10 Reasons to Love Microsoft Word 2010 & Ditch Snagit's Screen Capture Tool

What do you want to see in Microsoft Office 2010? Arpan Shan, who has access to the beta versions at Microsoft, shares his favorite 10 Office 2010 features.

Some of these you may already know, but he highlights some nice ideas that seem to be coming through. In Word 2010, for example, you will have an in-built screen capture tool that takes screenshots of whatever apps you have open. Interesting to see how Techsmith, the makers of Snagit, will respond to this.

Also, Scott Stiles, the head of the Program Management team for Word, describes the aims and objectives that Microsoft has for this new release.

1. Office Web Applications

He says that “the other advantage of Office Web Applications over a service like Google Docs/Spreadsheets is that not only will consumers be able to use this on Windows Live, but Enterprises can deploy Office Web Applications on their own SharePoint servers”.

Nice for corp users but doesn’t really help the little people.

2. Screen clippings

Here you can insert screenshots of applications that you open right from within Office. This saves you having to use Snagit or other screenshot applications. Not sure if you can crop or edit the screenshot. But if you just want a basic screenshot app, this will be useful.

3. Image Background Removal

He adds that previously he had to use other applications to make the background transparent but can now do this within applications like PowerPoint 2010.

4. Outlook User Experience

There are many UX enhancements in Outlook 2010. For example, when you receive meeting requests, you can see your other scheduled appointments inline.

You also have tips throughout Outlook 2010 that tell you if you’re above your quota, you’re going to send an email outside your organization, etc.

5. Video editing

In PowerPoint 2010, you can now insert and edit video. Not only can videos be inserted, but they can be modified. You can trim the video, set the image cover for the video, add borders, add other effects like reflection as well as other special effects.

PPTX files will increase in size (dramatically, I assume) when you add images and videos.

After trimming the video correctly in PowerPoint 2010, you can compress the media size to improve performance and reduce the size of the file.

6. PowerPoint Broadcasting

PowerPoint 2010 has a new broadcasting feature that lets you share PPT presentation.

You can either use a public “PowerPoint Broadcast Service” (you need a Live ID and it’s free) or an internal SharePoint server.

This lets you email a URL to a group of people and they can watch you deliver your PPTX from their browser.

7. PowerPoint Transitions

Some stylish new transitions are on the way. Let’s wait and see.

8. Copy/Paste

In current versions of Microsoft Office, you often end up using paste, look, undo, paste special, etc.

In Office 2010, there’s copy and paste live preview.

This lets you preview how different paste options will look without having to undo, paste, undo paste.

9. SharePoint Workspace

SharePoint Workspace (formerly Groove) lets you work with SharePoint content.

You can take SharePoint lists & libraries offline, provide a rich client UX and background syncing with SharePoint which helps with performance especially in low latency situations.

10. Sparklines

Excel 2010 introduces Sparklines.

This lets you show data trends in a one data cell.

It’s very useful when you’re analyzing numbers over time across a number of time periods. There are many forms sparklines can take from lines to columns to more yes/no type options for win/loss data.

Screenshots and more examples on MSDN

Of all the features here, the two that interests me the most are the screenshots and the copy/paste options.

Why?

Well, because these are two activities that I do all day. Some of the others, like video editing in PowerPoint don’t interest me – I‘ll use Camtasia instead anyway.

But, improved screenshot capabilities would make a huge difference, especially if I can work on the screenshots, maybe add arrows and explanatory text.

How about you? What do you REALLY want to see in Microsoft Office 2010!