Getting serious with the Office Web Apps
Thursday, June 24 2010
Most Windows Live users should now be seeing the new header page on their Live Home page (home.live.com) but, unfortunately, not the new header on the Hotmail page (be patient, the new Hotmail is coming soon).
Once you see the Office item appear in the header, click on it to check if you've got access to the Office Web Apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote). It's easy to check if you're able to start using Office Web Apps by looking on the right side of the page to see if the Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote icons are there. If they're not, be patient; they'll turn up in a day or two. Since Office Web Apps is an integral part of the new Hotmail, the first step to getting the new Hotmail is to have the web apps available to users.
In the middle of the page is Messenger Social where you can check what your family and friends are doing with Office Web App documents. As well you're informed if family and friends are sharing any new photos since Live Photos is part of Live Skydrive (as is Office Web Apps).
Organise your folders
Before creating a new Office Web App, we need to look at our folder organisation and decide where we'll store our document so we can later find it.
On the left-hand side of the page is a list of your folders separated into Personal, Shared and Shared with me. Under Personal, click View all for more details about your personal folders.
Hover over one of your personal folders to see that it's shared with Just me; in other words, it's private and you, being the owner, have access. Now it's highly unlikely, in fact it's not recommended, you'll want to share one of these main folders with others but you may want to share a document or a folder stored in one of your main personal folders with a colleague, family member or friend. For example, the Excel Web App allows several people to work on a spreadsheet at once online so, when the time comes for a group project, you'd organize your folders appropriately.
New folder
Let's open the My Documents folder, create a new folder for our Word Web App document then create a new document which will be stored in that folder. So click New and choose New folder at the bottom of the list.
Type in a name for your new folder and click Create folder. A new page loads; the name of your folder is in the header and the next line also tells you where you are in your list of folders.
New Word Web App document
Now let's click on New to create a new Word document. The next page that opens asks us for a name for a new Word document so enter a name and then click Save.
A new page opens. At the top is the Word ribbon and the cursor is sitting there waiting for you to start typing. If you're a Word 2007 user you'll notice that the Word Web App ribbon is a subset of the ribbon in the desktop version of Word 2007 but the main editing features we all use most commonly are on the Home tab. The Insert tab enables you to insert pictures, clip art or a table. The View tab enables you to read your document in Editing mode or Reading mode.
The File menu enables you to Save your document (it will be stored in the online folder you opened before creating the document), Open your document in Word (in other words, your document will be download and then opened in your desktop version of Word 2007 or Word 2010 if you have either installed) and Share to enable others to either just view or join with you in being able to edit the document.
Working with Office 2010
In Office 2010 you can not only save a document to your hard drive but as well save it to your online Office Web Apps folders. So Office 2010 gives you a two-way flow so you're able to, at least, view your Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote documents.
If you've created an Excel or Word document in Office 2007 and want to have access to it regardless of where you are (as long as you an internet connection), you'll have to manually add it to an Office Web App folder online (this works the same as uploading photos to Live Photos).
Since we now know that not all the functionality of the desktop version of Office 2007 or Office 2010 is available in the Office Web Apps, the least you can expect is that viewing the original document in Office Web Apps will be a true and faithful rendering of your original document.
Now is the time to get started to use the free - yes, free if you have a Windows Live ID - Office Web Apps.