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Microsoft rebrands Office Web Apps as Office Online because it's an online version of Office
Use Office Web Apps much? Us neither, which is probably why Microsoft's answer to Google Docs felt it needed a makeover. Following SkyDrive's recent rebrand to OneDrive, Office Web Apps has received similar treatment, and now asks you to call it Office Online. Microsoft hopes this new title more accurately reflects what Web Apps was/is: an online version of Word, Powerpoint, Excel and others, free to SkyDrive OneDrive users. Furthermore, Office Online is now located at the convenient URL of Office.com, which should prompt a few more people to stumble across it and add it to their bookmarks. Otherwise, it's the same Office-in-a-browser experience with real-time co-editing features, just with a heap of new document templates and a dropdown toolbar for selecting different apps on the fly. Now, go get your spreadsheet on -- we need those TPS reports by lunch.
Microsoft upgrades Office Web Apps in response to free iWork suite
Perhaps to counter Apple's move to make its iWork office productivity suite free across iOS, Mac and the web, Microsoft today has announced significant updates to its Office Web Apps. The biggest feature is that users now have the ability to co-author documents across Word, Excel and PowerPoint on the web. As Microsoft noted on its Office 365 blog: A document is only as good as the people who contribute to it. So today, we're introducing a new way for people to collaborate on documents with Office Web Apps. Using real-time co-authoring, colleagues, friends and family can contribute and edit documents simultaneously in the Word Web App, PowerPoint Web App or Excel Web App. New real-time presence helps you see where your co-authors are working in the document so that you don't create conflicts as you edit. Additionally, the new ability to see changes to text and formatting as they happen will help you and your co-authors stay on the same page as your ideas develop and evolve. In addition to real-time co-authoring, Microsoft's web apps now also offer improved formatting, styles, and search controls in Word; the ability to drag and drop cells and reorder sheets in Excel; and new picture-cropping functionality in PowerPoint, among other features.
Microsoft Office Web Apps get real-time co-editing, similar to Google Drive
Microsoft promised earlier this year that it would soon be updating its Office Web Apps so that multiple people could edit documents at the same time (yes, just like in Google Drive). Now, five months later, the company's finally ready to show us the finished product. Starting today, you can work on a Microsoft Word document, PowerPoint presentation or Excel spreadsheet, even if someone else is already in there editing. And if you happen to be offline, you can make your changes in the regular desktop suite and they'll sync up with the web version once you re-establish an internet connection. As with Google Docs, an unlimited number of people can edit at once -- at least in Word and Excel (PowerPoint has a hard limit of 20 simultaneous editors). Also like Google, Microsoft gives you not one, but two indicators as to where someone is inside the document. These include a list in the upper-right corner, with helpful specifics like "Dana Wollman editing slide 12." Then, once you scroll through the document, you'll also see pinpoints indicating what people are working on. And in case none of that was intuitive enough, each person will also be marked with a distinct color (yep, also like Google Docs). As you'd expect, all of this will roll out for both SkyDrive and Office 365, though Microsoft warns it could take until the end of week before these co-editing features are available to everybody.
Microsoft demos real-time co-authoring for Office Web Apps
With Microsoft's Build developer conference kicking off in just a week, we're frankly surprised the company is choosing to release any news ahead of time. Today, though, the firm posted a video showing some changes to Office Web apps. In particular, the preview indicates that these various apps will now support real-time co-authoring, with multiple users making changes at once (yep, just like Google Docs). That's a nice, long-awaited improvement over the current setup, in which multiple users can make changes, but not alongside one another. According to Microsoft, this set of features will roll out over "the next several months." For now, we've got the video preview embedded after the break. And don't be put off by the 14-minute length; the demo doesn't actually begin until five and a half minutes in.
Microsoft Office Web Apps to receive real-time collaboration, Android support
Ballmer and Co. have just laid out what changes Office Web Apps will see over the next year and beyond, and it's honing in on social features and more. Sure, the productivity suite already has collaborative document editing, but Microsoft is vowing to include real-time collaboration á la Google Drive, where users can see who's currently working on a document while changes appear on the fly. The PowerPoint Web App is already packing the revamped experience, and the Office team promises that the real-time co-authoring will become faster as time goes on. The OS titan also says it'll incorporate a range of other improvements, including simplified file management, shortening launch times and even a find and replace feature for the Word Web App. In addition to the tweaks, Microsoft revealed that Android tablets will finally be able to access its online suite of tools, as it'll begin supporting the mobile Chrome browser. The firm's given itself the loose timetable of "over the next year and beyond" for the feature rollout, so avid users should sit tight for now.
Office Web Apps update brings web image pasting, PowerPoint slide editing and more
Microsoft's Office Web Apps are great for those with a SkyDrive account and any device with an IE, Firefox, Chrome or Safari browser who don't want to lug the full Office 365 suite around. Since functionality can be a tad limited, however, Redmond's just added more features with the latest update. For starters, you can now copy and paste pictures from the web into Word, PowerPoint and OneNote Web Apps. Other new functions include cursor-following tools in all the programs, the ability to rearrange slides in PowerPoint Web App along with comment viewing, touch-based chart resizing and more in Excel Web App. Microsoft's posted some sample files that work without a SkyDrive account, so if you want to give it a whirl, hit the source.
SkyDrive now hosting over a billion Office files, adds editing without Microsoft login
Microsoft's cloud storage service SkyDrive has hit a significant numerical landmark: over a billion Office documents are now hosted on it. To celebrate, Redmond has made is a little easier to edit files using Office Web Apps -- you no longer need to sign in using a Microsoft account (unless the sharing party wants you to), so if you've got the right link, you can start tweaking with minimal fuss. A billion Office files sounds like a big number, but we'd really like the details of how many users that's spread over. As many as DropBox? Who knows.
New Office Web Apps get finalized for SkyDrive, Outlook
As polished and functional as something might be in its preview days, a piece of work isn't done until it is done, and Microsoft's Office Web Apps have finally reached that point. Back in July, Redmond piped out preview versions of OWA and Office 365, focusing on adding tablet-friendly touch controls. Feedback from over 750,000 users and Windows 8's impending deadline helped shaped today's release, readying it for Microsoft's latest operating system, IE10 and iOS 6. A pair of posts on the Office Web Apps Blog detail the new face of Office, including an improved authoring experience, better support for multi-user collaboration, faster performance and more. Read it for yourself at the source link below, or just log into Skydrive and get to work.
Office Web Apps integrate touch support on iPad and Windows 8, brace us for an Office 2013 world
Touch-friendliness is a centerpiece for the upcoming Office 2013, but don't fret if you prefer to live in the world of Office Web Apps ahead of time. As of new preview versions of both OWA and Office 365, those using at least an iPad or Windows 8 will see larger, more finger-ready controls by default. The switch also tweaks the text selection, contextual menus and numerous other elements to work properly with the fleshier input, even going so far as to support multi-touch gestures like pinching to zoom. Windows users get a Touch Mode toggle if they'd rather flip back to traditional control methods. While the web support is still experimental and doesn't have a completion date on the horizon, those willing to live ever so slightly on the edge can stay hooked on Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Word without having to use anything so archaic as a mouse and keyboard. [Thanks, Suraj]
Office 365 ditches the beta tag, ready to take on Google Apps
We know what you're thinking -- you like the idea of Google Apps, but the Mountain View crew kind of creeps you out. Well, don't worry, Microsoft has your back. After making its beta debut last year, Office 365 is officially ready to spread its wings and offer its productivity web app wares to the business-minded masses. For $6 per-user, per-month small businesses get access to Microsoft Office Web Apps, Exchange, SharePoint and Lync video conferencing and can take advantage of the suite's integration with WP7 once Mango lands. Larger, enterprise plans start at $10 per user while adding support for desktop Office products and Lync VoIP solutions as you climb the pricing ladder. Really there's not much more to say except, check out the full PR after the break.
