Really? Really! Use the Office Web Apps with just about any version of Office. Or none at all.

re: Really? Really! Use the Office Web Apps with just about any version of Office. Or none at all.

Alireza Heidari Seradj — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 12:32:49 GMT

As someone who cares a lot about programmability in Word, I'm always looking for ways to showcase how powerful our object model is, and how it can be used to build really great solutions. With that in mind, I've been looking into ways to create a Word 2007 version of the Word 2003 Redaction Add-In, as we know that it's been an issue for some of our users that this add-in isn't available for Word 2007.

To that end, I'm really excited to announce the release of an open source Word 2007 Redaction Tool project on CodePlex: www.codeplex.com/redaction.

This isn't something supported by Microsoft, but this updated version of the tool, rewritten for Word 2007, provides the same mark and redact capabilities as the previous tool and now natively integrates with Word 2007. Once installed, it appears as a Redact group on the Review tab:

The current release is a v0.9 Beta release – it's functionally complete but I wanted to get it out there and get some public testing/feedback before I call it "done". If you are interested, please give it a try and provide feedback through the CodePlex site if you encounter bugs/have feature requests/etc. I hope to release an official "v1" version very shortly, based on feedback from users of this Beta version.

Important Notes:

This add-in uses the latest versions of VSTOv3 and .NET 3.5, so Setup may require a reboot to install those components.

As an open source project, the code is there for those who want to inspect/change it (contributors are welcome).

This add-in isn't supported by Microsoft; it's something built in response to the clear need demonstrated through the volume of questions we get about the Redaction Tool, and I'll try to work on it as much as I can (but as I said above, the source is there so that you can see/change it if you have a problem).

Creating tools like this one is one of my favorite things to do – it showcases the power of Word and how that doesn't stop with the features that we ship out of the box.

What's Redaction, Anyway?

If you're not familiar with the word, you've probably seen it done – documents with black highlighting over names, places, etc. that's meant to be kept private even if the document itself is made public, e.g.:

The Redaction Tool enables that process of removing specific parts of text (redaction) to occur right from within Word. So I can select the regions of text I don't want in the final document, and press Mark to specify that they should be redacted, like this:

Then, once I've marked everything I want to remove, I can redact the document and the marked regions are replaced. This isn't just highlighting: if I copy out the text into another application, like Notepad, you can see that I cannot get the original test back – it's been replaced with garbage characters:

By doing this, I can release my document but keep the sensitive parts private.

re: Really? Really! Use the Office Web Apps with just about any version of Office. Or none at all.

arthcua — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 21:38:21 GMT

I can not open office web apps in my MS office 2007 versions. Do I need to install windows 7 and office 2010 ?

re: Really? Really! Use the Office Web Apps with just about any version of Office. Or none at all.

some guy — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 21:38:04 GMT

GOOGLE DOCS STILL THE BEST:

MS search is slow, and inefficient. You can't just open a new tab for the document, the documents are slow, and you can't edit them automatically.

Looking at documents is awkward and slow. In google, you can smoothly zoom, open and save, but not in MS online.

Downloading & printing a document is anything but smooth or easy.

re: Really? Really! Use the Office Web Apps with just about any version of Office. Or none at all.

alfie — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 21:37:49 GMT

how can install office applications pls?

re: Really? Really! Use the Office Web Apps with just about any version of Office. Or none at all.

alfie — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 21:37:14 GMT

i need to install in my laptop this program if this is free for me

re: Really? Really! Use the Office Web Apps with just about any version of Office. Or none at all.

Jeff Cohen — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 21:37:00 GMT

How does this work with the Mac platform, e.g., Safari or Mozilla as a browser?

re: Really? Really! Use the Office Web Apps with just about any version of Office. Or none at all.

Branch Travel Company — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 21:36:28 GMT

Are the files saved on the web secure? Can you save the files to hard drive and open from your hard drive each instead of saving to web?

re: Really? Really! Use the Office Web Apps with just about any version of Office. Or none at all.

Ravinder — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 21:36:09 GMT

Hi , I uploaded some excel sheets and have 2007 office on my computer ., But I can't edit files , I can view only , Is there any solution to this .

Thanks

R S RANA

re: Really? Really! Use the Office Web Apps with just about any version of Office. Or none at all.

Gared — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 21:35:56 GMT

What features can and cannot be used in an Execl web app. For instance can I add a sheet in excel while the doc is being shared online.

re: Really? Really! Use the Office Web Apps with just about any version of Office. Or none at all.

Bill — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 21:35:42 GMT

I recently got my 386 pc running windows 3.11 hooked up to the internet. It has office 4.2 installed. Can it work with the web apps?