What’s New in Microsoft Office 2013?

Microsoft Office 2013 (Customer Preview) has been released for general public availability. If you didn’t yet download it, check out the blog post for download links: “Download Office 2013 Customer Preview”.

The metro look and the features of the new office cheers the mind. Today in this post, we will discuss on the new features that has been introduced in Microsoft Office 2013 (aka. Office 15). Continue reading to find out more.

What’s new in Microsoft Office 2013?

Microsoft Office 2013 has touch functionalities which easily responds to touch as it does with keyboard and mouse. Zoom-in or zoom-out your documents using your fingers in a touch devices. The new Windows 8 Metro compatibility with new metro UI makes it more visually stunning application for Windows 8 and Windows RT devices including Surface Tablet.

You can now easily store your documents in the cloud (SkyDrive, SharePoint etc.) and retrieve or save your documents from anywhere in the world having internet connectivity. You can keep your outlook contacts and social networks well connected and get the updates of your contacts easily from a single application.

Collaboration with team made it easy to discuss and share your views using Word, Excel, PowerPoint. Leverage the complete power of individual Office 15 product and efficiently work in your business.

To get a complete System Requirements of Office 2013 and the download links, check out the post: Download Office 2013 Customer Preview that I published yesterday.

Let us now see what are the new features that has been included for various applications inside the Microsoft Suite. Here is a list of Office products and the new changes:

• What’s New in Microsoft Word 2013?
• What’s New in Microsoft Excel 2013?
• What’s New in Microsoft PowerPoint 2013?
• What’s New in Microsoft Outlook 2013?
• What’s New in Microsoft One Note 2013?

What’s New in Microsoft Word 2013?

Microsoft Word 2013 has a cleaner, sleeker and simple eye catching interface. The new templates and design tool will help you to create your documents very easily and you will also find a new way to work with your documents, share the documents with your team and fine tune your document layout and alignments before publishing.

Here are few new features that you can find in Microsoft Word 2013:

• New reading mode will allow your text to reflow automatically in columns to make them easier to read
• New zooming feature will allow you to zoom-in and zoom-out tables, charts, images and other objects by just a tap or mouse click to see the details of that object
• Word 2013 automatically bookmarks the position where you last read that section and makes your life easier by resuming the document from that position
• You can now fine tune your documents layout by drag and drop an object to it’s proper position. The text will reflow instantly as you start dragging
• You can align your charts, photos, diagrams etc. with the help of alignment grids
• The new comment functionality allows you to place comments in the document just near to the text that you want to discuss
• The commenting system allows you to track the whole conversation
• You can now share your documents easily to your team by saving directly to SkyDrive or SharePoint site
• Enhanced permission to your documents will help you to control the security of the document
• Using browser your readers will be able to view the document online even they don’t have Word processor installed in their PC
• You can now open a PDF in word 2013 and that will look just like you opened a word document

What’s New in Microsoft Excel 2013?

You can now use Microsoft Excel 2013 in a new way to explore more of your data in terms of proper visualization. You can now well analyze and visualize your data records to display them well formatted with a simple click. When you are ready with the excel sheet, you can save it to SkyDrive or SharePoint and collaborate it to your team members.

Here are few new features that you can find in Microsoft Excel 2013:

• You can now analyze your complete excel sheet and make it easy to visualize the records
• Excel will now recommend the charts that visualize your data patterns properly
• You can quickly preview your chart and graph options to change the visualization to a different pattern that best suits your records
• Discover various ways to represent your data visually using the Excel 2013
• Formatting charts and tables now a single click away
• Fine tune your charts easily and quickly by using the chart formatting control to represent in new and more interactive way
• Discover the insights and easily extract what you need from the imported records
• Summarize data automatically with previous values using the Pivot table
• Reformat and rearrange your data easily using the flash fill mechanism
• Excel learns and recognizes your pattern and auto fills the remaining cells without using any additional formulas and macros
• Sharing of sheets is now very easy. You can share your sheet by saving the document in SkyDrive or SharePoint
• Proper and enhanced permission secures your worksheet from unauthorized activity
• Invite people to view the excel sheet right from the application itself
• Share selected portion of your sheet on the social networking media without using any 3rd party plug-ins
• Share and collaborate between your team members during meetings

What’s New in Microsoft PowerPoint 2013?

Using Microsoft PowerPoint 2013 you will be able to create more visually stunning slides for your presentations. You can select a bunch of themes with variant design and colors to represent your thoughts to the world by just a few clicks. You can now impress your audience with proper navigation, zooming and collaborate with teams from a single workspace.

Here are few new features that you can find in Microsoft PowerPoint 2013:

• It has a wide screen theme and shapes to create visually stunning presentations
• Improved collaboration has been added in PowerPoint 2013
• Like Word 2013, you can comment inside the slide itself and also you can reply to the existing comment
• Comment history is traceable so everyone can easily see the whole conversation
• Save your presentation on SkyDrive or SharePoint and collaborate with others easily
• You and your team can do collaboration work on the same file from desktop and web application
• The new start screen has the feature to select the recent documents and other stuffs easily
• Various themes and color schemes are present in PowerPoint 2013 for you to choose from
• Fine tune your presentations by aligning the content properly with the help of grid
• You can now create complex shapes by using the union, combine, fragment, intersect and subtract tools
• It now has zooming functionality by which you can now zoom-in and zoom-out your slides for better visibility during the presentation
• Easily switch slides in or out across a extended monitor correctly

What’s New in Microsoft Outlook 2013?

Everyone is now using Microsoft Outlook which helps us to manage our mails, organize our meetings effectively. Outlook 2013 will help you to organize them in more productive way. You will now have new and improved ways to find the correct information quickly, coordinate between your contacts and social network quickly and easily.

Here are few new features that you can find in Microsoft Outlook 2013:

• Exchange ActiveSync support has been added to Outlook 2013 which will help you to receive push based emails from the server
• Control your email flow and meeting schedules easily from a single screen
• Grab quick glance of the contact whom you are going to send a mail or meeting request
• Seamlessly integrate multiple contacts into a single screen
• Get auto updates from the people whom you are already connected in the social networking sites
• Quickly find your contact and their activities on social networking sites
• Share your calendar to others easily to help them to view your available time for appointment schedule
• Check out the weather forecast easily from outlook itself and plan your forthcoming trips conveniently
• Filter your mails with a click of a button and arrange them for easier navigation

What’s New in Microsoft One Note 2013?

Very few people among us actually uses this application that comes with Microsoft Office. Generally a team lead or a manager uses it to track all the notes in it for future reference. One Note automatically saves your notes and make them searchable whenever you need them. It is a great tool for daily work if we use it perfectly to store the notes.

Here are few new features that you can find in Microsoft One Note 2013:

• The new One Note 2013 has been reimagined for Windows 8 metro UI look & feel
• All new look gives you easy access to all the necessary things that you need everyday
• You can now save, search and sync your notes easily in your other devices
• You can sync your notes in SkyDrive, Windows Phone and use it whenever you need from wherever you are
• You can embed your files and insert them inside the note document with a single click
• Automatic updates of chart created from an Excel sheet
• Easily draw and edit lines using your fingers, stylus or mouse device
• Ability to convert your handwritings to text
• The improved and powerful table tools now allow you to make headers of the table quickly
• With a single click convert your notes to Excel spreadsheet

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