Was feeling a little left behind by not getting access to the Office Web Apps beta program but then I got a mail and I got access. I is happy. Here are some pointers:
-
This is more like an extension to Skydrive than Office Live Workspaces (for now).
-
Office Live Workspaces users will be moved to Office Web Apps in 2010 (acc. to Mary Jo Foley)
-
Online Word (read-only possible) & One Note aren’t available as of now.
-
This isn’t out to kill Google Docs but to ensure that more people don’t migrate to it. With Office 2010 & Web Apps together, Redmond’s got a chance.
-
You have the ability to Edit & Create documents with some level formatting.
-
On Windows, Office Web Apps worked on Chrome 4 (dev channel), IE 8, Safari 4, & Firefox 3.5
-
Does not work on Opera 10 Beta 3 (that’s all the love Opera gets from me.)
-
To get access you might wanna try uploading a document (Word, Excel or PPT) to your Skydrive & hope that Steve Ballmer smiles on you.
Here is Office Web Apps for you:
To begin:
-
Go to your Skydrive’s Public (or security enabled) folder. Make sure you’re not in the ‘Pictures’ folder.
-
At the top you’ll find ‘New’ as an option. Screenshot:
PowerPoint Web App:
The beauty about PowerPoint+Silverlight+Office Web Apps is that you can view your presentations with the same animations that you created them – as is. Unfortunately no animation editing can be done via Web Apps. Here are some PowerPoint Web screenshots:
New PowerPoint Document:
Options available in PowerPoint:
Add New Slide Menu:
PowerPoint in SlideShow View:
Powerpoint in Full Screen Mode:
Once you’ve created a document in Skydrive and navigate back to the folder you’re greeted with a nice big icon with options to View or Edit it:
Excel:
Not a heavy Excel user but there seem to be good amount editing options in the Web version. Screenshot:
Excel Document:
Here’s what I get for Word & One Note:
Word:
But you can view existing Word documents. Screenshot:
Well that’s the only word document worth sharing I had.
One Note:
Here’s a video by Microsoft on Office Web Apps.