Features of Office 2013 Word that changed Compared to Office 2010 Word

Office Word 2013 has got all the awesomeness of Cloud Integration. So when you actually install it, you can signin with your Microsoft Account and see how strongly it integrates with Skydrive, Office 365 and even with Sharepoint.

In this post, I have compared Office 2010 and Office 2013 and listed down the features which I see as new or changed. It should have most of the changes listed, but there is always a scope. I will keep updating it, but this should be good enough to give you a clear insight.

Ribbon Menu

[ Insert ]

Insert Online Pictures : This can pull images from Office.com Clipart, Bing Image Search, Skydrive or any other online source you can connect with e.g. Flickr.

Apps for Office :

Office 2013 will ave its own app store which you will be able to insert and use.

Embedding video :

It is lot easier to embed videos from form online resources like YouTube,  Bing Video Search or just using the embed code. Once the video gets embedded, you can play the video (pop-up) and use the Image tools with it.

Comments ( Very Odd )

You will find it very Odd that adding a New Comment or rather INSERTING a new comment can be done from this Ribbon menu.  They are not only cool & pretty to see as you type in, but they are also threaded.

[ Design ]

This is a brand new section but its more of cropped out section which was already available in Office 2010 Page Layout Menu. However, having it here makes sense because now you have a live preview of the sign and its much easily discoverable.

[ Review]

Show comments is here worth noticing. You can hit them to show comments, and unlike 2010, they don’t mess up with the text written and show up in a fluid sidebar which merges with the document nicely.

Finding document location :

File > Info  > Look for the Breadcrumb type location right under Document Name.  When you click on it, you have three options :

• Share : This takes you to the Share Pane where you can invite people after saving it to Skydrive or Cloud.
• Copy link to clipboard : This will copy the long path name, including document name, which you can paste anywhere.
• Ope file location. You also have Open File Location on the same pane ( Bottom Right)

Converting  Old Documents :

Right in the info pane, you have the big button which will allow you to convert the currently open office document to the  new format. Previously this was only possible by saving it to new extension format or but since Office 2010 and Office 2013 uses the same extension, this feature is a warm welcome.

Recent Documents :

Since Office 2013 has cloud integration, Recent Document is moved under OPEN menu which not only displays documents which were opened from your computer, but also from the cloud.

You can also choose to switch between Computer or Skydrive to view Current Folder, Recent Folders or Browse.

Creating New Document :

This particular section has got a nice UI change which makes choosing templates much easier because now you don’t have to select something first to preview but a preview is already available with good looking pictures etc embedded. I will suggest to go and try to love it even more.

Save As :

Similar to Open, When you hit Save As, it will ask you to choose location which can be Skydrive or your Computer. Now what is so interesting about this is that when you choose a location, you get see the following details about that location :

• Available on this device
• Available Offline
• Available on other device
• Can be shared with others.

Export :

In Office 2010 Save and Send option has a feature to convert the document type and convert it into PDF / XPS format. This is moved to a brand new tab called as Export in Office 2013 which has both these feature.

Office 2013 Word Options :

General :

• Under Personalize your copy of Microsoft, Now its optional to choose your Name and Initials and at the same place you can change the Office Background.

• Office 2013 Startup has more options now. You can choose to remove the Start Screen where all loading is displayed,  Prompt you if MS Word is not the default editor. Same place you can setup association with type of document and Office 2013 Word.

Proofing :

• Office 2013 tracks Frequently confused words compared of Office 2010 which was using contextual Spelling. This will be useful as it will learn from your mistake and will be much faster. But I am sure I will miss the contextual spelling.

Save :

Since Office 2013 s cloud integrated, it will prompt you to Sign in to Skydrive every time you hit save. If you do not want to use that, make sure to turn of Sign in to Skydrive under save options.

You can also choose to Disable Backstage to show up when opening or saving a document and set your computer to save documents to your computer by default instead of looking for online services all the time.

You can now choose a different location for word templates.

Advanced :

• New Option which says Do not automatically hyperlink screenshot
• Office 2013 Word now supports Charts i.e. Properties follow chart datapoint which means Custom Formatting and Data labels follow datapoints as they move or change in the chart.
• Text Animation is missing in Office 2013 Word.
• In case the document has all headings collapsed, you can choose to open it automatically.
• Under Display, now you can choose to view recent document list in the menu itself i.e. When you hit File.
• Same place you can choose to let Word update the content while its being dragged and use subpixel positioning to smooth fonts on screens.

Full Screen Reading Mode

This is worth a mention here. Even though Office 2010 had Full Screen reading mode, Office 2013 has mastered over it. Its not only touch device friendly but even on regular screen its fun to use it.

• Smooth Scrolling helps you navigate from one page to another very nicely.
• There is a new Menu called as View which gives you access to Edit Document, Navigation Pane,  Comments, Change Column Width,  Layout and Page Colour.
• Tools section has only Find and Search with Bing. You can also Undo and Redo from here.
• Tools no more carry Text Highlighter but can be accessed when  you right click a selected section.

What is very useful menu option here is the File menu, If you want to switch reading to other document in reading mode, you don’t have to manually hit reading view again. Instead, Hit the file menu, open a document and it switches to full screen mode. Apart from this using the File menu, You have complete access to all the menus or actions you could have done with the document.

Others Changes

• It remembers the position at which you left reading the document.
• Supports PDF Reading.