As IT departments begin rolling out Windows Office 2010 I thought I would provide an end user perspective of what is new, keep reading to discover the seven wonders of Office 2010 as I see them.

1.       Built-In Screen Capture Tool

For anybody like myself who produces a lot of documentation or presentations, Word and PowerPoint both have the ‘Screenshot’ feature which caches screen shots of the currently open windows for a one-click insert.  

2.       Image Background Removal Tool

With this feature you no longer need Photoshop to remove backgrounds from images.

3.       Protected Mode:

A useful protection feature here where every time you download a document from the internet and open it, Word 2010 will open it in ‘Protected mode’ that does not allow you to edit the document unless you enable editing. You can edit which file types are to be opened in protected mode from the Trust Center panel. As well as this, Co-authoring a document and collaborating over the Internet is one of Office 2010’s USPs, the ‘Protect Document’ option under ‘Review’ in Office 2007 has now been renamed to ‘Restrict Editing’ and a new tab titled ‘Block Authors’ has been added. 

4.       New Smart Art Templates:

For all of you ‘wannabe’ marketing and graphic design folk (myself included) the new Smart Art templates are well worth a look. New Animations & Slide Transitions for PowerPoint are also included, not to mention generally new and sleeker looking icons.

5.       Time savers: Revamped Print Control Panel / Customizable Ribbon

A real time saving introduction when printing; clicking ‘Print’ under the Office 2010 button opens a multitude of printing options with no need go through a ‘Print Wizard’.  In addition Microsoft is now allowing users of Office 2010 to fully customize the Ribbon, adding the ability to customize or create your own tabs on the Ribbon.

6.       Jumplists in Outlook 2010:

Outlook 2010 now makes use of Windows 7’s Jumplist feature for quick access to certain processes. Outlook 2010 also facilitates smarter email management allowing for grouped email replies and giving you a list of related messages when reading emails.

7.       Broadcast Presentations:

Office 2010 allows you to broadcast your presentations by sending the intended viewer a URL which works along with Office Live Workspaces.

These are just some of the improvements I have personally noticed in Office 2010. I would be interested to hear from anyone who is using office 2010 in terms of user experience to date.