Comments Locked

43 Comments

Back to Article

  • cosmotic - Wednesday, February 4, 2015 - link

    Great, office is being hit by the Windows 8 ugly stick.
  • msnight04 - Wednesday, February 4, 2015 - link

    This is the touch version of Office. There will still be a more desktop friendly version of Office 2015 released.
  • JaBr - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link

    The desktop version has been demo'd and it follows similar lines to 2013
  • nathanddrews - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link

    If people don't like it, they could just continue to use 2013... or '97. LOL
  • Fergy - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link

    LOL!
  • Stahn Aileron - Saturday, February 7, 2015 - link

    I have to disagree there. You can go up as far as >2003< for the classic Windows look. I would know: I was still using it on my desktop until a few month ago, when I switched to a new system build. ^_^

    I tried 2007 when it first came out an hated it. I was forced a little onto 2010 due to work at school. I'm on 2013 personally, now, having retired 2003.

    I still dislike the ribbon. I feel like I'm spending too many clicks looking for item I want because the "logical" organization of the ribbons hides functions from any other ribbon tab you're not currently using. I prefer the shortcut bars of 2003 and prior. I could have EVERYTHING I used frequently (or even infrequently, but HIGHLY desired when I do need it) one click away.

    I'm getting use to the ribbon bar, but god help me if I ever think its accomplishing anything other than making me fish for stuff I didn't have to before. For me, it's doing the exact opposite of its intended goal: save time while exposing features. (Seriously, I think I'm clicking WAY more than I used to in 2003 to accomplish the same tasks.) I knew I had to give in eventually though. School was the final push.
  • ZeDestructor - Sunday, February 8, 2015 - link

    You tried creating a custom ribbon? I made one a few years ago, and it brings everything I use onto a single tab, so no time wasted on navigation.
  • NewBro - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link

    It's about damn time, try to use Excel 2013 on my Transformer is so counterproductive.
  • basroil - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link

    Excel really is the worst offender in touch... but it's also the least necessary one in all touch environment!

    Powerpoint actually works great with touch in 2013, and hopefully they will pull it up a notch with this one
  • Alexvrb - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link

    Agreed. It's looking good!
  • damianrobertjones - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link

    Looks perfectly fine to me. Maybe actually try it before posting the usual rubbish?
  • Penti - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link

    It's not a fully featured office variant. If your okay with competing mobile office suites your fine with this one too.
  • Michael Bay - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link

    He`d have nothing to post then.
    Win8 haters were always the most pathetic, knowing literally nothing of the thing they badmouth.
  • 2024yearofthelinuxdesktop - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link

    It's amazing that there are still people on the internet who will vehemently defend a Microsoft OS that MS themselves have basically gone out and apologized for.

    In other news:

    "Windows 8 went from 4.03 percent in December to 3.79 percent in January, a drop of 0.24 percentage points. Windows 8.1 went from 9.49 percent to 10.04 percent, gaining 0.5 percentage points. In total Windows 8.x grew by just 0.03 percentage points.

    In comparison, Windows XP went from 18.26 percent to 18.93 percent. That’s an improvement of 0.67 percent -- twice as much as Windows 8.x managed."

    http://betanews.com/2015/02/01/windows-8-1s-market...
  • Azurael - Friday, February 6, 2015 - link

    Nobody questioned the fact that it's been an abject failure in the marketplace. I can't imagine all the bad press helped with that. But really, what's the big deal regarding Windows 8? 8.1 boots faster than 7 on everything I've installed it on so far - especially machines that can EFI boot. It seems less laggy too. The quicker access to essential functionality via a right click of the 'Start' button is a boon, as is the dramatically improved Task Manager. Jumping straight to the all programs screen gives me all the functionality I ever had with the Start Menu in previous versions. Aside from that, I can't see any difference in my usage of a non-touch driven computer since upgrading. I also can't imagine I'd have enjoyed writing this post much on a touch screen device running Windows 7... And personally, I prefer the new uncluttered, flat desktop theme to Aero's chintz and unnecessary transparency.

    I'd love to see a decent browser for the modern UI though. I'm a Chrome fanboy on 'traditional' systems and Android, but here Chrome feels rather clunky - it doesn't scroll smoothly at all (even though Chrome running under Android on the same tablet is great) The consensus online seems to be that IE11 in Modern UI mode is okay. I suppose it's better than any previous version of IE (I can use it without wanting to gouge my eyes out) but it's still noticeably slower rendering pages than Chrome, seems to suffer from more rendering glitches than other browsers and also prone to being totally crashed by crummy scripting in a way neither Chrome or Firefox are...
  • Impulses - Saturday, February 7, 2015 - link

    I always found all the hate centered around the touch optimized Start screen kind of hilarious... Usability wise it wasn't any worse on the desktop than the old Start Menu which for years everyone derided as some Win 9x vestige that easily got cluttered and disorganized, all of a sudden everyone missed it tho, gimme a break.
  • tabascosauz - Saturday, February 7, 2015 - link

    If anyone makes a complaint about Win 10's start menu, they should be permanently banned from expressing their opinion ever again.

    Now that one has the option for the smaller, classic-sized start menu as well as the 8.1-sized start screen, there's no reason to complain. Now that Metro apps can be run in fullscreen or windowed, there's even less of a reason to complain.
  • sadsteve - Monday, February 9, 2015 - link

    I have one complaint about the Windows 10 Start Menu. The width is not adjustable. If I remove all the items on the right hand side of the Start Menu, it stll takes up half of the screen on a wide screen monitor. I'm assuming this is just because it's a preview of the real thing and that they'll fix it before a real release occurs. If not, I'll keep using StartIsBack.
  • sadsteve - Monday, February 9, 2015 - link

    Hm, you didn't try to configure the desktop settings? Under Windows 7 you can adjust the amount of bling you want. I always turned of transparency and most animations.

    Unfortunately, Windows 8 and above just took most of the options away from you.
  • Murloc - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link

    you may not like the Swiss Style but because of smartphones (I don't think it's just a fashion, but rather that on smaller screens a cleaner style is more readable and there's also all the dpi and ctrl+wheel zooming stuff that works flawlessly if you don't have buttons made with raster images), it's here to stay at least as long as the glossy buttons stuff stayed here, and that's like 15 years.

    Even Anandtech was hit by the same stick.
  • Flunk - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link

    That's exactly what some people said when Microsoft released Aero Glass, Windows XP's Luna theme and Windows 95.
  • Solandri - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link

    No it's not. If you go back as far as Windows 2.0, apps had borders around the edges to help distinguish them from other apps when their windows overlapped.
    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c9/Wind...

    Each later version of Windows augmented this, with things like shading, drop shadows, and aero translucency to give it a more 3D look - so when you saw it you'd immediately recognize it as a border between apps, not a part of the app itself.

    Then with Office 2013 and Windows 8, Microsoft did a 180 and got rid of the borders. If you have a bunch of office app windows overlapping each other now, it's impossible to tell what part is border and what part is app (it's especially bad with Excel, where the cells from different windows blend together when overlapped). Some "artist" who obviously had no training in user interface design arbitrarily decided that the simpler "clean" look was better.
  • Flunk - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link

    I don't like the current interface design trends because of arbitrary reasons? Yes it certainly is the same.

    I'm not even sure if your base argument even holds any water, Windows 10 has drop shadows under the windows, window borders and the tiles are shaded (unless you're in tablet mode, then you don't get windows to have borders. I'm not even sure what your argument here is. The borders are not as enormous as they are in Windows Vista - 7, but they're there. I'm not exactly a fan of design for design's sake, but there really isn't anything that's worse usability-wise.

    As a rule, simplistic design is better for usability, as long as there are enough ques there to make sure everything is represented. It seems, at least at this point in the beta, that Microsoft has learned from the mistakes they made with Office 2013 and Visual Studio 2012 and has scaled back the style-first idea that Steven Sinofsky nearly sunk the company with.
  • Alexvrb - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link

    Forgive Solandri, he usually makes good points but he's been smoking crack today. You're 100% correct, in desktop mode you've got the usual visual cues/features for windowed apps/programs, and in "tablet mode" you don't have windows at all but rather your choice of single-app fullscreen mode or various Snap (splitscreen) modes with borders. In all cases outlined it's pretty impossible to have the issues he's worrying about.

    Solandri, put down the pipe man, come back to us.
  • inighthawki - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link

    The window shadows in Windows 8 (the OS he actually mentioned in his post) are nearly nonexistent, especially on inactive windows. Windows 10 is not a whole lot better - they are bigger than in Win8 (and probably comparable in size to 7), but less intense. In most cases, I barely even notice it's there, and more often than not provides me with almost no depth context vs the Windows next to them, especially if it's a colored background. Drop shadows are extremely important when you remove the window borders. Go take a look at OSX, an OS that has never had window borders, as a good example of good use of drop shadows. They've very clearly learned from experience at how large and intense the drop shadows must be to be effective.
  • faizoff - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link

    Count me in as one of the few that loves these new designs. I love how 2013 animates cells etc.. and I've been a huge fan of the tabbed system since introduction.
  • romrunning - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link

    In regards to "tabbed system" - are you talking about the Ribbon?
  • faizoff - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link

    Yup, the tabs on the ribbon.
  • anolesoul - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link

    Once Windows 10 is "finalized"---- THIS is the OFFICE I will "buy" into!
  • Wolfpup - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link

    Thanks for the explanation that there's still a regular Office version-I was confused by the last article on that point!

    That's pretty cool then, though I have to point out that actually Office 2013, and most all programs, work really well on a touch screen. The ironic thing about finally using Windows on a touch screen is actually the normal desktop stuff works well, despite years of people telling us that it would be terrible and we needed an alternate interface.

    of course that's on a 9.7 or 10.6" screen...maybe on an 8" or smaller screen the story's different, but then I don't like small screens.
  • jhoff80 - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link

    On an 8" screen, the ribbon reflows into sections (can't remember offhand, but it basically groups all the font stuff, all the search stuff, etc. from the home tab), so it still actually works really well there too. You can actually simulate this by making the Office window smaller.
  • mkozakewich - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link

    Touch usually works great, even on really small screens, except for those times where Windows decides you wanted to click on something else.
    For example, if you put a toolbar right beside the Windows button on the Taskbar, it's nearly impossible to touch the first icon. Windows will decide your finger was too close to the Windows button, so it'll launch the Start screen.
  • SteelRing - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link

    Tabs, ribbons and useless touch stuffs.... who could write a document, write a macro or punch spreadsheets efficiently with touch devices, much less on a tiny screen. Office 2003 on my XP is still much more useful, elegantly clean and easier to use than any of this trash. Go MS!
  • wiz329 - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link

    I think you've missed the point. I do all that stuff on Office 2013 on my desktop (ie writing macros, regression analysis etc.). But it's nice to have basic access to a spreadsheet on the go.

    Nobody is saying you having to use VBE on a mobile phone.
  • Michael Bay - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link

    Post that under ten more names and somebody will definitely listen!
  • mkozakewich - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link

    You can attach a keyboard, obviously. Touch is just the primary input when the keyboard is detached.
  • Penti - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link

    Or just install Office 2016.
  • Alexvrb - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link

    What?? How dare you have any sort of input without a keyboard and mouse! If you want to view documents, or even *gasp* EDIT something (even a single word!), you'd damned well better load that document up on a 60 lb desktop behemoth with 12 theads and a 30" monitor, preferably with dual keyboards.
  • Intervenator - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link

    Aaaah! Its new and unfamiliar! *Posts comment on how I dont like it*

    These damn changes make me wish I was living in the 90s again when I had no opinionated preconceptions!
  • maximumGPU - Friday, February 6, 2015 - link

    well said!
  • DrApop - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link

    Well at least they got rid of the butt ugly fat ribbon. But you likely have to click two mouse clicks and two moves to select a menu item vs the old button bar which worked just fine until MS stuck the ribbon on. Now it is just almost as bad.
  • Impulses - Saturday, February 7, 2015 - link

    Ribbon is still there in desktop...
  • Mushkins - Sunday, February 8, 2015 - link

    So many people neglect that the ribbon is fully customizable. You have a dozen tools you use all the time? Make a custom ribbon and put them all next to each other. Microsoft can't read the minds of every user and automatically arrange the default ribbon for them, but they give you the options to do whatever you want with it.

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now