What better to do just before Christmas than to give Microsoft Office 2010 Beta a first look. The Office Professional 2010 beta, a 617 MB download, contains the applications Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Access, and Publisher.

One of the key features, and messages, of Office 2010 is the ability to “create, edit and share documents from virtually anywhere”, something that is sorely lacking in the current crop of office suite applications available, even Google Apps prefers an online connection so it will be interesting to see how Office 2010 holds up.

Once installed you will be given the opportunity to continue the process online, in order to store and share documents online, by setting up Office Web Apps – the online companions to the key applications of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Various introductions and tutorials are also available by going online at this stage. The computer is also likely to need a reboot.

First impressions, after firing up Word, is that the toolbar looks a lot cleaner with a white and grey feel to it. Accessing the File menu immediately brings up a list of recent documents (although it doesn’t check if the files have been moved since they were last edited). Though loading and seeing the documents felt a lot quicker than using Word 2007. Here, the flat colour scheme really helps you focus on your document which is a plus point.

There is also a navigation panel on the left hand side which lists the key Headings for fast navigation around the document, this also looks like it will help in structuring the document too and it’s great to see it available by default. Other options in the Navigation panel are thumbnail page view, and search view.

Once a document is opened clicking on the File Menu option brings up important information about your document, these were previously available buried in various option settings but are now presented with a thumbnail view, a conversion option for compatibility, permissions, sharing, and version history.

To enable a document for sharing online was a matter of clicking the File menu, selecting Share, then Save to SkyDrive. The first time I tried this is said it couldn’t connect but logging into SkyDrive fixed this and it was fine from then onwards. Once the file was on SkyDrive it could be edited although the options says it is not currently available, however viewing worked fine.

One of the useful features in PowerPoint is Insert Screenshot which, when selected, shows a thumbnail list of all the current windows and brings an instant screen shot over when a thumbnail is clicked. Portions of the screen can be selected using the Clipping option, simply draw a box around the area of screen you want to capture. A number of artistic filters can be applied to images too which offers more creative options.

In Excel, the Conditional Formatting has been expanded to add data bars, colour scales, and icons to provide better visualisation of information. Using dashboards for clear and concise visual representation of information is becoming increasingly popular and, until now, has often relied on expensive Dashboard software – it is good to see Excel taking advantage of its own platform.

The beta test features, Send-a-Smile, and Send-a-Frown, are fun and useful ways for Microsoft to get feedback about the products. Both options, for sending good and negative feedback respectively, add a screen shot and can also include contact information with your submitted comments.

Visit the Microsoft Office 2010 Beta site.

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