How to access Calendar, Skydrive, Contacts and Skydrive at Outlook.com

Microsoft just launched its new Outlook.com web mail service which will become the successor to the current Hotmail service. I started using it this morning and the first thing I was looking for is access to my Calendar and common links available in Hotmail such as Skydrive:

Above shows the present experience when using Hotmail. In Outlook.com, you access these services under a hidden menu:

In Outlook, hover over the Outlook header and menu option will be displayed. Click it at will reveal access to your People (Contacts), Calendar and Skydrive:

Click the one you want and it will display

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Outlook.com,Outlook 2013,Office 2013,Hotmail,Windows Live,MSN,Web Mail,Gmail,Yahoo Mail,Email,Branding,Windows 8,Start Screen

Quick Tip: How to change the Ruler measurement unit in Word 2013

In latest version of Microsoft Word, 2013 the default Ruler measurement unit has changed from inches to centimetres. If you prefer inches, here is how you can change it back easily.

In Word, click File

Click Options

Click Advanced and scroll down to Display. Click in the Show measurements in units of”: list box and select inches

Click OK and you should see the classic ruler:

I personally was having some problems using the centimetre measurement when setting tabs in a document, so I needed to go back to inches.

Bonus tip:

If you don’t see the option to turn on the Ruler, look under the View tab within the Show group.

 

Technorati Tags: Microsoft Word 2013,Word 2013,Office 2013,Office 365,Microsoft,Office Productivity,Measurement Units,Ruler,Inches,Centimetres,Classic Ruler,Microsoft Word.

How to use Skydrive Pro

Office 2013 includes an enhanced version of Skydrive that integrates with next generation of SharePoint services. Currently, Skydrive is available as a way to bring all your personal files to the cloud, you can also use it to sync data across multiple machines running Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8. With Skydrive Pro, you can setup your own online cloud storage for your organization and provision it so your employees can also store their files in the cloud and sync it across supported devices.

In this article, we take a quick look at how to setup Skydrive Pro.

Click File

Click Account and click Add Services then click Office365 SharePoint

Sign in using your SharePoint account. You should obtain this information from your System Administrator.

You will now see a list of services show up in the Account Backstage. You can start saving files to your SharePoint Team Site or you can copy existing files to your Skydrive Pro folder. See the following:

To save your document, click File > Save As then click the name of the documents folder on your SharePoint site, if not, click Browse.

Then click Save

Once your file is saved, you can now access it from your Office 365 account:

Click Sync and your files will show up in Skydrive library:

Your files will now be synced and updated.

You can also work on your documents in Office Web Apps.

Technorati Tags: Skydrive Pro,Skydrive,Office Web Apps,Office 2013,Backstage,Office Productivity,SharePoint,Microsoft,Sotware,Documents,Windows 8

How to activate Microsoft Office 2013

If you have installed Office 2013, you will need to activate in order to use all its features and access additional services and functionality. Activating Office 2013 is quick and easy. Lets take a look.

Launch any of the Office 2013 applications. Here I have Microsoft Word 2013 open. Click the File menu.

Click Account

Under Product Information, click Change Product Key

Enter your product key for the edition which came with the suite you bought then click Install.

Click OK, you can start using all of Office 2013.

Technorati Tags: Office 2013,Activate Microsoft Office,Licensing,Microsoft,Office Productivity,Product Activate,Product Key

How to install Office 2013

Microsoft has released an early preview of the next generation of Office called Office 365 which includes Office 2013 and its desktop applications Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Access and Publisher along with other Office family applications. In this article, I want to take a look at installing the suite. I will be using the offline installer for Office Professional Plus 2013. If you are using the Click to Run installer, the experience might be a bit different since it installs the suite in the background over the Internet. Depending on the medium, you might launch the setup for Office 2013 differently.

For the purposes of this article, I am using the setup executable.

System Requirements

Preliminary system requirements for the Preview include the following: Computer and processor: 1 Ghz or greater x86/x64 Processor with SSE2 instruction set.

• Memory: 1 GB RAM (32 Bit) /2 GB RAM (64 Bit)
• Hard disk: 3.5 GB free disk space
• Operating System: Windows 7 or newer, either 32-bit or 64-bit; Windows 2008R2 or newer with .Net 3.5 or greater. It isn’t possible to install on a PC running Windows XP or Vista. To use with Windows 8 you must be running the Release Preview version or higher. Get the Release Preview.
• Graphics: Graphics hardware acceleration requires DirectX10 graphics card and 1024 x 576 resolution

After launching setup, you will be greeted by the Office 2013 setup screen.

Accept the End User License Agreement and click Continue

Office 2013 has two types of installation modes, also, your options might be different, you might see Upgrade instead of Install Now if you have a previous version on your machine. If you don’t then click Install Now, this will immediately install Office 2013 and all applications.

If you wish to have control over what gets installed, then click Customize. Lets take a look at the options available.

The above screenshot displays the install options available, you can choose to not install a particular app or apps. If you are satisfied with these options you can leave them as is.

The file location tab provides the option of installing Office 2013 in another location rather the local drive. This can be handy if you are running low on disk space. You can use this option to create side by side installations of Microsoft Office. So if you want to keep an older version of Office while running the newer version.

The User Information provides registration options such as who is licensed to use it along with the organization it belongs to.

Once you are satisfied with the options selected, click Install Now to start the installation. The time installation will dependent on whether you are upgrading from a previous version, along with processor and memory requirements.

Once the installation is complete, you should see the following screen. You can click Close and start using Microsoft Office 2013.

To start using Microsoft Office 2013, go to the Start screen and click any of the Office 2013 applications you want to use. If you are using Windows 7, click Start > All Programs > Microsoft Office.

Technorati Tags: Office 2013,Microsoft Office,How to install,Setup,Start Screen,Windows 8,Windows 7,Customize,Deploy,Desktop Applications,Word 2013,Excel 2013,Outlook 2013,Microsoft,Software,Applications,Office 365

Microsoft Office 2010 has RTMed!

Microsoft announced this evening that it has finalized the latest version of its popular desktop productivity suite.

I am very excited to share some great news with you. Earlier today we reached the release-to-manufacturing (RTM) milestone for Office 2010, SharePoint 2010, Visio 2010 and Project 2010!

RTM is the final engineering milestone of a product release and our engineering team has poured their heart and soul into reaching this milestone. It is also an appropriate time to re-emphasize our sincere gratitude to the more than 5,000 organizations and partners who have worked with us on rapid deployment and testing of the products. Since the start of our public beta in November 2009, we’ve had more than 7.5 million people download the beta version – that’s more than 3 times the number of 2007 beta downloads! The feedback that we’ve received from all these programs has shaped the set of products we’re excited about, and that I’m sure will delight our customers.

Learn more here

Pre-order Microsoft Office 2010 here

I have been running the latest beta of Microsoft Office 2010 64 bit and I like the improved user experience. Office 2010 is a lot more than just the desktop apps such as Word and Excel, Microsoft is introducing a wide range of options for users to experience Office in new ways. Office Web Apps will allow users to do basic editing and review documents in the browser with a rich set of capabilities on mobile devices through Office Mobile 2010. There are a few things I don’t like though, such as the in ability to do an in place upgrade from Office 2007 to Office 2010 64 bit. If you have a large collection of Office apps installed, prepare to uninstall them first.

This is minor of course, when you check out the improved Outlook 2010 which embraces the Fluent UI, Conversation threads and much improved performance. I also like the improved menu system and features such as Backstage document preview technology. Office 2010 programs also include direct support for saving files to a Windows Skydrive.  Other apps in the Office family that are now Office Fluent include Visio, SharePoint Designer (formerly FrontPage which is now free), SharePoint Workspace (formerly Groove), InfoPath and Publisher.

Resources:

Checking out Office Word Web App
A look at the new Office 2010

Technorati tags: Microsoft, Office 2010, Productivity, Word, Excel, Outlook, 2010, RTM, Windows 7, 64 bit, Office Web Apps, Cloud, Wordprocessing, Spreadsheet, Presentation

New Office 2010 build showcases new branding elements

A new build of Office 2010 purported to be beta 1 has leaked to the net, showcasing some major branding improvements such as a new Office logo along with new Office 2010 application icons. The interface themes have been refreshed with a lighter color scheme. Check out the following screenshots:

The most notable changes to the icons are their color schemes, featuring a lighter palette, along with letters from the alphabet for most icons from the Office family, example: A for Access, X for Excel, P for PowerPoint. Its quite different but more self explainable I guess.

The new logo features a universal bright yellow/orange instead of the classic 4 colors Red, Blue, Yellow and Green with accented outer edges. The center of the logo is more stylish removing the four squares found in the previous Office logo.

The Office Template gallery features unique branding with more detailed icons and Office OneNote 2010 features a new welcome screen.

Office 2010 definitely focuses on the user experience, but improved functionality has also been added, the beta adds modifications to backstage preview technology and a new Office Upload feature possibly for integration with Office Web Apps. For corporate deployments of Office 2010, volume license customers can expect to see Microsoft Key Management Service added for activating installations of Office 2010. I personally am hoping to see more integration with Jump List and interactive thumbnail previews. There is so much potential for synergies between Office 2010 and Windows 7.

Resources

A look at the new Office 2010
Office 2010 Technical Preview Screenshots
Office 2010 Team Blog now up

 

Technorati tags: Office 2010, Microsoft, Productivity, beta, icons, User experience, Office 2007, Branding, Backstage, Windows 7

Office 2010 Leak hits the Street

It was only a matter of time! Microsoft Office 2010 32 and 64 bit Technical Preview have found its way on the Internet and its already downloaded and installed by some persons who are showing off some of the new UI goodness the suite has embraced. What’s particularly interesting is the strong use of the Windows Aero visuals in Office 2010 applications. Programs such as Word, Excel and Outlook feature a stronger degree of semi-transparency in the Tab menu region. The Office Galleries feature a thinner gradient similar to Windows applications that have embraced the Ribbon (Paint and WordPad).

Microsoft Word 2010 interface

Microsoft Office options

More applications in the Office family have embraced Office Fluent, program such as Visio, Publisher, Project, InfoPath now use the ribbon. I noticed in a screen of the Office 2010 programs group at Arstechnica, InfoPath has two family of applications (Designer and Editor) which Groove has dropped its name to SharePoint Workspace to reflect its tighter integration with the Team Site server software. There is also heavy use of branding color with File menus and application options featuring their respective colors. There seems to be some heavy changes to the Options area of the applications though which likely focuses on better accessibility and maintenance of the suite. Office 2010 overall does not look like a drastic departure at this stage, but its still early days and a lot can change between now and RTM. Considering that Office 12 alpha (which eventually became Office 2007) used a totally different UI compared to what showed up at beta 2. Microsoft has promised that Office 2010 will support Windows XP x86 (SP3) and x64, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Resources

Office 2010 Technical Preview Screenshots
Microsoft Office 2010 Technical Preview Registration
Office 2010 Team Blog now up

Related

New User Experience Improvements coming in Office 2010
Screenshot of Microsoft Office Outlook 2010
Office ‘14’ branded Office 2010, Exchange 2010 BETA expected Wednesday
Its official – Office ‘14’ will be available in both 32 and 64 bit
Microsoft Office ‘14’ to include native 64-bit support?
Office 14 – Finally! Anytime Upgrade, Portable Office?
Confirmed: Office 14 will support Windows XP
Ballmer: Office 14 not this year
Just a Note: A small change I noticed in Microsoft Word 14

 

Technorati tags: Microsoft Office 2010, Beta, Office, Productivity Suite, Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Access, Publisher, InfoPath, OneNote, Communicator

Microsoft Office 2010 Technical Preview Registration

If you want to get notified immediately about the Office 2010 preview program which will give you early access to beta (test) versions of the next release of Office, here is your chance:

The Microsoft Office 2010 Technical Preview is a limited, invitation only program which will provide you with the opportunity to experience early, pre-release versions of Office 2010 which will include the following applications:  Word 2010, Excel 2010, Outlook 2010, PowerPoint 2010, OneNote 2010, Communicator 2010, Access 2010, InfoPath 2010 and Publisher 2010.

By registering you are signing up to be considered for the Technical Preview Program, you will be waitlisted for consideration to be invited into the Technical Preview Program. We will notify invitees in early to mid July.

Sign up HERE

Resources:

Office 2010 Team Blog now up

Technorati tags: Microsoft Office 2010, Beta, Office, Productivity Suite, Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Access, Publisher, InfoPath, OneNote, Communicator

Office 2010 Team Blog now up

No content is up yet on the site, but its a sign that the Office Team is getting ready to share more details about the next version of the worlds most popular productivity suite:

This blog is being created by the Office team to help our IT professionals and enthusiasts get a better idea of what we are building with Office 2010 and discuss the key issues that matter to you.  We are all incredibly excited to start talking about the new version of Office and hope you will participate here.

Check out the Office 2010 Team Blog here

Technorati tags: Microsoft Office, Office 2010, Office 2007, Office 14, Productivity, Software, Announcement