Microsoft Beefs Up “Help” Search for Office
Last Updated on Wednesday, 25 April 2012 07:06 Written by Alan Wednesday, 25 April 2012 07:06
No matter how much you think you know about Office every one of us ends up clicking the “Help” link at some point. Now Microsoft has announced that they are trying to make that resulting list of topics more relevant for Office users. The Help feature has been part of Office since the start, and over that time it hasn’t changed much, except for the brief life of “Clippy”. Now Microsoft is opening up the search to include the internet – both their own forums and third-party web sites.
“Many people are using Office products in creative, inspiring ways. Some of these people are publishing how-to articles to their own sites, answering questions in forums, putting free Office tutorials on YouTube, and so on. We want you to be able to tap into this wealth of content, so that you have a better chance of finding the answer to your question.”
That’s not only good news for those search the Help area in Office, but also for bloggers, since it’s a potential new traffic source. Microsoft’s own results will still appear at the top of the search results, but now other sites will appear further down the page.
The new search results are available in both Office 2007 and 2010 for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Access. Microsoft announced these changes earlier today over at the Office Blog.
Microsoft Lowers Prices for Office 365
Last Updated on Wednesday, 14 March 2012 04:49 Written by Alan Wednesday, 14 March 2012 04:49
Office 365, Microsoft’s online version of Office, which they began offering to individual and business users last year, has received a lot of good reviews and is gaining a lot of momentum in the enterprise. Microsoft has been adding new features and updating the service on a monthly basis. Today they announced that, thanks to ever-growing number of users, they are able to lower the price of many of their plans by as much as twenty percent.
In addition to the price cuts, and perhaps even bigger, is that Microsoft also announced that Office 365 for education (both students and teachers) is now completely free. The Office 365 for education plan is known as the “A2″ plan. ”A2 includes the core capabilities of Exchange, SharePoint, and Lync and the Office Web Applications. Exchange Online and Lync Online are available today for academic institutions, and we’ll launch the full Office 365 for education service starting this summer.”
Current pricing begins with an Exchange only plan which runs $4 per user per month and plans go up from there, including enterprise-level plans for companies with 50,000 users. You can try out Office 365 with a free trial by visiting here. If you would like to read the details of the announcement from earlier today, then you can head over to the Office Blog.
Learn the Basics of Excel (Video)
Last Updated on Monday, 5 March 2012 12:09 Written by Alan Wednesday, 14 March 2012 07:00
Excel is one of the most popular apps in Office, perhaps behind only Word., or maybe Outlook. However, between those three, Excel is certainly the most daunting to approach. There is something about those blank spread sheets that has a way of scaring off users. After all, there is more to Excel than sitting down and typing – there are workbooks, worksheets, and formulas to name just a few.
With Office 2010 in use at many businesses, and Office 15 recently officially announced by Microsoft, the Redmond software maker would like to help users get familiar with Excel. To do so they have a website with a series of videos that will demystify and explain Excel. The web site, called Excel Skills Builder, contains a series of videos to teach users such basic skills as how to create a workbook, format data, use sparklines, and print worksheets.
If all of that sounds like gibberish to you then you may want to watch the videos, or at least bookmark the page. You never know when your boss may come knocking on your cubicle door with a request for that spreadsheet, so being skilled in all Office apps can be a big bonus in the workforce. You can check out an example video posted below.
