Author Archives: yp079600

Some of the classmates’ posts had already pointed out the major new features of Microsoft 2013, here are a little more base on my research:

1. Touch And Stylus

Office 2013 ventures beyond the mouse and keyboard to embrace touch and pen input. While multi-touch laptops aren’t–and probably won’t be–a mainstream choice for business and home users anytime soon, touch is an essential component of smartphones and tablets, obviously. The pen may be making a comeback too, judging by the popularity of Samsung’s stylus-equipped Galaxy Note.

What kind of touch features does Office 2013 have? The same ones you’ve grown accustomed to using on your phone and tablet: Swipe a finger across the screen to turn a page; pinch and zoom to read documents; and write with a finger or stylus. And when you write an email by hand, Office 2013 automatically converts it to text.

2. A Social Suite

Office 2013’s strong social networking component appears to be targeted mostly at Microsoft’s huge installed base of enterprise users. In addition to Skype, Office now includes Yammer, a secure and private social network for businesses that Microsoft tentatively acquired just last month. Yammer integrates with SharePoint, Redmond’s Web application platform, and Microsoft Dynamics, the company’s line of CRM and enterprise resource planning apps.

Office 2013’s People Card tool provides detailed information about your contacts, including their status updates from Facebook and LinkedIn. Now you’ll know what your clients had for lunch–and perhaps whether they had lunch with your competitors.

3. Big Screen Bonanza

Huge touchscreen displays aren’t necessarily a feature of Office 2013, but the suite’s stylus- and multi-touch-oriented UI enables it to work quite well with enormous LCD panels, such as Perceptive Pixel’s 82-inch monster. PowerPoint presentations, particularly ones with embedded video, are a natural for large touch panels.

Educators may find large touchscreens useful too. A professor, for instance, could use OneNote in the classroom, jotting lecture notes and diagrams directly on a gigantic touchscreen; students could later access the notes via SkyDrive.

Reference:

http://www.informationweek.com/software/productivity-applications/microsoft-office-2013-10-best-features/240003864?pgno=11

Yuting Peng