{"id":4379,"date":"2011-11-04T23:59:43","date_gmt":"2011-11-04T16:59:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wellconnectedmom.com\/blog\/?p=4379"},"modified":"2011-11-04T23:59:49","modified_gmt":"2011-11-04T16:59:49","slug":"why-microsoft-office-2010-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wellconnectedmom.com\/blog\/why-microsoft-office-2010-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Microsoft Office 2010? Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Lori Cunningham<\/span><\/p>\n

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This article on Office 2010 is part two of a two-part series on Office 2010. \u00a0The first article, Why Microsoft Office 2010? <\/a>Part 1 <\/a>\u00a0points out the overall changes of Office 2010 compared to Office 2007 in addition to the many enhancements in Outlook.<\/p>\n

In this article, I highlight some of the very helpful enhancements found in Office 2010 Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and my favorite, OneNote.<\/p>\n

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Word<\/span><\/h2>\n

SmartArt<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\n<\/span><\/span>At first glance, SmartArt appears the same as in the previous version, but it has been enhanced in the Office 2010 package. \u00a0Any SmartArt you create is now\u00a0actual\u00a0text rather than being turned into a graphic image, which means the words are scannable for spellcheck – phew! \u00a0There’s nothing worse than a fanciful looking word…that’s spelled wrong! \u00a0The new WordArt Tools tool bar is very helpful also allowing great customization in adjusting your 3D graphics. \u00a0I particularly like the Wrap Text option that allows me\u00a0to choose how I’d like text to wrap around my graphic.<\/div>\n

\nThe Navigation Pane<\/strong><\/div>\n
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The Navigation Pane has increased in its usefulness. \u00a0It offers you the ability to quickly get around and find things in long documents. \u00a0What I like even better is that you can move headers in the Navigational Pane and the document is changed! It’s so easy to re-arrange things now by viewing them in a hierarchy in the Navigational Pane rather than a lengthy document.<\/p>\n

What’s more, you can now search for phrases or words and the words are highlighted both in the Navigational Pane (so you know what section the word\/phrase is in) and in the document. \u00a0As you can see from this picture above,\u00a0finding words has never been so easy. \u00a0Two thumbs up for the new Navigation Pane!<\/p>\n

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Screen Clipping<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n

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Screen Clipping allows you to take a screenshot of any of your open windows and insert it into your document. \u00a0This is very handy, especially when you are writing documents about a website, shopping comparisons, documenting your sources, etc. \u00a0You also have the option to use the Picture Tools toolbar to crop, create a border, or even compress the picture for better sharing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Backstage<\/strong><\/p>\n

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As I mentioned in the previous article, Why Office 2010? Part <\/a>I, the Backstage is a very handy area of documents that offers a lot of choices. \u00a0You can see a long list of your most recent documents, you can change your document into a PDF, you can e-mail your PDF to someone as a document or PDF, you can even send the document using Internet fax, and don’t even need a machine. \u00a0Saving your document to the cloud is just as easy as saving\u00a0it to your computer. \u00a0Saving it to the cloud allows for easy sharing of the document and edits to be made by\u00a0multiple\u00a0people…but you control the document permissions.<\/p>\n

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Excel<\/span><\/h2>\n

There are many nice changes to Excel.<\/p>\n

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Sparklines<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>\"Microsoft<\/p>\n


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Now this is a cool feature. \u00a0Sparklines are small charts that fit in cells and can be embedded in worksheets to give graphical display of data. For example, to track your stocks more easily, you could create a Sparkline for each stock to graph its performance over time.<\/p>\n

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Slicers<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Slicer<\/p>\n


\n<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

Slicers are built-in applets that help you to filter data in your PivotTables. \u00a0Slicers allow you to create multiple dashboards that allow you to track many types of data visually. \u00a0Excel has the capability of handling huge amounts of\u00a0data, previously only Microsoft Access could handle, by adding a downloadable add-on for Excel called Project Gemini.<\/p>\n

It’s best to see Slicers in action. \u00a0See this Excel 2010 Slicer video<\/a> to see now Slicers can make your Excel analysis easier.
\nThemes<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Themes<\/p>\n


\n<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

Excel 2010 offers a number of new themes to help professionalize your workbooks and keep them consistent with other Microsoft documents.<\/p>\n

Improved Picture Editing Tools<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now you can have many of the picture editing controls in Excel that you’re used to in Word and PowerPoint. \u00a0You can take screenshots, use SmartArt, crop and enhance pictures, compress your pictures and more.<\/p>\n

For a more comprehensive list (there are many more than listed here) of the new features of Excel 2010, see Microsoft’s “What’s New in Excel 2010.”<\/p>\n

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PowerPoint<\/span><\/p>\n

PowerPoint has been updated with some fairly large upgrades with regards to video handling and web-based presentations.<\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n

Broadcast Slide Show\"\"<\/a>
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Wow, when I think back how much money it cost to share a presentation with other people across the web compared to today, I shudder. \u00a0Companies were spending big money. \u00a0With the Broadcast Slide Show, built into PowerPoint, setting up ad hoc online meetings with as as many people as you want to be included is easy…and free!<\/p>\n

After creating your presentation, you can select Broadcast Slide Show and you’ll receive a link to send out to your recipients. \u00a0You can even send out invitations from PowerPoint itself. \u00a0Think of the possibilities…perhaps you want to teach a class, consult with a client, reach your readers to educate them on a topic on your blog, the\u00a0possibilities\u00a0are endless.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, there is one big caveat. \u00a0Recipients will not be able to hear you, so they will have to call in. \u00a0This won’t be too much of a problem if you’re working at a larger company with conferencing call capability. \u00a0For those of us at home, it limits the number of recipients to hear your presentation. \u00a0There is also no instant messaging feature available.<\/p>\n

To learn more, see Microsoft’s “Broadcast your PowerPoint presentation to a remote audience<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

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Video<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Video within Powerpoint presentations is becoming more popular. \u00a0Microsoft has included a number of new of\u00a0features to make video utilization more efficient and effective. \u00a0PowerPoint 2010 incorporates video-editing tools which allow you to correct color, define contrast, trim, compress, add fade-ins and fade-outs, and more. \u00a0Very cool.<\/p>\n

In addition, you can alter the way your video looks, for instance, you can put a picture frame around the video clip,\u00a0colorize it, adjust brightness and darkness, most of the things you can do with a picture you can now do with your video clip. \u00a0Any change that you make changes all the frames of the video.<\/p>\n

Lastly, you now have options to pause, fast-forward, rewind, and control the volume when playing your video clips in PowerPoint.<\/p>\n

\"\"BackStage<\/strong><\/p>\n

As noted in the \u00a0Why Office 2010? Part I article<\/a>, \u00a0the BackStage is a pretty handy staging area for saving documents in different formats like a PDF, XPS (will work on most computers), or even as a fax to use through the Internet. \u00a0You can also publish slides to the Internet or a CD\/DVD, send via e-mail, publish to a sharepoint on the Internet, or create a Broadcast slide show.<\/p>\n

One of Backstage’s most powerful features is the “Save & Send” choice, which offers various options for sharing a file with others.<\/p>\n

Animation Painter<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Animation Painter is a handy tool that allows you to “paint” animation across many slides without needing to animate
\n<\/a> each slide individually. \u00a0This will save quite a bit of time on lengthy presentations. \u00a0The new Animation Pane works great too, you can set how many seconds each animation will take to appear. \u00a0For example, if you want to focus on one animation, you can have it slowly come in across the screen. \u00a0You control the timing.<\/p>\n

For a more comprehensive list (there are many more than listed here) of the new features of PowerPoint 2010, see Microsoft’s “What’s New in PowerPoint 2010.<\/a>”<\/p>\n

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OneNote<\/span><\/p>\n

Think of OneNote as an electronic notebook for organizing multiple projects and large amounts of material. You can link\u00a0to data on your computer or the Web, record audio or video from within it, capture information from the Web and more.\"\"I use OneNote extensively, every day in fact. \u00a0It’s my diary of business ideas, my folders of thoughts and organization for WellConnectedMom.com<\/a> and TheWellConnectedHome.com<\/a>, and my main organizational tool for the new house project I am working on.<\/p>\n

I love OneNote because I can take notes and add pictures in the body using my iPad 2. \u00a0To learn more about how I use Office OneNote see my interview with the Microsoft OneNote staff, Zip lining, Alternate Avenues, and 2 Kids Add Up to 1 WellConnectedMom<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


\n<\/span><\/span>Cut & Paste<\/strong>\"\"<\/a>This is a feature that was present in the previous version, but I’m going to mention it anyway. \u00a0I love this feature.
\nWhenever you cut and paste something from the Internet or e-mail, OneNote pastes below it the location from which you copied the information or picture from. \u00a0This is very handy when footnoting a blog post or school paper.<\/div>\n
Time Record Audio<\/strong><\/div>\n
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This is a pretty cool feature. It allows you to record video and\/or audio while you take notes. \u00a0I see this being extremely useful say at a conference. You can set up your laptop webcam to record the entire presentation while you take notes on your laptop. \u00a0The downfall is that you will hear your keyboard clicking during the recording, the plus side is that your notes will highlight and correspond to the presentation you are viewing when played back. \u00a0Once you record, you are able to play it back right from within the file in OneNote using forward, backward, stop, and pause features.<\/p>\n

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Sync to the Cloud – <\/strong>sign up for an account with Windows Live and you will be able to sync your notebooks and have access to it through the OneNote iPhone App.<\/p>\n

OneNote iPhone App<\/strong> – The Office OneNote App\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0is a very useful app. \u00a0I use it extensively on my iPad 2. \u00a0I type all my meeting notes using it as well as work on my projects away from my home office. \u00a0It syncs through the cloud with my main OneNote application on my desktop. \u00a0Unfortunately, it is not yet available in the Android market yet.<\/p>\n

For more enhancements included in OneNote 2010, see Microsoft’s What’s New\u00a0in OneNote 2010<\/a>?<\/p>\n


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A Mom’s Perspective<\/span><\/h2>\n

\"\"In short — if, like me, you live in e-mail, you’ll want this suite. If, however, you mainly use Word and Excel, and you don’t use Outlook or use it rarely, this new version will rank on your nice-to-have rather than must-have list.<\/p>\n

There are many neat features that do indeed make working in Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote handy. \u00a0I have definitely been enjoying these features this past year. \u00a0I believe the more Microsoft allows access to files from the cloud (with little or no cost) through apps available everywhere (all smartphones, PC apps, web apps, TV apps, etc), the more useful Office will become.<\/p>\n

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*Microsoft provided me with a download of Office 2010 in exchange for my honest opinion.<\/address>\n

Pictures Sources: \u00a0Office.com, WellConnectedMom.com<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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