New features office 2013
Word Features
The New Design tab
Document formats can be further extended by choosing Themes, Colors, and Fonts to use with them. If you come up with something you’d like to use all the time, the new Set as Default option allows you to make the current combination of formatting settings the default for all new documents. Word 2007 and Word 2010 added interesting features for styling a document, but the tools were scattered throughout the user interface, and they were difficult to use. The new Word 2013 Design tab consolidates all these tools onto one tab, so they’re easy to find. Microsoft has also added a visual element to its Document Formatting tool that allows you to preview a document style before applying it to the entire document. You’ll also find a range of new document format designs to choose from.
Alignment with Alignment Guides
If you have text wrapping set to an option such as Square, the Alignment Guides also show when the object is aligned with the top of a paragraph or to a heading. This new feature makes lining up images and other objects a cinch in Word 2013. When you move an object such as an Image, Chart, or SmartArt illustration around in a document, Alignment Guides automatically appear to show you when the object is lined up with other elements on the page. The guides also show you when the object is lined up to key page locations, such as the edge of the page and the left and right margins.
Comfortable Reading in Read Mode
If you use Word more to read documents than to create them, you’ll like Word 2013’s new Read mode. It automatically resizes a document to the full window. Click the on-screen arrows to flip through the pages, or swipe the screen from either edge of the display if you’re using a touch-screen monitor. Switch to page view for vertical scrolling. Right-click on any unfamiliar words to display a definition without existing read mode. You can also click on any image, table, or chart to enlarge it for easier reading.
Smarter Collaboration
If you collaborate with others on Word documents, you know how quickly conversations can become difficult to follow, because Word’s comments tool treats every utterance as a new comment.
In Word 2013, you can reply to a commentwithinthat comment by clicking the Comment Reply button. This captures the entire discussion of a given point inside a single comment box, which will appear as a small bubble in the document’s margin.
You can also lock the change-tracking feature, so it can’t be bypassed unless the collaborator provides the correct password.
And with the new Simple Markup option, you can hide complex markups and view the final version of the document. Switch between this and All Markup view from the Review tab or by double clicking the line in the left margin beside a tracked change.
Open and Edit PDFs Inside Word
Word 2013 can not only open a PDF document, it also enables you to edit it—without need of a third-party application. You can also edit the data inside tables and move images around the document. When you’re finished, you can save the document as either a PDF or a Word file. This is a must-have feature for anyone who works with PDFs frequently.
Discoverable Layout Options
You can also select Move with text or Fix position on page to control the location of the object. Click See more to open the old Layout dialog, which offers other options for positioning the object on the page. New layout options in Word 2013 make features such as wrapping text around an illustration much easier to use. When you click an image, a chart, or a SmartArt object in a Word document, a Layout Options icon appears outside its top right corner. Click it to select text wrapping options such as Tight, Square and Through.
As with the other applications in the Office 2013 suite, a formatting task pane opens when you right-click an object and choose, for example, Format Picture or Format Shape. This stays open as you work and shows formatting options relevant to the currently selected object.
New Table Border Tools
Select a Line Style, Line Weight, and Pen Color; or choose a preset from the Border Styles list and paint the borders onto the table. You can also sample an existing border, using the Border Sampler tool in the Border Styles panel, and then use the Border Painter to paint that style elsewhere in the table. Formatting a Word table by adding different width and style borders has always been a pain point. Word 2013’s handy Border Painter tool makes this task supremely easy. To access it, choose Table Tools, Design, Border Painter.
More New Table Features
Word has always had weak table tools, and Word 2013 finally addresses the problem. You can now add a new row to a table by hovering your mouse just outside the left edge of the table at the point at which the row is to be inserted. A small icon will appear; click on it and you’re done. There’s a similar icon for easily adding a new column. New Delete buttons on the Mini Toolbar make it easy to delete columns and rows; if the table itself is selected, the option lets you delete the entire table.
Collapse and Expand a Document
Long documents can become unruly to manage, especially if you’re working in just a small portion of it. Word 2013 lets you collapse and expand a document, so you see only the portion you need. To do this, you must format the document’s headings using the built-in styles Heading 1, Heading 2, and so on.
Switch to Print Layout view and you can collapse the document by hovering your mouse to the left of a formatted heading. Click the small disclosure triangle to hide the paragraphs between this heading and the next, leaving just the heading text visible.
Right-click a heading formatted with one of the heading styles to access the Expand/Collapse option, which gives you menu control for this feature.
Present a Document Online
Once everyone is connected to the service—which is run via the Microsoft Word Web App—they’ll be able to follow along as you present the document. The interface supports comments being made during the presentation, and participants can create a printable and downloadable PDF of the document if desired. Office 2013’s new Office Presentation Service allows you to present Word documents online. You must be signed into your Microsoft Account to use this feature. When you’re ready to share your document, choose File, Share, Present Online, and click the Present Online button to upload your document to the cloud. You will get a link that you can email or share with others so they can join the presentation.
Rebekah Threewitt
1 of 22
Excel
Start Screen Sets the Scene
Excel's new Start Screen helps you get to work more quickly. Along its left edge are the most recently used worksheets, any of which can be pinned to your Recent list so they will always be visible. Here, too, you can click Open Other Workbooks to access your files from a disk or the cloud. The Start Screen’s top-right corner also shows the SkyDrive (or SharePoint) account you are currently connected to.
A range of templates appears here to help you quick start a project. These can also be pinned, or you can use the search feature to look online for other templates. A list of suggested searches can help you get started.
New users will appreciate the template choices, and existing users will like the Recent file list and quick access to existing files. Although the Start Screen can be disabled, I find it useful enough to stick with it.
A New Backstage View
The Backstage View, introduced in Office 2010, is accessible from the File menu. In Excel this has been revamped to show exactly what you’re doing so you can choose the appropriate task.
The Open tab now gives you access to recently accessed workbooks, making it a combination of the Open and Recent tabs from Excel 2010. You can pin worksheets to this list or click Computer to access recently accessed locations (any of which you can pin permanently here, too). There’s also access to your SkyDrive account, and the option to set up additional SkyDrive or SharePoint accounts.
Make Flash Fill magic
The most whiz-bang new feature is the Flash Fill tool. Its predictive data entry can detect patterns and extract and enter data that follows a recognizable pattern. It solves some common problems that currently require cumbersome workarounds to achieve.
One such problem is extracting a person's first name from a column of full names. In a blank column adjacent to the one that contains full names, you simply type the first name and then click the Home tab, and select Fill, Flash Fill. The first names of everyone in the list will be entered into that that column immediately. You can use the same process to extract last names, to join first and last names, to extract months, days or years from dates and even extract values from cells. While you could have always done this with formulas, now Flash Fill ensures anyone can do it very quickly and easily.
Simplify Choices with Recommended Charts
This falls somewhere between a whiz-bang new feature and something that makes working in Excel more intuitive. Recommended Charts shows only a subset of chart types that are appropriate to the data you’ve selected. It will help inexperienced users create charts that help explain the data and don’t confuse the viewer.
To use the tool, select the data that you want to chart, click the Insert tab and select Recommended Charts. A dialog appears with a range of charts to choose from—click each in turn to see how your data will look plotted on that chart. Select the desired option and click OK, and the chart is created automatically.
Chart Tools Get Smarter
In previous versions of Excel, when a chart is selected, the Chart Tools tab revealed three additional tabs: Design, Layout, and Format. The interface is simpler in Excel 2013, with only the Design and Format tabs to choose from.
In addition, a set of icons appears outside the top right edge of a chart when it is selected. Click any of these buttons—Chart Elements, Chart Styles or Chart Filters—to reveal additional chart formatting options. Click Chart Elements to add or remove elements, such as axis titles and legends; click Chart Styles to change the style and color of your chart; or click Chart Filters to view filtered data using a live preview.
Quickly Analyze Your Data
The new Quick Analysis tool can help both new and experienced users find options for working with selected data. To use it, select the data to analyze, and the Quick Analysis icon appears in the bottom-right corner of the selected data.
Click that icon, and a dialog appears showing a range of tools for analyzing the data, such as Formatting, Charts, Totals, Tables and Sparklines. Click any option, and a series of selectable choices appear; preview those choices by mousing over them. Next, click the option you like to apply it to your data. This feature speeds up the process of formatting, charting and writing formulas.
Answer Questions Instantly with Pivot Tables
Pivot Tables are a powerful tool for analyzing and answering questions about your data, but they’re not easy for new users to create. For the first time, though, if you can click a mouse key, then you can create a meaningful Pivot Table, thanks to the new Recommended PivotTables. To use it, select your data, including headings, and choose Insert, Recommended PivotTables. A dialog appears showing a series of PivotTables with explanations of what they show. All you need do is to select the table that shows what you want to see, click OK, and the PivotTable is automatically drawn for you.
Share Files and Work with Other People
Working with other people on shared files in real time is a double-edged sword. While it’s useful to do this, you will face problems when two people try to change the same item at the same time. In Excel 2013 you can share and work collaboratively on files with others via SkyDrive using the Excel WebApp, and multiple people can work on the same file at the same time. However, you cannot open a worksheet from SkyDrive in Excel 2013 on your local machine if someone else is currently working in the same worksheet. This protects the worksheet against conflicting changes.
Instead, if one person is editing an Excel file that’s stored online, others with permission can view and download it, but they cannot change the original, which is locked until the person working with it is finished.
Like other applications in the Office 2013 suite, Excel 2013 saves files by default to the cloud. You can open, view, and edit Excel files online in a browser using the Excel WebApp without having Excel 2013 on the local hard drive.
Rebekah Threewitt
1 of 22
Outlook
New Layout
Thesleek new designallows you to view snapshots of your calendar, schedule or contacts within the inbox minimizing the need to switch tabs.
The newPeople Hubautomatically consolidates contact information from numerous sources and displays their latest social activity from Facebook and LinkedIn. You can quickly see contact information and reach out to contacts directly from the Inbox and anywhere in Outlook 2013.
One-Click Unread-Mail Filter
One of Outlook 2013's best features: a one-click unread-mail filter.
Unless you're an avid practitioner of inbox-zero techniques, chances are your inbox is full of read and unread messages alike.
In the Outlook of old (i.e. 2010), you couldview only unread emailby clicking theFilterbutton, then choosingUnread.
In Outlook 2013, there's a big, easy-to-spotUnreadbutton right at the top of your inbox. Click it and presto: You see only those messages marked as unread. Want to go back to the full inbox view? Just click theAlloption right next to it.
Message Preview
Traditionally, the Outlook inbox has shown you the sender's name and subject line for each email. To see the actual contents, you'd have to double-click it (or click it once to view it in the preview pane).
Outlook 2013 offers message preview (accessible in the View tab), which lets you preview one, two, or three lines of the message body right inside the inbox—a great way to scan messages without having to open each one individually.
And speaking of the preview pane, you can now reply to (or forward) an email right in that pane, without having to reach for the ribbon.
Zoom Slider
Depending on how an email is formatted or the size/resolution of your screen, the text might be too small to read comfortably—or too large for the confines of, say, the preview pane.
Thankfully, Outlook 2013 brings over a great feature from Word: the Zoom slider. Available in the lower-right corner of the preview pane, it lets you make quick and easy adjustments to the zoom level for the message you're viewing.
However, the setting doesn't carry over to other messages in your inbox, and if you click away from one zoomed email and then click back to it, your zoom setting is lost. Don't know if that's a bug or a "feature," but it's a bit annoying.
Attachment Reminders
Attaching a Word or Excel file,Outlook can now warn you when it appears you've forgotten to include the attachment, referenced in the body of your message. It's a small thing, but if you're constantly on the receiving end of "You forgot the attachment!" emails, this should come in mighty handy.
Themes
Who says Outlook can't look pretty—or at least less drab? You can dress it up with your choice of visual flourishes, including about a dozen themed backgrounds (calligraphy, clouds, stars, etc.) and three color schemes (but only white, light gray, and dark gray, alas).