to fearlessly touch the user interface and get the results they expect, as they would with a mouse.

Making something easy to touch is dependent on the size of the target. Many user interface elements such as the ribbon controls and context menus fell well below the "touchable" size limits defined by Windows 8 and Microsoft Office.

All of these elements have been made easy to touch in the new Office Web Apps. Great care was taken to balance the increase in physical size of the UI with preserving as much real estate as possible for the actual document content.

Notice the bigger and easier to touch buttons and the comfortable spacing between controls in the close up:

The Home tab in Excel Web App:

The Insert tab in PowerPoint Web App:

The Home tab in OneNote Web App:

The Color Picker in Word Web App:

Use simple and intuitive touch manipulations

One of our core objectives was to get users started right away with Office Web Apps on tablets using simple and intuitive touch manipulations rather than complex gestures that require learning and remembering.

Five actions are all it takes to get started:

Let's take a look at how you can use these actions in the Office Web Apps:

Scrolling and browsing through your document

When you need to quickly scan through a document, you can swipe / flick using a quick scrolling motion. The document content scrolls with fast and fluid acceleration which can always be interrupted by tapping.

We have used the native browser capability to enable accelerated scrolling in the Word Web App in the Reading and Editing views.

In the PowerPoint Web App, you can use the same swipe action to change slides.

Zooming in and out:

You can zoom in and zoom out on the user interface using two fingers, spread or pinched together.

Typing:

A single tap in the Editing View of the Office Web Apps places an Insertion Point and displays the keyboard to begin typing.

The Insertion Point in the Word Web App:

Notice that the insertion point looks different from what you see when you use the mouse and keyboard. The circular "gripper" with the insertion point allows you to easily grab it and drag in order to make a selection.

Typing is fundamental to editing so ensuring a good experience is a core supported scenario.

Placement of Insertion point

Since the finger is an imprecise input tool, we had to figure out how to reliably place an insertion point at the place where the user intended.

Most users will either modify the beginning or the end of the word.

So, we use the "bookends" approach in placing an Insertion Point:

Tapping once on an existing word, calculates the nearest end (beginning of the word or end of the word) and places the insertion point there. Tapping again on the same word, refines the Insertion Point to the exact location where the touch registered.

Selection

Selection of text and objects allows you to manipulate, apply formatting, or do other actions on them. Users can perform these operations efficiently with a mouse and control and shift keyson the keyboard because they provide precise targeting .

In the touch environment, the "gripper" on the Insertion Point serves as a handle that you can grab to drag and create a new selection. You can also modify an existing selection by shrinking or growing the range selected using the grippers on each end.

Dragging the gripper to select text in the Word Web App:

Dragging to select the dimensions for inserting a table:

Applying actions in Context:

Context menus offer a quick and easy way to apply actions in a specific context. You may be familiar with using the context menus with the mouse in the Office Web Apps already. These are displayed on right click of a mouse.

Right-click context menus in the Word Web App Editing view with a mouse:

We made it easy for you to get the context menu by simply tapping on a selection to display it. Tapping away from the context menu dismisses it.

Tapping on the selection displays the context menu:

Notice the comfortable spacing of the controls on the context menu for touch.

At an Insertion Point, you can display the context menu by holding your finger down briefly:

In the Word Web App reading view, a single tap selects a line. Tapping once on the selection displays the context menu.

Selection and Context menu in the Word Web App Viewer:

Ensure great end-to-end experiences using a combination of touch, mouse, and keyboard

Tablets can be used with touch, mouse and keyboard input.

On Windows 8, the Office Web Apps can be used with touch or mouse and keyboard or a combination of both. In iOS, the Office Web Apps work best using touch input.

Touch mode

In the Office Web Apps, the user interface can be differentiated as:

Fixed User Interface

This user interface is always present and displayed in the app.

Example: OneNote Web App Navigation pane, Ribbon

Contextual User Interface

This user interface appears and disappears on demand.

Example: Context menus

When you are on a touch device, Office Web Apps will display the fixed user interface in touch mode by default . You can change this mode to use the user interface with a mouse by toggling the "Touch mode" button.

The Touch Mode button appears in the Quick Access Toolbar on the top left in the Office Web Apps, allowing you to toggle between the touch and precision / mouse mode.

The Touch Mode Button: (toggled ON) displays the touchable user interface:

A close up of the Touch Mode Button:

Context menus, ribbon fly-outs and menus that are displayed only on demand, are displayed in the input method that invoked them, touch or mouse.

Summary:

I encourage you to try out the new Office Web Apps Preview on skydrive.com or on Office 365 Preview on a Windows 8 touch device and iOS on the iPad.

We want to hear from you on your experience, so I encourage you to give us your feedback. Located on the top right corner of the app and in the File Menu is an option to "Give Feedback".

We are constantly refining and improving the experience and are actively listening to what you like and don't like.

Renu Devi

Program Manager, Office Web Apps

Webinar: Get it. Learn about it--a preview of Office Web Apps

Doug Thomas — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 18:30:00 GMT

Office Web Apps updated all the time. You may want to watch this new webinar instead: Getting things done with the Office Web Apps.

You can now sign up for a preview of the new Office Web Apps. These free versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote are being upgraded. We'll show you how to sign up and give you a tour of some of the new features. Plus we'll show you the new Outlook.com.

What you will learn at Tuesday's webinar:

What are Office Web Apps?
What’s a preview?
New features for the Office Web Apps
A peek at the new Outlook.com

Referneces

Office Web Apps:

Office Web Apps preview introductory blog post
What are the Office Web Apps (video)
Office Web Apps Home Page
Co-authoring: Two dudes share a spreadsheet (video)
Direct link to start the Office Web Apps preview

SkyDrive:

Outlook.com:

Learn about Outlook.com (blog post)
Upgrade from Hotmail to Outlook.com
Upgrade from Gmail to Outlook.com
Try Outlook.com

Go to http://aka.ms/offweb for more information on how to join the webinars live every Tuesday.

--Doug Thomas

Comments Encouraged

Nick Simons — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 15:10:00 GMT

I'm writing this blog post on SkyDrive. I'm not just doing this because I started at home and I'm finishing in the office. I'm doing this because the people on my team have strong opinions and I'm encouraged to listen.

So I want to send this post to a group of people to get their feedback on what I've said here. Years ago I would have written this and sent it as an attachment in an email. But doing that now makes my life unnecessarily unpleasant.

To start with, everyone may not be able to open the attachment. Honestly this isn't a huge concern where I work. The Word team is just downstairs from my office. But even so there are always a few folks in the middle of trying a new build or with various other reasons for not having Word installed. I bet this is true for a lot of you as well.

Also, once folks are done, what do I have to work with? Dozen of emails with assorted versions of my original attachment. Ugh.

But I'm not going to send out an attachment. I'm just going to send this link...

http://sdrv.ms/RrhyAH

That link will take folks to this document on SkyDrive and allow them to add comments directly to the document. All they'll need is a browser. I don't even need to mess with permissions. Anyone with the link can comment and edit. (Please note that the link here is included for illustrative purposes and actually only allows viewing.)

I got that link by going here...

And using this...

I sent the link to my team mates and this is what happened. Lots of constructive feedback...

All these comments are stored in the document. If I open it in the Word desktop client, they'll be there. If I save the file to my local hard drive, the comments will still be there.

The folks who left me comments could have used the Word desktop client to comment but they didn't. They used the Word Web App and our new commenting feature. To demonstrate, I'll add the first comment. In the Word Web App viewer, I'll open the Comments pane...

Select part of the document...

Click New Comment...

Type something...

And click Post...

Note that when the comment on the right is selected, the text that it is about is also highlighted.

But when the comment isn't selected, we don't highlight anything so that you can easily read the document.

One issue with past implementations of commenting was the potential for clutter when comments weren't hidden. By only highlighting selected comments this issue is largely eliminated. However, you can still see that there is a comment there because of the speech bubble in the margin of the document.

Also, you can now reply to comments. That looks like this...

We noted that some comments led to substantial discussion. Now that discussion is indented to separate it from unrelated comments nearby.

If I were putting together a presentation about commenting and I wanted to get feedback, I can do all the things I've described in PowerPoint Web App as well...

PowerPoint has the same Share experience and a very similar commenting model that includes the ability to comment on different parts of individual slides and reply to comments.

If you'd like to try this out yourself along with a lot of other great stuff, join the preview.

Nick Simons
Senior Program Manager, Office Web Apps