The overall look and feel of Office 2010

Three years have passed since the last version of Office was released, so naturally it’s time for Microsoft to convince you that you need a new one. Office 2010 arrives, heralding more than 100 new and improved features. The suite on the whole is compelling but, in typical Office fashion, Office 2010 has more software than any sane person could possibly need. It also boasts integration with Microsoft’s much-ballyhooed Web Apps, a potential Google Docs competitor that lets you create and edit documents using a free web-based interface.

The overall look and feel of Office 2010 is similar to Office 2007, so if you’ve become accustomed to the “ribbon” (Microsoft says its studies show it saves users lots of time and prevents mistakes from being made), you’ll have no trouble transitioning to Office 2010. In fact, the ribbon has now been extended to the entire Office lineup, and it can finally be customized, a long overdue feature. Outlook is the most upgraded weapon in the Office arsenal. The biggest switch is the new Conversation View, Microsoft Office 2010 and once you start using it you’ll wonder how you ever got on without it. Put simply, it lumps all replies to a message into a single item in the message list, eliminating the inbox full of “Re:” this and “Re:” that.

If you need it, a twisty lets you see every message in the thread with a single click. Sick of it Click the Ignore button and you’ll never see a reply to that thread again. It’s more intelligent and more capable than anything Gmail currently has. The little things Microsoft has done to Outlook are just as welcome, Download Office 2010 like a much richer to-do bar (the rightmost pane), better search and Quick Steps, which are basically e-mail management macros built into the app. The social networking built into Outlook is, for now, not even half-baked — it’s maybe quarter-baked — but it’s a sign of interesting things to come once the proper Facebook and MySpace hooks are rolled out. On the other hand, Outlook’s integrated spam filter is still not quite fully cooked. It’s hard to believe that after all these years Microsoft still can’t nail a decent spam filter. Microsoft should simply give up and retire it at this point.

My first impression was that Office 2010 is going to be to Office 2007 what Windows 7 is to Vista. Although personally I liked both of them, Vista and Office 2007 inspired an inordinate number of complaints from consumers and IT folks alike. Maybe the changes were a little too drastic or maybe it’s just that the timing wasn’t right. Whatever the reasons, many people skipped the new OS and apps and stuck with Office 2003 on XP. After using Office 2010 extensively for the last couple of weeks, I’m finding more and more to like about it. One big change is that this version of Office comes in a 64-bit version, MS Office 2010 so those running a 64-bit OS can take full advantage of 64-bit performance and stability. Keeping in mind that this is beta software and some things could change before the final release, here are the top 10 features that I think will make Office 2010 worth the upgrade.

Office 2010 not only keeps the Ribbon; it has now been added to all the Office programs, including Outlook and OneNote. But don’t panic: The Office 2010 implementation is Ribbon Done Right. The difference is that now you have control over your Ribbon and what items appear on its tabs, Windows 7 and you can even add tabs of your own and put your favorite commands on there. No more despair because a favorite command that was on an Outlook 2003 menu can’t be found anywhere on the Ribbon. The Ignore button that’s been added to Outlook is just what those of us who belong to lots of email discussion lists have been waiting for. It allows you to get rid of conversation threads that you aren’t interested in. Not only will it delete all messages in your Inbox that belong to the thread, but it will automatically delete any messages pertaining to that thread that come in later.