Office 2010

Office 2010 new features

Office 2010 provides some new and improved features, but for users of Office 2007 transition should be relatively easy.

Comprehensive Office 2010 Product Guides including version comparison tables are available from the Microsoft Download Center.

Ribbon

Now the whole ribbon is customisable, and available across all Office 2010 applications. You can add new groups to tabs containing controls not currently on the ribbon, or create completely new tabs with groups of commands you need quick access to.

Video: 1 min 20 sec

Backstage view

Accessed via a new File tab, the backstage view is used to manage your files and replaces the Office Button and File menu used in earlier versions Office.

Video: 1 min 28 sec

Paste with Live Preview

This feature allows you to see the result of the different paste options before you commit to pasting.

Video: 2 min 36 sec

Better protection

Improved recovery and protection capabilities

• Files opened from potentially unsafe locations are opened initially in a Protected View. If you are sure of the source you can enable editing, making this a Trusted Document.
• Unsaved files or previous versions of documents can be recovered.
  Go to File | Recent | Recover Unsaved ...
  or File | Info | Manage Versions | Recover Unsaved ... 

Extended image manipulation

As well as resizing, cropping, adjusting brightness, contrast and colour, a wide range of artistic effects have been added.

• Apply an artistic effect to a picture

SmartArt pictures

SmartArt helps you represent ideas graphically. This has been extended to enable better use of photos and other images.

• New SmartArt graphic picture layouts

Pattern Fills

SmartArt and other graphic features can again use pattern fills - these disappeared in 2007 and caused some problems with older version files that had used pattern fill in charts etc.

Screenshot

Take a one-step simple screenshot or screen clipping from another active window and put it straight into your document.

New feature on the Insert Tab.

Video: 2 min 31 sec

Word

Word

Navigation Pane:

If you’ve used heading styles correctly, allows you to navigate and rearrange your document. Also includes a search feature and ‘thumbnail’ views of your pages.

Video: 49 sec

Excel

Excel

Bigger and quicker

The workings ‘under the bonnet’ have been improved to make the handling of large data sets quicker. Many upper limits now depend only on memory size.

Sparklines

A new way to represent data visually, using miniature charts.

Video: 3 min 12 sec

Conditional Formatting

Extended options to highlight values using colours, icons and data bars.

Calculation

Functions have been improved to give more accurate results in complex situations and some are renamed to come more into line with the scientific/mathematical community.

Pivot Tables

A few new features added that give you more options when creating pivot tables. New ‘slicers’ features.

Video: 2 min 41 sec

PowerPoint

PowerPoint

Moving and sharing

There are enhanced tools so you can more easily take your presentation from one place to another, including compression, media optimisation and burning onto DVD. You can also convert your presentation into a .wmv video that includes animations, transitions and narrations.

Slide animations

Newly developed controls on a dedicated tab provide much easier control of slide animation. The animation painter allows you to copy animation settings from one object to another - works like format painter.

• Animation basics for your presentation

Video support

A new range of features to help use embedded videos more effectively: easier to embed, trim, add bookmarks, fades and synchronised overlay text. Videos can now be embedded directly into the presentation file, making it easier to move around and share, or you can link to local or web-based media, including YouTube.

Video: 1 min 19 sec

Simulated laser pointer:

Use CTRL and mouse (left) to simulate using a laser pointer in your presentation. (Bring something small and heavy to sit on the CTRL key!)

Access

Access

Data Macros

Add macros to tables that are automatically triggered when a record is added, changed or deleted.

Macro builder

Redesigned macro builder makes it much easier to create, modify and share macros.

Video: 3 min 26 sec

Compatibility

Compatibility

Working with existing Office files and versions

Office 2010 applications use the same file format as introduced with Office 2007.

• You will have no problem opening and editing existing files which will be opened in compatibility mode.
• Files may be converted to 2010 to enable the new and updated features or left in existing mode for compatibility with earlier versions of Office. Further information by application is available on the Microsoft Support pages:
  • Word
  • Excel
  • PowerPoint
• Off-site and unsupported users with earlier versions of Office should install the latest Microsoft updates/service packs to ensure backward compatibility when opening Office 2010 files.

Access

The new file format which was introduced in Access 2007 and continues with Access 2010 (accdb) cannot be used with earlier versions. If you are creating an Access database that will be used with Access 2003 or earlier you will need to create the database using the older (mdb) format.

Some of the new features introduced in Access 2010 cannot be used in Access 2007. Further information is available on the Microsoft Support pages:

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/cc907897.aspx

Compatibility with other programs

Office integrates with many applications. We are aware of issues with the following:

Endnote: versions X3 and earlier do not work with Word 2010. Endnote X5 is installed on IT Services supported office and classroom PCs.

Adobe Acrobat: versions 9 and earlier may not integrate. Note, the supported PDF creation tool, PDF Converter does work with Office 2010 and the Office 2010 inbuilt Save As PDF function enables the creation of PDFs from Office applications. For further information see Creating PDFs.