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Microsoft Office 2010 Beta Downloads Live

Martin — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:50:49 +0000

Microsoft Office 2010 Beta downloads have been active for a few days for MSDN and Technet subscribers. Everyone else did not have a choice but to wait until Microsoft would enable public downloads of their latest Office software suite. Downloads have finally been activated for the public and are now available on the official Microsoft Office 2010 Beta website. The strange thing here is that the download link that was reported a few days ago is still not working. Downloads can on the other hand be initiated on the following Microsoft Office 2010 website.

Users need to log into a Microsoft Live account and fill out a short form before they are able to download the beta of Microsoft Office 2010. Downloads are available for 32-bit and 64-bit editions and various languages. The product key for the beta will also be displayed on those pages. The key is required to activate the beta.

Step 1: Open Microsoft Word 2010 Beta and click on the “File” tab. This will take you to the Backstage view. Next click “Help” in the set of tabs on the left.

Step 2: Click “Change Product Key” on the right side of the screen.

Step 3: Enter the Multiple Activation Key (MAK) displayed above. Please check the box to activate automatically or restart the app to activate using the activation dialog box.

Step 4: That’s all you need to do. Entering the MAK key in Microsoft Word 2010 Beta automatically activates all the Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta applications. Click on the “File” tab to return to the Document view.

New features in the beta include:

Outlook Social Connector (blog)
Deeper integration between Office client and Web Apps allowing users to save directly to Windows Live Sky Drive or SharePoint 2010
Improved navigation, visual design and icon update
New Office logo
Increased performance and stability

The 32-bit English beta has a size of 700 Megabytes which can take some time to download depending on the Internet connection. Users who want to follow the development of the beta can subscribe to the #officebeta Twitter channel to do so.

Tags: microsoft office 2010, microsoft-office, office, office 2010, office 2010 beta, office 2010 download

Microsoft Office 2010 Beta Download

Martin — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:32:50 +0000

The beta of Microsoft’s upcoming Office suite Microsoft Office 2010 has been finished and already been made available to MSDN and Technet subscribers. This leaves the general public who is also highly interested in this new beta with second row seats for now although it is rumored that public Office 2010 beta downloads will be activated by Microsoft in this week.

One indicator that this is the case is the Microsoft Office 2010 Beta Download page which is already listing download buttons for the three Microsoft Office editions Office Home and Business 2010 beta, Office Professional 2010 beta and Office Professional Plus 2010 beta. The links are unfortunately not live yet leading to a “The Office 2010 beta will come soon” page instead.

The differences between the three editions are the following:

Office Home and Business 2010 beta – Includes: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, and Office Web Apps
Office Professional 2010 beta – Includes: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Access, Publisher and Office Web Apps
Office Professional Plus 2010 beta – Volume licensing only – Includes: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook with Business Contact Manager, Access, Publisher, Infopath, Communicator, SharePoint Workspace, and Office Web Apps

In other news: The first group of users who were able to get their hands on the new Office 2010 Beta were Bittorrent users who downloaded a leaked version of Office 2010. It is of course illegal to download the beta this way.

Tags: Microsoft Office 2010 Beta, Microsoft Office 2010 Beta Download, office, office 2010, office 2010 beta download

GNOME Office: Is it a viable office suite?

Jack Wallen — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:43:45 +0000

When you think about office suites, two names come to mind: Microsoft Office and OpenOffice. There is a good reason for that – they are the two powerhouses in the field. Of course there are alternatives. For Windows there is Softmaker Office and Lotus Symphony. For the Mac there is iWork. For Linux there is Softmaker Office, Lotus Symphony, KOffice and GNOME Office. Although the vast majority of Linux users depend upon OpenOffice for their office needs, the alternatives should not be overlooked.

But is GNOME office and alternative that you should overlook? More than likely most readers didn’t even know there was a GNOME office. And of those that have heard rumors of this suite, many probably didn’t even know it was ready for installation. It is. But the big question…is it worth try? In this article I will highlight the tools that make up GNOME Office and help you to decide if this suite is worth your time.

Installation

The first thing I should bring up is the installation. Previous incarnations of GNOME Office required the user to install the pieces separately. That has changed and now you can open up the GNOME Software Center and follow these steps:

Search for ‘gnome office”.
Select GNOME Office.
Click the right-pointing arrow.
Click the Install button.
Enter your password.
Sit back and watch the installation happen.

What GNOME office installs is the following (some may already be installed):

Abiword: Word processor
Gnumeric: Spreadsheet
Evolution: Email, contacts, calendar
Planner: Project manager
Inkscape: Vector graphics
XSane: Scanning

There are other tools that are supposed to be included with GNOME Office, but are not installed:

Gnucash: Finances.
gLables: Label designer
Glom: Database designer.

Why the above tools are listed on the GNOME Office official site and not installed I have no clue. Of course those are simple enough to install, just by going to the Software Center and going through the same steps above.

Value of the applications

Instead of taking each piece apart and showing you how they work, I want to spend a little time on whether or not each application is a worthy usurper of your current tool. And since I do not know the tool you are using, the usurper is going to have to be pretty good.

Abiword: I have always wanted to like Abiword. And, in some instances I do. But the problem is that Abiword really stinks at document exchange. Abiword’s idea of formatting doesn’t always gel with another Office Suite’s idea. But I will say that Abiword has come a long, long way. And if you are just needing a simple word processor that is lightweight and fast, Abiword is a great alternative. Does it match the skills of OpenOffice? Not so much.

Gnumeric: Another tool that I have always wanted to like, but have been prevented from doing so because of its poor ability to work with other tools. Any spreadsheet that uses complex formulas or formatting will most likely wind up a bit of a mess in Gnumeric. But for basic spreadsheet use, Gnumeric will get the job done.

Evolution: If you are looking for a groupware suite to take the place of MS Outlook, this is where you need to go. Evolution is, without question, the best groupware suite available for Linux. It’s power, easy to use, reliable, and includes everything you need for a groupware suite. This is, by far, the best tool of the GNOME Office suite.

Planner: Because most office suites do not generally include a project management tool, planner is a surprising addition to the suite. Not only does planner bring a much needed tool to the office suite, it does so with aplomb.

Inkscape: There is only one office suite that includes a vector graphics application – OpenOffice. Inkscape brings to GNOME Office one tool that the competition can not touch. Inkscape is the best vector graphics tool for the Linux operating system. There is, however, a rather steep learning curve that comes with using Inkscape. So don’t expect to just jump into this tool without any idea of what you are doing.

XSane: You can read my article on Xscane (”Scanning in Linux with iScan and XSane.”) I think most readers will agree that XSane is an overly complex tool for a simple task. However, XSane can be made simple by simply closing all of the unnecessary windows.

The verdict

Although GNOME Office makes a valiant attempt at replacing your current office suite, it fails in too many categories to actually usurp the big dogs in this space. Now, if are in a situation where you are not having to trade documents with others and you do not need the power features of tools like Excel or Calc, and you don’t need a tool for presentations then GNOME Office might be your go-to suite of tools. Otherwise, stick with OpenOffice or MS Office.

What do you think? Is GNOME Office a worthy entry in the office suite category?

Tags: Calc, excel, MS Office, office, office suite, powerpoint, presents, word, writer

Open Office 3.2 Beta

Martin — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 08:35:41 +0000

Open Office 3.2 Beta has been released yesterday which gives users and developers a preview of the final Open Office 3.2 release which is slated for a December release. A list of changes and additions to this version of the Open Source Microsoft Office alternative has been posted at the official website. The list format is hard to read but contains many links pointing to documentation containing details about each feature. The feature list is divided into chapters for specific components like charts, database access or spreadsheets of the Office suite. Some of the most notable additions and changes in Open Office 3.2 Beta are listed below.

The Bubble Chart is available as new chart type now
Keyboard shortcut configuration dialog now supports “ALT” modifier
Removed the password length limitation in ODF document password creation dialog
Menu items display changed
Support for PS-OpenType fonts
Impress and Draw now support comments (formerly known as sticky notes) to support collaboration
More filter criteria in “Standard Filter” dialog
Use System Credentials for Web Site Authentication
“Notes” feature renamed to “Comments”
Encryption support for “Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP” filter.

Users who are interested in testing Open Office 3.2 Beta can head over to the official Open Office website to download the beta version. The beta is available for all supported operating systems and languages. The list of changes and additions implemented in Open Office 3.2 are available at the release notes page.

Tags: office, open office 3.2, open-office

How To Join The Microsoft Office Web Apps Technical Preview Right Now

Martin — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 08:29:42 +0000

Office Web Apps could be Microsoft’s answer to Google Docs. Their intention is to offer the most popular Office applications like Word, Excel and PowerPoint, for free online as web applications giving users the chance to work with new and old documents on the Internet without the need for an Office installation on the computer system they are currently working with.

A limited technical preview of Office Web Apps was announced yesterday. Interested users could apply to become part of the technical preview but there was no instant way to get access to Office Web Apps at that time.

Instead of having to wait days, week or even months before they get accepted users can do the following to get instant access to Microsoft’s Office Web Apps preview.

It starts by logging into Windows Live Skydrive. Users who do not use English as their main language might need to change the language to English first before they can continue with the process.

Upload at least one Office document. The following screen should appear after uploading that document:

A sentence with a link to join the preview program should be visible above the uploaded document. A click on that link will open a license agreement page. Accepting the license will automatically enable the Office Web Apps Technical Preview for that account.

A new menu entry will be displayed in the header afterwards called new. A click on that opens a submenu with options to create a new Microsoft PowerPoint presentation, Microsoft Word document, Microsoft Excel workbook or Microsoft OneNote notebook.

Only Excel workbooks and PowerPoint presentations are available at this moment in time. It is also possible to edit Excel and PowerPoint files that have been uploaded. Files that can be edited will have an Edit option in the top menu indicating that. via Liveside

Tags: excel, live skydrive, microsoft-office, office, office web apps, onenote, powerpoint, technical preview, word

Office Web Apps (to be) Included Free In Windows Live

Martin — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 08:24:49 +0000

Office Web Apps is basically a version of Microsoft Office on the Internet. While it is likely that the initial release will not provide access to the complete functionality of the various Office products like Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint it will offer the most commonly used functionality. Best of all, completely free for all Windows Live users. Microsoft began sending out invitations to the beta of Office Web Apps to Windows Live Skydrive users and after the beta tests have finished will become available to all 500 million Windows Live user.

Probably the two most interesting aspects of the announcement of Office Web Apps is that it will be completely free and compatible with browsers other than Microsoft Internet Explorer. Microsoft has not been very specific about the requirements but Brian Hall mentioned Firefox and Safari in the announcement. It is likely that additional web browsers will be supported as well. There have also been no information regarding access from other operating systems like Linux or Mac at this point.

Office Web Apps can be interesting for many users who sometimes work on computer systems where Microsoft Office is not installed. It would allow them to work with their Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents online. This would get rid of formatting problems and other difficulties when editing these documents in Office alternatives.

Interested users can apply to become a part of the Office Web Apps beta test.

Tags: excel, microsoft-office, office, office online, office web apps, powerpoint, windows live, word

Manage Office Add-Ins With Portable OfficeIns

Martin — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 20:10:43 +0000

Microsoft Office add-ins are a great way to enhance the functionality of Microsoft’s popular Office program. The software program comes however only with a basic add-ins manager. Far better are third party Office add-ins manager like the previously reviewed Microsoft Office add-ins manager Enable Disable.

Another popular Office add-ins manager is the portable software program OfficeIns by Nirsoft. OfficeIns will automatically display all add-ins in its interface upon startup. Various information such as the name, description, software it is loaded in and startup type are displayed in the table. It is possible to sort the add-ins by every column which is especially great for sorting them by startup type or product.

One of the most important features of OfficeIns is the function to change the startup type of one or multiple add-ins. Additional options include the usual Nirsoft features like exporting data into html, txt or csv files, generating HTML reports or displaying advanced properties of add-ins.

OfficeIns is a portable software program that is compatible with most Windows operating systems and Microsoft Office versions.

Tags: microsoft-office, nirsoft, office, office add-ins, office add-ons, portable software, windows software

Microsoft Office Add-ins Manager

Martin — Sun, 10 May 2009 12:36:04 +0000

Add-ins are a great way of increasing the functionality of Microsoft Office. Some add-ins are compatible with all Microsoft Office programs while others only work in specific applications such as the email client Microsoft Outlook or the presentation software Microsoft PowerPoint. Microsoft Office does not however provide an easily accessible interface to manage all add-ins that are currently installed which is why Topalt’s EnableDisable, a startup manager for Microsoft Office add-ins, might come in handy. Not all add-ins are needed all the time and some even slow down the startup or performance of Microsoft Office programs.

The Office add-in startup manager provides the means to disable Microsoft Office add-ins comfortably. The program will display all add-ins, enabled or disabled, that are currently installed in Microsoft Office. It sorts the add-ins in tabs that refer to the Microsoft Office program that they are installed in. Displayed are tabs for Microsoft Access, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint and Word.

The listings contain checkboxes, the startup type of the individual add-in, its name and description. The Office add-in will be loaded if the checkbox is checked. All it takes to disable an add-in is to uncheck it in the program.

EnableDisable might also come in handy to permanently disable add-ins in Microsoft Office in case they are not needed at all. All in all a very straightforward comfortable tool to manage Microsoft Office add-ins.

Tags: access, enabledisable, excel, microsoft-office, office, office add-ins, outlook, powerpoint, word

Microsoft Translator For Microsoft Office

Martin — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 07:21:44 +0000

Microsoft has released an add-on for Microsoft Office 2003 and Microsoft Office 2007 that adds their Live Search Translator to these programs replacing the default WorldLingo translator. Replacing is not probably the best word to describe it as WorldLingo is still available and can be selected on a language per language basis in the translation options. Microsoft Translator will be the default translator with WorldLingo set as the fallback translator.

To install Microsoft Translator download the installer from the Microsoft website and execute it on a local computer system. Make sure Microsoft Office is closed during the installation. The installer will then add Microsoft Translator as the default Office translator automatically for the languages that are supported by it.

The add-on will add a button to the Review ribbon which will translate selected text in a document automatically and display it in the Research pane in Microsoft Office.

Microsoft Translator will automatically detect the language of the selected text. The default language to translate into is English unless the text that has to be translated in English. In this case it is French. Pulldown menus are available to change the target language of the translation on the fly.

A click on Translate Options in the Research pane allows for the selection of the WorldLingo translator for selected languages instead of the Microsoft Translator. Microsoft Translator will work in Microsoft Office Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Excel, Visio and Publisher.

Tags: microsoft translator, microsoft-office, office, office 2003, office 2007, office add-on, outlook translator, word translator, worldlingo

Microsoft Download Portals Overview

Martin — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 15:26:07 +0000

Microsoft is not only maintaining one public download repository on the Internet but several. Many of these download sites are offering downloads for a specific Microsoft product or group of users. Some are accessible from within Microsoft products while others are only accessible from a web browser. This makes it rather complicated to create an overview of those download sites. The benefit of maintaining such a list is that these download sites do not only contain downloads for Microsoft computer software programs but also patches, updates, beta software and even prototype software that might only be available for a limited amount of time before it is removed from the servers.

The following overview will list the major Microsoft download portals (Keep in mind that these link to the English language portals):

Codeplex: Download Portal for Open Source third party software
IE Addons: Provides information and downloads about add-ons for the Microsoft Internet Explorer web browser.
Microsoft Developer Network: The developer portal. Most content is restricted to subscribers but some can be accessed publicly.
Microsoft Download Center: Microsoft’s main download repository that contains links to updates, trial versions and service packs.
Microsoft Office Labs: Office concepts and prototypes
Microsoft Research: Site for tech demos and prototypes that can be downloaded publicly.
Microsoft Security: Security portal that provides latest security news and downloads for Microsoft products.
Microsoft TechNet: Contains resources for IT professionals. Lots of technical stuff plus downloads.
TechNet Evaluation Center: Download of beta and trial software.
Microsoft Update: Works only in Internet Explorer. Will scan the computer system for Microsoft products and suggest updates that can be downloaded and installed on site.
Office Update: The main page for Office updates and downloads of all kind including updates, service packs and add-ons.
Vista Gallery: Gadget downloads for Windows Vista.
Windows Live: Download the Windows Live software and install all or selected products.
Windows Live Gallery: Download and review sidebar gadgets, emoticons, toolbars, display pictures, web gadgets, winks and sideshow gadgets.
WM Plugins: Codecs, skins, effects and additional tools for the Windows Media Player.

Did we miss a website or portal? Let us know in the comments.

Tags: internet-explorer, microsoft, microsoft downloads, msdn, office, technet, windows downloads, wmplugins

Create Professional Labels with gLabels

Jack Wallen — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 15:30:57 +0000

If you’ve ever had to create labels for mailings or any other reason you know how complicated labels can be (when using either a word processor or desktop publishing application). If you use Microsoft Windows you know there are plenty of solutions for label creation. But if you use Linux you might think you are stuck with the OpenOffice office suite. You’re not. Fortunately there are tools like gLabels that make creating labels in Linux a snap.

The gLabels utility works with numerous brands of labels including all of the top sellers. It includes an easy-to-use wizard to help you create labels quickly. You can add objects to labels, rotate, flip label designs, and control both vertical and horizontal alignments.

Installing

You can install gLabels by searching for it in your Add/Remove Software utility. Or you can install it from the command line like so:

sudo apt-get install glabels

Once gLabels is installed you will find it in the Office sub menu of the Applications menu in GNOME.

Creating Labels

gLabels Wizard

Creating labels with gLabels is very easy. Click the New button to open up the simplistic wizard. In this wizard you will select the brand and type of label you want to create and the orientation of the label.

Once you have selected the correct information click OK to start creating your label.

Merge

During the label creation you work to create a single label with fields and, once you are happy with your label, you merge a data file to create the entire sheet of labels. The data file can be a comma delineated file, a colon delineated file, tab delineated file, default from the Evolution address book, or from vCards.

As you create the label you have to assign each object a field name and then select which field from your merge file will be assigned. Once you go to print the file gLabels will automatically fill in the data for all the labels on the template.

Other Labels

You can do many types of labels with gLabels including CD labels and custom labels as well. The custom label wizard is easy to use and will walk you through the process of making professional looking, customized labels for any purpose.

Final Thoughts

If you’re looking for an outstanding, simple to use program to create labels in Linux, gLabels is the tool for you. Give it a try, you won’t go back to OpenOffice for your label needs ever again.

Tags: design labels, glabels, labels, Linux, office, open-office, professional labels

Microsoft October 2008 Patch Day Patches 11 Security Vulnerabilities

Martin — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 08:38:16 +0000

It was always a mystery to me why Microsoft released security patches on one day only considering that an unpatched security vulnerability could be exploited easily in that time. The impression with all the announcements regarding the patches a week or so earlier is that Microsoft has (some of) the patches ready but is not releasing them because they release them in one package on one day.

Microsoft released a batch of eleven security patches for various operating systems and products yesterday which are available by visiting Windows Update or Microsoft Technet which contains in depths information about the affected products and the security vulnerabilities.

The patches fix four critical, six important and 1 moderate security vulnerability:

Vulnerability in Active Directory Could Allow Remote Code Execution (957280)
Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (956390)
Vulnerability in Host Integration Server RPC Service Could Allow Remote Code Execution (956695)
Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Excel Could Allow Remote Code Execution (956416)

Vulnerability in the Microsoft Ancillary Function Driver Could Allow Elevation of Privilege (956803)
Vulnerabilities in Windows Kernel Could Allow Elevation of Privilege (954211)
Vulnerability in Windows Internet Printing Service Could Allow Remote Code Execution (953155)
Vulnerability in SMB Could Allow Remote Code Execution (957095)
Vulnerability in Virtual Address Descriptor Manipulation Could Allow Elevation of Privilege (956841)
Vulnerability in Message Queuing Could Allow Remote Code Execution (951071)

Vulnerability in Microsoft Office Could Allow Information Disclosure (957699)

It is highly recommended to update the products as soon as possible to protect the system from this attacks.

Tags: microsoft, office, office security, patch day, security vulnerabilities, Windows, windows patches, windows security

Open Office 3 Final

Martin — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 09:20:26 +0000

The final release of Open Office 3 has already been distributed to various mirror sites to make sure the official announcement on Monday 13 will not see any complications. Users who are eager to try out the final release can head over to the list of Open Office mirror sites and pick one near their location.

The path of the final release is usually openoffice/stable/3.0.0/ on the ftp mirrors. Available are releases for all supported operating systems and the source codes. The release notes have not been updated yet but there cannot be many changes between Release Candidate 4 and the final release of Open Office due to the lack of time between the releases.

Cautious users should wait until Monday to download and install the release after the official announcement of the Open Office team.

Tags: office, office suite, open office 3, Open Source, open-office, windows software

O3Find Star Office Full Text Search

Martin — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 17:18:26 +0000

O3Find is a standalone Open Source application for Windows that can be installed or used as a portable application that can perform full text searches on Open Office and Star Office documents. To offer even more choice the application comes as a GUI and command line version.

The application supports searching multiple folders and files and can search through document metadata such as author or properties and the text in the documents. Besides that it can also search for other document formats like plain text and Microsoft Office files.

The graphical user interface looks pretty much like the Windows 95 search box with the option to pick all or specific file types, select the root folder and the phrase. The command line version supports additional parameters that makes it possible to apply a command to all discovered files or to highlight the lines where the phrase occurred.

The software developer is currently working on support for Open Office 2 documents which is currently not available. If Open Office 2 support is requested Windows users could install the IFilterShop plugin that can search those files as well and implements in Windows Search.

Tags: office, open office search, Open Source, open-office, portable software, star office, windows program, windows software

Firefox 3.1 Alpha 2 and Open Office 3 RC1 Released

Martin — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 13:08:42 +0000

Two major Open Source applications have been updated in the last two days. The Mozilla development team released Firefox 3.1 Alpha 2 to beta testers and everyone else who is interested in trying out the upcoming features of Firefox 3.1 before it is officially released.

The alpha versions of Firefox 3.1 Shiretoko / Gecko 1.9.1 introduces several new features and performance improvements. It also addds support for the HTML5 video element, CSS properties and dragging and dropping tabs between browser windows. The major feature of the release will be the performance gains.

Interested users can take a look at the release notes and download Firefox 3.1 Alpha 2 for all supported operating systems.

The Open Office developers are a step ahead of the Firefox development team. They left the alpha phase and have released the first release candidate of Open Office. The release notes of this release are available online. The download is available for all supported operating systems.

Tags: firefox 3, firefox 3.1, firefox browser, office, open office 3, open-office, web browser

Microsoft Office Integrator

Martin — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 07:39:59 +0000

You find lots of applications on the Internet that allow to slipstream service packs, patches and updates into a Microsoft Windows installation CD or DVD. This has a serious advantage the next time the operating system has to be installed because all patches and updates have already been applied to it. It also eliminates the danger of directly connecting to the Internet to download those patches for the system.

Office Integrator does the same for Office basically. It allows you to create a slipstreamed installation source for Microsoft Office that contains all the updates and patches that you add to it. All that is needed is the current version of the Office Integrator, the patches for Microsoft Office that you want to slipstream and Microsoft Office.

Several so called Office hotpacks have been created at the forum where the Office Integrator has been published that contain all official Microsoft Office patches in one download. Another possibility would be to use Autopatcher Office to download the Office updates.

Once the software program is on the computer start it. Now select the Microsoft Office setup.exe and a destination for the slipstreamed version of Office. After that pick a Service Pack if you have one and hotfixes and patches from the computer. A click on the Integrate button starts the slipstreaming process.

A beta version of Office Integrator 0.7 was published on the forum as well but a user account is needed to use it. The main homepage of the application seems to be down currently which could be problematic for the whole process.

Update: Latest version is Office Integrator 1.0. You can grab it from the forum as well.

Tags: microsoft-office, office, office 2003, office 2007, office integrator, office slipstream, office updates

Open Office Bookmarks Extension

Martin — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 18:58:54 +0000

If you are working with the same kind of documents on a regular basis in Open Office you might find the Open Office Bookmarks Menu extension helpful. It adds the possibility to open files but also macros and commands to the newly created menu item which will appear in the Open Office menu toolbar.

Users can add the Bookmarks extension to Open Office in the Tools > Extensions Manager menu after downloading the Bookmarks Menu extension from the Open Office website. A new entry entitled Add-ons will be added to the Tools menu after restarting Open Office.

That menu provides the help for the extension and the means to create a folder and file structure for the “real” menu which will be available under Bookmark in the main menu toolbar.

Two default entries are added to the new Bookmarks menu. The first is the Bookmark This Document which will add a bookmark for the current document while the second provides access to all bookmarks and options to edit them.

Tags: bookmarks, bookmarks menu, office, open office extension, open-office

Microsoft Office Live Update

Martin — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 11:06:31 +0000

Microsoft just published Office Live Update 1.2 which improves the integration of Office Live with Microsoft Office programs. The four updates and tools that are installed by Office Live Update increase the performance when using Office Live Workspace with Microsoft Office programs which is the main focus of the update.

The update adds a Microsoft Office Live Workspace Plug-In for Firefox which now allows Firefox users to open, edit, and save Microsoft Office documents in Office Live Workspace. The third update is the Microsoft Office Live Add-in for Microsoft Office which makes it possible to access the Office Live workspaces directly from Microsoft Office Word, Office Excel, and Office PowerPoint.

The final update improves the Office Live uploader making it possible to upload multiple Office documents at once. Supported operating systems are Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2003. The required Microsoft Office versions are Office XP, Office 2003 and Office 2007.

Tags: microsoft-office, office, office live, office live plugin, office live update, Windows

ODF Addins For Microsoft Office Suite

Martin — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 08:18:27 +0000

The Microsoft Office Suite is currently not supporting the Open Format (ODF), a file format for spreadsheets, charts, presentations and word processing documents. Most users will probably have come in contact with the Open Format in Open Office which fully supports the format.

The most common file names are .odf for word processing documents and .ods for spreadsheets. If you encounter such a file and want to open it in the Microsoft Office Suite you will notice that it is not possible. Instead of downloading another Office suite you could instead install the ODF addins for the Microsoft Office Suite which add support for the office software programs Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Powerpoint which means support for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations and the file formats .odt (documents), .ods (spreadsheets) and .odp (presentations).

After installing the Open XML / ODF Translator addins in the Microsoft Office Suite users can not only open but also save Open Document Formats. Supported are the Microsoft Office Suites Office 2007, Office 2003 and Office XP.

Tags: addins, documents, microsoft office suite, odf converter, office, software, spreadsheets

EverNote over OneNote

joshua — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 10:44:15 +0000

I never had any experience with using Microsoft OneNote before getting the Microsoft Office 2007 Home Edition.

I’m a university student and having spent a few weeks attempting to organise my notes with MS Word (Trial Edition) I was quite excited to discover this great note taking application. OneNote really is useful, but I just couldn’t help feel as though it was a little overkill for me and how I would use it.

OneNote is targeted more at people working in business of course, which is shame because Microsoft is really losing out on the student market. In fact there are two main reasons I couldn’t effectively use OneNote:

Organisation: Like many students I’m very unorganised. In fact considering most students are, designing a note taking program with this in mind would be a good decision.
Too much for too little: What other reason aside from lectures and tutorials would I use OneNote? Sure I tried using it for some other things as well, but really it just feels like too big an application for what I need it for.

Enter EverNote.

I had a beta invitation to EverNote months ago, however based on reports of bugginess and performance issues I waited till the service has improved a little.

After the latest version 3.0 update yesterday I have begun to use EverNote for all my notetaking needs. I quickly discovered it’s a fantastic application for what I need it for. Here is why:

Synchronisation: EverNote is running a ‘freemium’ model for their service. What? Pay?! I’m quite glad of this as it means EverNote is very likely to stick around as they have an actual business model! You will get 40mb free data synchronisation each month between different computers and mobile devices.
Organisation: Is far easier and simpler, Use notebooks, tags and attributes to organise all your content. It is much quicker to just get in and start working and easier later to locate what you wrote through the search focused toolbar.
Search in Images: It could still do with a lot of improvements but the Image searching feature of EverNote is pretty impressive. It will locate any text within any image you paste into your notes. You can also take screen clippings like OneNote which is handy.

In essence EverNote is a killer note taking product I couldn’t recommend more.

Tags: evernote, note taking, office, onenote, online note taking

gHacks technology news » office

Microsoft Office 2010 Beta Downloads Live

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