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Disable Typing Animation In All Office 2013 Applications [Tip]

Abdullah Saqib — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 10:40:01 +0000

If you’ve started using the new Office 2013 (or version 15, as some may call it), you might have noticed the new typing animation. As you type, the animation is pretty obvious to note. Some may term it as a modern and contemporary addition to the flavor of the new Microsoft Office Suite while others would simply get annoyed. It is for such people that we present a registry hack to get rid of the fancy typing animation. This hack has a reversible effect and if you feel the need to revert to the default graphics, you are just a click away. Moreover, this will apply not only to Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and the like, the impact would hold for the entire suite. Through this post, we are in no way undermining the typing animation, but only presenting an alternative for the annoyed ones, out there.

If you’re using Windows 8, move to Start Screen, search regedit and hit enter to open Registry Edior. You can also use Run console using a Win+R hotkey combination to quickly open the Windows registry editor. Now, navigate to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Common\Graphics path in order to implement the registry hack. Disabling the animation will allow you to adjust with new features with a similar yet feature-rich environment, making you extract the maximum benefits without reserving yourself to the older versions. In the Graphics key, you are required to set the data field of the DisableAnimation value to 1. Setting it to 0 would enable the animation again. Similarly, you can delete the Graphics entry to achieve the same result.

If you are unable to find the Graphics key, you can create it to have the same impact. To do this, right click Common and select New>>Key from the context menu. Name the new key as Graphics. Navigate to the newly created Graphics key to see only a default REG_SZ type value visible. Now, right click the blank area to create a new DWORD (32-bit) Value and name it DisableAnimation.

Double click the DisableAnimation value to open the Edit DWORD (32-bit) Value. Set the value data to 1 and enable the Hexadecimal option in Base. You have now successfully applied the registry hack. Open Microsoft Word 2013, and start typing. Can you feel the difference?

Remember to close any active Office 15 Suite components before applying the hack. We hope that you found this useful, and should you encounter any problem, inform us by leaving a comment below.

Read Disable Typing Animation In All Office 2013 Applications [Tip] by Abdullah Saqib on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

What’s New In Microsoft Outlook 2013? [Review]

Waqas Ahmed — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 11:00:38 +0000

Microsoft recently announced the next version of Office suite – Office 2013 (codenamed Office 15). Steve Ballmer, the current CEO of the Redmond giant, unveiled Microsoft Office 2013 Consumer Preview, in San Francisco, but as of now, Microsoft is calling the new version as Office 365 Consumer Preview, and has made it available as Home, Small Business and Enterprise editions. This is the first time in history that the Office suite is designed by keeping desktop and touchscreen devices in mind, particularly when Windows 8 is just months away from its GA launch. One of the most powerful and frequently used applications in Office, is the Outlook. Outlook 2013, akin to other programs in the suite, has received much love from the developers, and now looks more polished and elegant. Basically, it’s the same old Outlook with an improved functionality, aesthetics and ergonomics. We decided to do a brief overview of the new Office Suite, and an in-depth review of the new features, changes and enhancements that are made to MS Outlook.

Overview of Microsoft Office 2013

One of the biggest changes Microsoft brought to the table is native SkyDrive and SharePoint Integration, which is quite helpful to instantly access, share and collaborate with your team members on important tasks, from remote locations. The productivity suite now has full touch screen support, which was quite imminent, especially when Windows 8 is not far from launch and Microsoft itself is entering the tablet market with their Surface tablet. The Redmond giant has also made subtle UI changes to make Office more Windows 8 friendly, a lucrative step to move people closer to their next OS.

Meet The New Outlook

Since the article mainly focuses on finding new features in Outlook 2013, let’s take a look at the most significant improvements and new features that Outlook 2013 has to offer.

Fascinating New User Interface

Microsoft has always focused to employ simple user interface design in its office suite, but the new Outlook looks even more simple yet lavishly elegant. There are no fancy colors here and there, and the whole interface is carved out of the white background from top to bottom, the only exception being the status bar, which is in blue color. Menus flip more fluidly and are more dynamic, and navigation bar looks sleeker, as some of the items are moved to bottom lane.

A New Feel To Backstage View

Backstage is the area where all your Account Information is displayed. Here, you can manage your accounts from a single window. Well, it’s not completely built from the ground up, Backstage view now has a blue bar at the left side. There is also an encircled Back button button at the top left that takes you back to the landing page. The navigation tabs are also rearranged. The Info tab is now placed at the very top, with Open & Export, Save As, Save Attachments and Print tabs right below it. The rest of the tabs’ positions are not changed.

Quickly Switch Between Outlook Main Elements

As you may know that Outlook offers management features for Mail as well as Contacts, Calendar and Tasks. Most users are more inclined towards the trio, that is, Mail, Calendar and People, and Outlook 2013 doesn’t disappoint them in any department. In Outlook 2010, the navigation buttons were all aligned in the main navigation bar. In Office 2013 however, the navigation buttons are now placed horizontally, right above the Status bar. Talking about Status bar, it now looks more fascinating and vivid, making it perfectly blend with the overall color scheme. The new placement of the navigation controls is a welcome change, since it’s become easier to navigate between Outlook windows. Moreover, when switching between the tabs, the transition animation is quite fluid, and looks amazing with that subtle fade in and fade out effect.

Weather Bar

It’s advisable to know your local weather condition before scheduling the meetings. Outlook 2013 offers a new Weather Bar in the Calendar that provides real-time weather forecasts, so you may plan your meetings and appointments accordingly. It provides a three day forecast by default, and hovering the mouse pointer over each forecast gives you further details such as Wind condition, Humidity level and Precipitation. Another noticeable feature is that you can add multiple locations to keep an eye on the weather of the frequently visited cities; simply click the miniscule arrow button next to your current location, it will list down all the locations that you ever added. From within this list, you can click Add new locations to add as many different locations as you want.

Miniscule Peek Windows For Calendar, People &Tasks

Outlook also shows Peek windows when you hover the mouse pointer over the Calendar, People and Tasks. While Mail doesn’t provide any Peek, the rest of the Outlook components do allow you to search the items, view today’s events etc. For instance, you can hover the mouse pointer over the Calendar to quickly find out about your today’s schedule, such as events and meetings. Likewise, People tab also has this option, and lets you easily search for a particular contact from within this small window. It must be noted that you can Pin these Peeks to the right edge of the application window; clicking the small Pin button at the top right instantly pins the item.

Mail Simply Looks More Elegant

It seems as if Microsoft went back to the drawing board and made the Mail section much more fluid. It now supports a quick way to mark your email messages as read without opening them. All the unread messages are now marked by a thin blue line to the left, and hovering the mouse pointer over the line broadens it up, clicking it marks the mail as read. Furthermore, the Inbox feels more attractive to work with — the read mails are highlighted with bold blue text and are easy to sort out. In preceding version, the email folders and main elements (Mail, Calendar, People, Task), were all placed in main navigation bar, but since the main elements of Outlook are placed horizontally now, it provides a clear view of each section. Moreover, the message list pane feels more dynamic, as resizing it changes the way it looks and behaves accordingly. Another noteworthy addition is that, should you save the email as Draft, the Draft word is highlighted with red color, and appears next to your message.

Insert Online Picture

Another major addition we found is inserting Online Pictures from within the message body. Should you need to send a reference picture attachment and simply couldn’t find in your local archive, you can use the Bing image search. To search images, click Online Picture button on the toolbar to open a small window and enter search keywords. You can search it in Office.com Clip Art, Bing or you SkyDrive account. It also supports downloading images from Flickr.

People Card

Another noteworthy addition is the People Card, which works as a one-stop-shop for all contact details. This card shows your contact’s social happenings. It contains the person’s name, contact details, company information, IM etc. Furthermore, you can quickly schedule a meeting with your contact from within the People Card.

SharePoint Integration

Outlook 2013 now has better SharePoint integration, as SharePoint groups can now enjoy their separate mailboxes. All the document files you have stored in SharePoint can be viewed easily from within the Outlook.

Exchange ActiveSync Support

The application now lets you connect Outlook with Exchange ActiveSync, which gives push notifications of your emails akin to that of your regular Hotmail or Gmail account. Previously, ActiveSync wasn’t possible.

Verdict

Overall, Outlook 2013 now looks more polished, although with not many new feature-sets, the changes brought to the table are quite major. Features like People Card, Navigation Bar, Social Connectors etc., seem to have already won the show. Even in its Consumer Preview, the application runs without any issues, whatsoever. However unlike other Office 2013 suite applications, Outlook 2013 doesn’t work if the previous version of Outlook is running in the background.

Read What’s New In Microsoft Outlook 2013? [Review] by Waqas Ahmed on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

What’s New In Microsoft PowerPoint 2013? [Review]

Fawad Mir — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 11:00:14 +0000

With the release of Windows 8 GA on the horizon, Microsoft has unveiled the next version of their second biggest product, the Microsoft Office 2013. Right now, it is only the Consumer Preview, however, it provides ample basis for users to form an idea about what the final version will bring to the computing world. Graced with the same Metro style UI of Windows 8, the design and functionality of Microsoft Office 2013 has been streamlined to work with both PC’s and Tablet devices. Even though, at first glance it appears to be a lot different than its predecessor, it is essentially the same product, with a few tweaks and enhancements added here and there. The main focus has been on improving document sharing using the SkyDrive cloud service, and using it to access and edit them from remote locations. In this article, we will look at the enhancements of the old features and addition of new ones in the Microsoft PowerPoint 2013.

While the old features are enhanced, including refined animations, a better Presenter View, and an improved commenting system, new features, such as, Alignment guides, Ability to merge shapes and Widescreen templates with different color choices, are now a part of Microsoft PowerPoint 2013.

Revamped Landing Page

The landing page of PowerPoint 2013 has received the much needed facelift. The landing page of the previous version, Microsoft Office 2010, looked very bland and even confusing to some users. In the newer version, the landing page has been revamped to provide users with quick access to locally available templates, as well as the online database. The online templates are divided into several categories such as Business, Industry, Small Business, Presentation, Orientation, Design Sets, 4:3, Media, Nature, Marketing etc. While new presentations can be created from the main window, the left sidebar shows all the recently accessed presentations.

Color Themes For Templates

The templates can be used with different color themes. For instance, if the theme comes with a light color scheme, and you want to use darker colors, just click the template and all the available color schemes will be displayed. You can select the required one to use in your presentation. Just like the previous versions, you can also manually change the color and style of elements in a template.

Enhanced Presenter View

The Presenter View in PowerPoint 2013 displays the Active slide on the left side, the Next slide at the top right, while the Notes for the current slide are displayed in the bottom right corner. A timer appears above the preview of the current slide, and extra controls are available at the top and bottom of the Presenter View window.

Even though, Presenter View was also available in the previous versions of Microsoft PowerPoint, it was not activated by default. Users had to navigate to the Slide Show tab, and enable Presenter View in order to display it on secondary display screen. For this reason, a lot of people were not aware of its existence in the previous PowerPoint versions. Microsoft seemed to realize this in the latest release, and has enabled it by default. Now, whenever you run the slide show, the Presenter View will be displayed, if there are multiple display devices connected to the computer. Some changes have also been made to the console. Now you have an extra Laser Pointer Pen Tool, option to zoom parts of a slide, see all slides at a time, and ability to switch Slide show and Presenter Views between the connected display monitors.

Account Management

The Account Management window allows you to connect to your SkyDrive account, and add services to use with PowerPoint. Sign in to your Microsoft Account, and it will automatically connect to your SkyDrive account. You can use the same account to sign in to Microsoft Office 2013 on different devices. This way, all your saved documents will be synced to the cloud and will be available for viewing and editing from any device. This eliminates the need to carry your documents in removable storage drives. Using the SkyDrive account, you can easily share your presentations and invite others to collaborate on required presentation projects.

Share Documents To View & Edit In The Browser

The Share option offers a number of ways to share the document with others. You can Invite people by specifying their Email addresses, Send them a link to View and Edit the document, Post the document to Social networks, Email it to others as an attachment (PPTX), as a URL, as PDF, as XPS, or as internet Fax,Present it Online so that others can check out your presentation from their browsers, and Publish Slides to any Library or a SharePoint site. The person on the receiving end does not need to have Microsoft Office installed on his/her system in order to view or edit the document. If they have a Windows Live ID, everything can be performed from inside the browser.

Widescreen & Fullscreen Support

PowerPoint 2013 offers a slew of Widescreen templates and themes. The previous version also allowed you to switch to widescreen mode, however, you had to manually change the aspect ratio of the slide, which also changed the size of the slide elements. The new version of PowerPoint has built in support for Widescreen monitors. Moreover, there is also a new full screen mode available for editing. It allows you to view your slides, and edit them while consuming the available screen space. The Ribbon, containing all the editing options, can be activated and deactivated from a conveniently placed button at the top right corner.

UI Changes & Pane View

There are various UI related changes in PowerPoint 2013. First of all, everything feels smoother, from the movement of the cursor when you type, to the way animations appear in your presentation. Microsoft has also tried to improve the look and feel of the interface. There are now buttons available on the main interface to switch to the aforementioned Fullscreen View, and to access Notes and Comments.

Another welcome change to the UI is that a lot of options, which used to appear in separate dialog boxes, are now accessible through panes, appearing on the right side. For instance, in PowerPoint 2010, if you right-click a slide and select Format Background, a separate dialog box opens up. You can make changes to a slide, but the dialog box covers the slide, and you have to move it manually in order to view all the slide elements. Moreover, when you select Format Background option, instead of opening a separate dialog box, a pane is added to the right side. Anything that you change using from the pane is reflected on the slide in real time. It means that you don’t have to open and close the dialog box again and again to view the changes. Just like other Office 2013 suite applications, it includes an Online pictures option to let you quickly add background to the slide from your favorite online image resource; you can choose an image from the Office.com Clip Art Library, the Bing Image Search, or from your own SkyDrive and Flickr account.

Alignment Guides, Merge Shapes & Auto-Text Wrapping

A new feature, included in PowerPoint 2013, as well as Word 2013, is the Alignment Guides. It allows you to easily align objects and text in a slide, relative to each other. You can use the object alignment option to merge different shapes with each other. For instance, If you want to merge together two shapes, the alignment guides help you in quickly adjusting them together according to top, down, left and right margins. Another very useful, and much needed, feature added to PowerPoint 2013 is auto-text wrapping. When an image is added to a slide with text in it, the text automatically readjusts itself around the image so that there is no overlapping of any kind.

Insert Online Video, Image And Audio

PowerPoint 2013 now allows you to add videos, images and audio files directly from the internet, without first downloading them to your PC. Think of it as the object being embedded in your presentation. The previous version of PowerPoint also had the option to add videos from the web, however you had to copy the embed code of required video and paste it into PowerPoint. The latest version allows you to Insert an online video in your presentation using the integrated Bing Video Search, SkyDrive Account, YouTube, or From a Video Embed Code. For instance, to add a YouTube video, just search for it, select the required one from the search results and click OK to embed it into your presentation.

The image results are, by default, set to show the images that are licensed under Create Commons, so it eliminates the chance of copyright violation when you use an online image in your presentation. You can also choose to view all the web results for your search.

Export Presentation As WMV & MPEG-4 Video

PowerPoint 2010 also lets you save the presentation as a video, but only in WMV format. In PowerPoint 2013, another format, MPEG-4 is added to save converted presentation in video format. Due to the addition of MPEG-4 format, the presentation video can directly played on a lot of media players and devices. Now, users don’t require Windows Media CODEC installed on non-Windows devices to watch the presentation. Also, portable devices, as well as a lot of LCD/ LED TVs have built in support to play MPEG-4 format. Just go to Export, and select Create a Video. All the other options, including the Resolution, and whether to use recorded timings and narrations are available with the MPEG-4 format.

Verdict

After all the newly introduced and enhanced features added to PowerPoint 2013, it seems that Microsoft has worked really hard to improve the functionality and availability of everything the program has to offer. Features that were previously almost hidden, are now made more obvious for the new user. Due to its versatile interface, with several dialog boxes changed into panes within the main window, PowerPoint 2013 is definitely a good presentation utility to use on both PCs, as well as tablets.

Read What’s New In Microsoft PowerPoint 2013? [Review] by Fawad Mir on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

What’s New In Microsoft Word 2013? [Review]

Abdullah Saqib — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 12:30:04 +0000

With the recent launch of Office 15 at a media event, new trends have surely been set. The flurry of Windows 8, its metro user interface and a clean and resourceful look has brought in criticism from around the world, but the overall balance is being seen in Microsoft’s favor, as it embarks upon technology integration, cloud-connectivity, and modern, touch-friendly outlook. In what follows, we will inform you exactly where Microsoft Word 2013 from the Office 15 Suite aims to reform your experience with documents. It is surely time to embrace text-flow, PDFs, collaborations, and the world wide web through a resourceful Office App Library for the better. A cleaner discussion thread and Microsoft SkyDrive integration promise a unique experience for the novice as well as advanced users.

The overall Office experience has been revamped with a new logo, faster loading time and a landing page enhanced with user friendly themes and templates. To access features like document sharing and remote access, you are required to create a Microsoft Office account online, as it will be used as a default account for sharing and accessing documents from remote locations.

Integrated Account Management & Connected Services

The landing page provides you with a sleek interface organized into three sections: the navigation sidebar, account information and product information. The navigation bar allows you to access essential word processing functionalities including sharing, exporting and return buttons. The overall Word interface is highly responsive obeying the click, instantly. As illustrated below, Word 2013 comes with a customizable themes (that can be selected from the Office Background dropdown menu boasting multiple attractive themes). Moreover, understanding the power of social media and its penetration in generating viral content, Microsoft has decided to ride the wave by offering Connected Services that virtually allows you to access documents from any device on the go. Just use your Microsoft or SkyDrive account or connect using Youtube. Still not satisfied with the feature? Why not Add a service and connect your work to your favorite online hot spots. The Product Information on the left allows you to Manage account or analyze the overall subscription of the Office Suite with update details.

When adding a new service, Word 2013 allows you to link your existing Microsoft account with another online service like LinkedIn. If you don’t have a LinkedIn account, just click the Join Now button on the top right corner to create one. You can specify the access duration and upon approving the link, the new service will get connected to Word, successfully.

Object Placement beyond the right click

In all previous versions, placement options relevant to objects like pictures, figures, etc. were accessible from the right-click menu. You may have used the Wrap Text feature, placement and adjustment with text, re-sizing and rotation utilities. In Word 2013, a simple click reveals all relevant functionality with the layout options floating on the right, while re-sizing buttons on and around the object. Options can be easily expanded by clicking See more. Double click on the picture to zoom for a better view of the target. With live layout and alignment guides, you can drag your image wherever you want with the text adapting in real-time, accordingly.

Enhanced templates directory

A comprehensive template directory comes to view upon clicking New. It is advisable to load the Welcome to Word document for a quick tour of Word 2013. A large number of useful and popular templates are organized in the New tab as user-friendly tiles. Moreover, the search bar allows you to browse, view and select from hundreds of online templates in the Office Library. Suggested searches enhance the searching experience by highlighting frequently used categories.

Office Apps: Redefining Creativity

Office Apps are a new way of adding creative and useful applications to Microsoft Office 2013 suite. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary and eFax app for Word 2013 are useful ways of increasing productivity while creating and managing documents. Moreover, there are loads of free featured apps and a huge collection in the Office Store awaiting your click. You can manage your apps and refresh to keep track of any updates.

Insert Pictures From the Web, Instantly

The Insert tab on the ribbon reveals some new and useful additions. One such feature is the option to insert online pictures. Microsoft has updated its Royalty Free Photos and Illustrations directory that can be accessed using the search bar in the Insert Pictures window. You can also browse your online SkyDrive storage for clipart stored in the cloud. Too often do we use our Image Search to identify relevant photos in the web browser to paste into Microsoft Word. Now, you can use the Bing Image Search and Flickr account to hunt and insert online pictures for good from within Word 2013.

Insert Online Videos And Interactive Content Easily

In an attempt to promote dynamic content in documents, Word 2013 presents to you the option to add online videos may it be from social media sites like Youtube, search engines like Bing Video search or videos from any other website (using embed code). To insert a video successfully, type a keyword in the relevant search bar to view results.

Word 2013 displays all results, mentioning the total number of links. Just click the result to preview the video before actually inserting it into the document. Similarly, multiple video results can be added by selecting, previewing and inserting, accordingly. Text Reflow allows you to fit the interactive content in the most appropriate manner.

Simplified Markup View For Better Collaborations

Working with text had never been so interactive. Online Pictures and Videos already added color and dynamic content to the Word document ensuring fast track follow up on relevant topics. Now, with a simplified markup view meant to highlight changes in your document in a neat, effective manner encourages you to focus on collaborating work. The left sidebar indicates changes while a small cloud on the right indicates comments at the respective places. With Word 2013, you can instantly reply to comments in an organized manner to give rise to useful discussion threads. With Microsoft SkyDrive and SharePoint, working on projects and documents online as a collaborated effort could have never been simpler. These markers and comment threads allow you to highlight necessary details, corrections and pointers for the rest of your team to keep in mind. Similarly, keeping track of the activity around your workspace has thus, been made possible.

Say Goodbye to PDF Readers & Editors

All of us use PDF documents, but we often rely on third party tools to extract pictures or specific pages from the overall structure. Using Word 2013, you can easily open a PDF file like any other Word Document. Editing text, tables or lists, re-sizing pictures, adding, removing and highlighting information are all possible as well.

By default, when you open PDF file in Word 2013, it shows you the protected view, preventing your system from getting infected by virus-injected PDF documents. However, you can click Enable Editing to open your PDF document in Word 2013 editor, and edit not only text, but also tables, images, margins and other elements.

Concentrate, in the improved Reading Mode

Special focus has been directed at improving the Reading Mode in a manner that all relevant utilities like the toolbar, ribbon, and scrollbar disappear from view unless they are needed. This cleans the interface, allowing the user to fully concentrate on reading. Double click on any picture and it will zoom to view, fading out everything else. To activate Reading mode, click the relevant option in the View tab and enjoy the experience.

Understand the impact, definitely

The Review tab has a new Define feature that presents definitions of words and phrases, instantly using the relevant Word Apps like the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Results and displayed on the right sidebar as soon as you select the text. Say goodbye to right-click menu and dictionary access when your results are displayed at a single click. Now, you can truly understand the impact of your content.

Verdict

It is always beneficial to look at new features objectively. Microsoft Word 2013 has indeed come with new tidings for progress in the area of word processing. You are now in a position to present documents online to people who do not have the latest version of Microsoft Office, how? This can now be achieved using the cloud-based storage and synchronization of documents for access, wherever needed. Just provide your team members with the respective link that can be pasted in browsers for viewing. Thus, with a modern, polished and internet-friendly Word 2013, the new life spells out productivity for us all.

Read What’s New In Microsoft Word 2013? [Review] by Abdullah Saqib on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

What’s New In Microsoft Excel 2013? [Review]

Abdullah Saqib — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 12:29:34 +0000

Some say that Office 15 is merely a polished look of the previous version, but a deep analysis of the Suite proves otherwise. Yes, times are changing and Microsoft is adapting with the new world by imparting a metro user interface initiated with Windows 8 and carried on in the new Office preview. With the modern feel and easy navigation experience acknowledged, cloud-based services using Microsoft SharePoint and SkyDrive allow you to collaborate like never before. Moreover, documents can be accessed on all devices from the mainframe to the touch-phone. A sleek and responsive workspace allows you to achieve productivity at a new peak. In this post, we will discover the new features in Microsoft Excel 2013 ranging from the new sharing options to Office Apps. Data organization has been simplified using Flash Fill, data analysis has been equipped with Quick Analysis and charting is now much more effective owing to the new Recommended charts option.

An important observation about Excel 2013 and the overall suite, in general, is the attention paid by Microsoft to highlighting the most useful features for the common users. Yes, it’s true that Office 2010 had almost every feature now prominent in the new version, but a few of us actually knew of their existence. Excel 2013 comes with a fresh design and a decent yet modern splash screen that is faster in loading speed.

Land onto the future

Instead of opening a blank spreadsheet to set the field for extensive number crunching, Excel 2013 welcomes you with a unique landing page that allows you to grasp the relevance of this application in organizing every matter of your life, ranging from financial reports to personal budgeting, movie lists, trend analysis and more. These are laid out in front of you in a tiled format. Don’t forget to click the ‘Welcome to Excel’ template, to quickly understand the basics of this version. In addition, the search bar offers a powerful synchronization with the revamped online Office templates library. You can quickly open frequently used and last used documents from the Recent sidebar.

Time to manage the account & services

As you may know, Excel 2013, like other tools in the Office suite, uses Live ID or Microsoft SkyDrive account to store content online for better accessibility, document sharing and collaboration. Therefore, the new Account tab presents the user information coupled with connected services organized into three sections: Images & Video (Flickr, YouTube), Storage (SharePoint, SkyDrive) and Sharing. Moreover, the Product Information for the overall suite is presented on the right, with emphasis on subscription and update details. The new interface can be customized using the Office Background themes.

Documents everywhere

In an attempt to make documents relevant on the go, the Open window of Excel 2010 has been replaced with an entire page covering both online and offline storage places. You can either open files from your system or your personal SkyDrive. Furthermore, the Add a place option allows you to specify other SkyDrive and SharePoint location, so that documents are accessible from anywhere you like. As evident, the features of the previous Recent tab in Excel 2010 has been merged with the new Open page.

Privacy guaranteed

The new Excel values the sensitivity of your data, especially due to the vulnerabilities resulting from cloud-based storage. These are overcome by user-defined settings like the Check Out function, which prevents others from viewing any changes or editing the document unless you give them the editing rights. Moreover, the sharing options further protect your data in obedience to your requirements.

The Journey From Saving To Sharing

In Excel 2010, the Save & Send menu was so rich with options that it blurred the view of novice users forcing them to stick to a few buttons for safety. Now, you can access these options in a much organized, user-friendly manner with the Share, Save As and Export tabs. The importance of teamwork and collaborations must never be ignored, especially when dealing with spreadsheets that are known to encompass a range of inputs from various sources. Sometimes, compatibility and rights issues present a hurdle in working on a document, together. For example, a co-worker may not be able to view the Excel document in its full zeal due to an old version of Microsoft Excel. You may not want others to edit the final document while the contrary should hold true for your supervisor. With these problems in mind, Excel 2013 presents multiple sharing options.

After signing in to your SkyDrive account, you can Invite People by specifying their names and email addresses for sharing purposes. You can further configure the interface by enable or disable sign-in process. Moreover, you can also generate unique sharing links that can be entered into your browser for complete document access independent of the Excel version installed at the other end. Sharing Links are categorized in the form of View Link (for general access) and Edit Link (for administrator access allowing modification rights). Public links can also be generated by activating the relevant option.

To specify intricate details regarding what the shared viewer should see in his/her browser, you can use the new Browser View Options in the Export tab. This allows you to customize the workbook for a relevant viewing experience, online.

The power of social media has been incorporated into Excel 2013 by allowing you to post to Social Networks in a much similar way as elaborated above. You can post view links or edit links on platforms like Facebook to generate interest in your worksheets.

Charting your way out

The most impressive addition to Microsoft Excel is the new and interactive way of dealing with charts. The importance of Excel 2013 lies in its analytical and data organization capabilities. As soon as you select a chart, the chart elements button pop-ups on the top right corner. All you need to do now, is to select the elements that can add more value to the chart such as Data Table, Error Bars, Timeline, Titles and more.

Another useful button that pop-ups with the chart is the Chart Styles that equip you with new layout and colors. These styles and colors are bound to make your graphs, figures and charts more attractive to the viewer.

Another impressive feature is the Chart Filters option that lays out all variables (series) and categories for an interactive view. Just move your cursor over each item and the relevant content in the illustration will get highlighted. Now, you can focus on important data sets laid out over time for a more refined analysis.

Analyze data in real-time using Quick Analysis

When dealing with tables, the Quick Analysis button allows you to analyze data from a powerful set of formatting, charts, totals, tables and Sparklines tools that instantly show results over your table for instant analysis. Adding value to your table columns had never been this simple.

Follow the Excel recommendations

The Insert tab is rich with new features from Recommended PivotTables to Recommended Charts, Excel 2013 aims at letting you achieve the most in the minimum possible time. For the best outcome, use these recommendations to identify and benefit from PivotTables (data summarization tool) and Charts that best suit your data overlay in the worksheet.

Search & Insert Online Pictures

Instead of searching images online using search engines, Excel 2013 offers you the option to achieve this while remaining relevant to the worksheet under progress. The royalty-free photo library, Bing Image Search, SkyDrive and Flickr accounts can be used to search, preview and insert relevant images into your workspace.

Office Apps: Reach to the horizon

Just when you thought that you’ve got the hang of Excel 2013, Office Apps would take you one step ahead. With useful featured Apps and an extensive resource library in the Office Store, you can insert exciting features into your worksheet. Hence, it is not necessary to do everything yourself, just let the Office Apps take you beyond the horizon.

Comprehensive Data Sources

In comparison with Excel 2010, the new version offers an extensive list of data sources that multiplies the impact of your data relevance. Excel 2013 offers the option to import data as a Table or PivotTable Report from Windows Azure Marketplace and ODATA Data Feed. With comprehensive data sources, you can easily keep track of latest data relevant to your worksheets.

Get to the bottom-line with Power View

The Power View add-in allows you to define visually attractive summaries of your worksheet with special emphasis on the variables that truly matter for you. With a separate tab, you have the option to view data in the way that best suits you. After defining the relevant power fields, Power View extracts the information from the selected worksheet to give you a complete overview with respect to the viewing filters specified. Moreover, you can choose a new theme, background, transparency, pictures and other content with the freedom to insert, modify, arrange and analyze relationships, effectively.

Flash Fill: Intelligently organize your data

An exciting new feature that promises to save your time and effort is Flash Fill. Excel 2013 intelligently follows data patterns and trends interpreting the relevant meaning, in order to assist you in carrying out the task. For example, after filling in email addresses with full names, you start entering the first names in a new column and before you know it, Excel 2013 auto-fills the entire column. Now, you can surely fill the worksheet in a flash!

Verdict

All in all, Microsoft Excel 2013 has improved the user experience by focusing on flash-filling, quick-analyzing and intelligent charts. Your data is, now, in a much better position to convince and convey meaning to the relevant avenues both offline and online. Raw data can now be converted using recommended data analysis and organization tools, effectively.

Read What’s New In Microsoft Excel 2013? [Review] by Abdullah Saqib on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

OutlookAdressBookView: View & Export Outlook Address Books’ Contacts In HTML/CSV Format

Usman Javaid — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 10:27:33 +0000

Developed By Nirsoft, OutlookAddressBookView is a portable application for Windows that is designed to read contact information from all Outlook Address books and display the details in separate fields, allowing you to easily export the contact list(s) in XML and CSV, HTML and tab separated file format. Unlike Outlook plugins that require you to launch Outlook for performing address book-related tasks, this application doesn’t launch Outlook in the background to import the contact entries. It supports both IMAP and Microsoft Exchange account, and has the ability to read additional contact information for configured Exchange account such as Address Type, Contact Created/Modified Time etc. Just like other Nirsoft’s utilities, it enables users to export only selected entries from the list to local/remote location. You also have the option to view the complete contact information of specific contact in a separate dialog. More details after the break.

Since it’s a portable application, all you need is to run the executable to launch the application. For the first time usage, it reads all the contact information from your address books, and then list down the contact information in separate fields including Email address, Display Name, Address Type, Created Time, Modified Time, Surname etc. From underneath the main window, you can switch between Contacts, Share, Suggested Contacts and Global Address List. In order to view complete information of a specific contact, just double-click the contact in the list, and it will show all the information in a separate dialog.

If it fails to display the contacts from your address books, then you may need to select your Outlook profile from Options—>Advanced Options. By default, it reads contacts from default Outlook profile, but if you are not using the default profile, select your profile from Outlook Profile drop-down menu.

If you want to export entire contact list in any of the aforementioned formats, press Ctrl+A and then choose Save Selected Contacts from File menu. You can also choose to select only required contacts from the list that you want to export, just hold down Ctrl to select multiple contacts, right-click any selected item and then select Save Selected Contacts to specify the output format.

The application runs on all versions of Windows, and supports both Outlook 32-bit and Outlook 64-bit editions.

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ContactSync: Sync Specific Outlook Contacts Groups With Network Users

Usman Javaid — Tue, 08 May 2012 08:09:07 +0000

Want to share specific Outlook Contacts group across the network users, but don’t want the fuss of having to manually pick and send contact cards from Address Book and send them to connected users? Meet ContactSync, an ingeniously simple, yet powerful Outlook 2010 add-on that lets you effortlessly share a specific contact group with anyone connected to your network. It is basically developed to let users easily share their business contacts with their co-workers and keep their shared contact groups synced all the time. It allows you to change the shared contact group, add, remove and edit contacts and replace the currently synced shared contact category with any contact group of your choice. In addition, ContactSync implements duplicate conflict resolution technique for de-duplication of shared contacts. When you share a contact, it immediately looks for contact with similar name and email address to prevent saving duplicate entries in shared contact group. It also uses FileAs and Email fields identify the same contact. Read past the jump for details.

If you’re using MS Exchange account, and have already created a Public Folder, then open Outlook and create a new Contact folder in shared folder hierarchy in order to share it with your colleagues on the network. This add-on requires you to specify the shared contact folder to automatically sync the contacts from defined contact category. For instance, you can choose to sync Work Contacts category with shared contact folder, so that your co-workers can instantly access the updated version of Work Contacts list.

Once the add on is installed, you can launch it as a standalone application from desktop. The main interface provides some basic options to connect to Outlook and select contacts to share. To begin, specify the Outlook Profile, followed by Sync Slot and Contact category that you wish to share. Once done, you need to specify the contacts folders, which are to be synced. Here, first select the main contact folder and then select the public contact folder in order to sync the specified contact category.

Contact Sync allows you to schedule contact sync process. By default, it syncs contacts after every 30 minutes, but you can change the sync time interval from settings. Additionally, you can choose to enter an email address to directly send sync log. This feature may come useful in situations where you need to check the contact sync processes from remote locations.

After specifying the contacts folders, specify the location where the duplicate contacts or contacts with conflicts are to be moved. Once all settings are in place, click Sync to synchronize specified contacts category with public folder. It generates a detailed log file every time it syncs contacts with defined folder(s), and if send email option is enabled in Settings, it automatically sends the log file to specified recipient.

It’s worth mentioning here that It also works with standard Outlook version (without Exchange server configuration), and can sync defined contacts category with any contact folder. The free version supports syncing only 30 contacts with 3 network users, however, you can purchase Workgroup version (costs $249) or Corporate version (costs $999) to increase the number of users as well as, number of synced contacts. It supports Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010.

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Split Outlook 2010 Storages / Email Account Folders By Size & Year [Addin]

Usman Javaid — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 12:20:17 +0000

Like previous MS Outlook versions, Outlook 2010 saves each email account related files and folders including mailboxes in PST file, which can be used with any Outlook version to quickly restore the account mail items and folders. Although Outlook lets you associate PST files with new/existing email accounts, it often stops responding when large PST files are imported. If you’re planning to move or create backup of PST files, we recommend using Split Storage to split Outlook / email account storages into small PST files by Year and specified Size. It’s basically an add-in for Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010, which allows you pick the email account storage and spilt it according to your requirements. Additionally, it creates new PST files, and splits storages while copying the data from the specified storage into a new PST. Since it only reads the data from existing PST files, it doesn’t make any changes to PST/OST archives.

Just like previously covered Remove Duplicate Contacts, it requires you to create an account on OutlookFreeware.com to download the add-in and OutlookFreeware.com runtime. It’s advisable to close Outlook before you install the add-in. After installing the runtime and add in, launch Outlook and navigate to OutlookFreeware,com tab, and click Split Storages.

First off, it will ask you to specify the Outlook folder you want to split. Just feed it with source path of Outlook native folder or email account folder. Now, enter the maximum storage size (MB), and configure other PST related settings, which include Create PST files in Unicode format for Outlook 2003 and above, detach new storages from Outlook profile and Split storage by year. Once done, specify the target location where you want to save the PST file(s).

Before you hit Run, save the configurations, so that you can easily split the storage without having to specify the target location and configure settings. Clicking Run will begin the storage split process. The time it takes to split the entire storage into specified parts depends upon the size of the storage. it must be noted that it may download additional data while performing the split operation, so make sure that you’re connected to internet.

One the split storage finishes, verify the target location for newly created PST files. You may use them later with any version of Outlook to import only required content of Outlook storage. The addin works on both Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010. We tested it with Outlook 2010 64-bit edition.

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OutlookParameterGUI: 30 Switches To Run Outlook In Required Mode

Usman Javaid — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 10:36:56 +0000

Since Outlook supports a variety of plugins, add-ons and other third-party tools’ connectors, it’s highly prone to PST/OST file corruption and other like attacks. Finding out problems with PST, OST and old email archive files isn’t easy, and takes a lot of time as well as effort to identify the root cause of the issue. Sometimes, Outlook stops responding due to the presence of incompatible add-ins, and this not only makes it difficult to find the add-ins, but also to permanently delete them. If you often encounter fatal errors, add in exceptions etc while using Outlook 2010, you probably need to install OutlookParameterGUI to easily identify the issues. The application is meant for launching Outlook with different switches. It supports a total of 30 widely used command line switches for Outlook.exe file, which are used to identify and troubleshoot Outlook-related problems. Instead of using a command line tool to invoke Outlook.exe with a certain switch, you could this application to select the required switch to launch Outlook in required mode.

Apart from Outlook.exe switches, it provides you with details of installed Outlook version, and displays serial number of the version. When you launch the application, it asks you specify the Outlook.exe path to find all the related information on selected Outlook.exe, and use required parameters with it.

The main window shows detailed explanation with each parameter. All you need is to select the parameter and click Start to launch Outlook in specified mode.

By default, it doesn’t display serial number, but you can enable Show serial from Options to reveal the serial number. Navigate to Outlook tab to find information about installed version, including Product ID, Serial Number, Product Version, Architecture, Service Pack etc.

OutlookParameterGUI lets you easily run Outlook.exe with parameters without having to open CMD to run Outlook in required mode. OutlookParamterGUI is standalone application that works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. It supports both 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010.

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Merge Outlook 2010 Storage & Folders Within Specified Date Range [Add-in]

Usman Javaid — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:16:36 +0000

Outlook 2010 saves emails, notes, tasks and other items in folders, which can be easily copied/moved within the email account storage or to other Outlook 2010 storages from folder right-click context menu. If you’re managing multiple email accounts in Outlook, you may want to merge folders or entire email account storage into specified storage to easily organize archives of required email accounts. Merge Storage is an add-in for Outlook that allows merging storage and folders to specified location. You can save the merge jobs and run them any time you want. It lets you choose source storages/folders and destination storage for performing the merge operation. Additionally, you can specify the start and end dates to merge only specific content to defined storage. For instance, you can merge all the emails, notes, journal of last year (01 Jan 2011 – 31 December 2011) to a separate location.

Just like previously covered Remove Duplicate Contacts, it requires you to create an account on OutlookFreeware.com to download the add-in, as well as OutlookFreeware.com runtime. It’s advisable to close Outlook before you install the add-in. Once installed, launch Outlook and navigate to OutlookFreeware,com tab, and click Merge Storages.

It opens a separate dialog to configure the merge operation. Click Configure and choose the storages/folders you want to merge.

Once done, specify the target location where specified storages/folders will be merged. Now specify the date range by selecting start and end date from built-in calendar. By default, it copies the content from source to target storage, but you can enable Move source items instead of copying option to move the selected items.

Once all settings are in place, click Save to save the configuration. Hitting Run will start the merge operation.

It must be noted that if you’ve selected IMAP accounts, then it may require an active internet connection to merge the items and make required changes. Once the operation is completed, it shows the errors encountered during the operation. You should open the target location to check whether it successfully copied/moved all the required items from source to target location or not. Merge Storages works on both Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010.

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Automatically Remove Duplicate Contacts From Outlook 2010 Folders [Add-in]

Usman Javaid — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 11:07:16 +0000

Although Outlook 2010 allows users to import contacts from numerous email services, it doesn’t provide an option to automatically detect and remove duplicate entries. For this reason, if you’ve imported contacts from multiple accounts, then you must’ve been dealing with a lot of duplicate contact entries. Since it’s practically quite tedious to select each duplicate entry, and then delete it from Outlook Address Book, we recommend using Remove Duplicate Contacts for this very purpose. It’s small add-in for MS Outlook that automates the process of deleting duplicate contacts from specified Outlook native and configured email accounts’ folders. Additionally, it provides a one-click duplicate contact cleaning option to quickly remove the duplicates in one go.

Before you install the plugin, make sure that Outlook is not running in the background. Once installed, you will find a new tab on the ribbon called OutlookFreeware.com. Navigate to this tab, and hit Remove Duplicate Contacts.

It will ask you to configure the plugin, i.e choose the folders from where you wish to remove duplicate contacts. Just click Configure and select the folders. Once done, click OK.

In Remove Duplicate Contacts dialog, enable Search duplicates across folders option. If you want to permanently remove the contacts without sending deleted contacts to Deleted Items, then enable Delete duplicates permanently option. Once done, click Run. You can also save the settings and selected folder list to perform the duplicate removal operation without having to select the contact folders.

Clicking Run starts removing duplicates contacts, and then shows the total number of duplicates removed or sent to Deleted Items folders.

If you didn’t check Delete Duplicates Permanently option, open Deleted Items folder to check the duplicate contact entries it removed during the process.

Remove Duplicate Contacts is a great little extension for Outlook to automatically remove duplicate contacts. However, if it fails to detect all duplicate contacts, you can use previously covered AODR to remove contacts and other items from Outlook folders.

The addin works on Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010. It requires OutlookFreeware Runtime to work.

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Important Mail Alert: Create Text-Based Email Alert Rule In Outlook 2010

Usman Javaid — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 08:26:42 +0000

Although Outlook 2010 comes with a comprehensive Rule Manager feature that supports creating customized email notifications and alerts for all types of mail accounts, one has to follow quite a tedious process to define the rule settings. If you’re looking for a simple way to create rule-based email alert notification, Important Mail Alert is a solid pick. It’s light-weight add-in for Outlook that lets you create and configure email rules & alerts without having to go through the hassle of selecting the email accounts. It integrates into Outlook interface, letting you manage the rules and alerts from Mail window. Apart from supporting all types of configured email accounts including POP3, IMAP, and Exchange, it automatically adds the accounts to rule box letting you disable the mail alert for a specific email account.

Before you install the addin, make sure that Outlook is not running in background. Once installed, launch Outlook and head over to AbleBits.com tab. Now enable the add-in to integrate it into Mail window. It adds a small rule and alert box at the bottom of the window, enabling you to create a text-based email alert rule.

As mentioned earlier, it adds all the configured accounts in Rule box, you can disable the account on which you don’t want to apply email alert rule; just hit Settings icon and uncheck the mail account.

This add-in sends the alert notification to desktop and logs it, so that you can view all the notifications and open the emails without having to search them from each mail account. In Alerts tab, you will find all the past email notifications.

When an email arrives with defined alert text, it will immediately send a notification to desktop. Clicking the notification text opens the email.

Important Mail Alert certainly saves the time and effort involved in setting up a custom email alert. Nevertheless, it lacks some features like sound notifications, custom notification message etc., which would’ve made it more useful. We hope that developer will add these features in next iteration. It supports both Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010.

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