Office Online

[Corrine]

Along with the renaming of SkyDrive to OneDrive last week, Microsoft Web Apps became Office Online. Considering how feature-rich the online programs are, the rename definitely fits.

Even better, Office Online became more easily accessible than before, which used to involve either launching SkyDrive, clicking Create and then selecting the type the type of file you need to create. Now, if you use Office.com email, you can choose from Word, Excel, PowerPoint or OneNote right from the drop-down in the upper left-hand corner of your Outlook.com email account.

Alternatively, you can go directly to http://www.office.com/.

No additional software is needed to use Office Online. The only restriction is that a Microsoft Account is needed which can be set up with any email address. If you don't already have a Microsoft Account, the sign-up page is here. (Additional information about Office Online is available in the Office Blog post Introducing Office Online at Office.com.)

---

Have you tried Office Online? How about using it to collaborate on a project for school or a family event?

 

[Corrine]

Let's try an experiment. I've created a Word.docx in Office Online. I challenge Sysnative members to try out Office Online by adding a comment and your name & date to the Sysnative Challenge document:

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?res...65&authkey=!AAI6tp9Kbf8QVl8&ithint=file,.docx

 

[Corrine]

Check out the additions to my Sysnative Challenge!

 

[bassfisher6522]

Done and done...I had no idea any of that was there...way cool.

 

[Will]

Done. I had some difficulties at first, but after a couple of refreshes it finally worked.

I think MS still has a lot of catching up to do with Google in terms of online services. There is still no easy way to switch between accounts for MS - something that always bugs me. I have two separate university email accounts, my personal outlook account and then an old account I use for spam. I would like to be able to switch between them all easily as I can with Google's online services - sadly there doesn't seem to be a way to do this yet.

This is particularly a problem for me as I use a password manager - unlike Google, Microsoft isn't very consistent with the domains it uses. If I want to sign into a different Microsoft account, I can't just get LastPass to automatically fill out the information as it doesn't recognize the domain. All Google services are well... on google.com. With the different domains used at Microsoft it's annoying for me to have to track down my account details and copy/paste them from another site.

I'm aware most people aren't going to have these problems, but nonetheless they do make Microsoft online services very annoying to use for me personally.

 

[Corrine]

This particular document was set as "public" so does not require logging on with your Microsoft Account. However, I've run into situations where I've needed to log on to a Microsoft service with a very old Microsoft Account that had been associated with it long ago. It was not easy.

 

[Wrench97]

Some features require logging in like insert pictures and comments.

 

[Laxer]

I will test it quickly as well

Had to login to add a picture, gifs don't seem to work

 

[Corrine]

If you'd like to learn more about Office Online, there will be a free 15-minute webinar tomorrow (March 3) at 9:15 am Pacific Time (12:15 pm Eastern Time). Information here: Join us for Tuesday’s webinar on working with Office Online and OneDrive | Office Blogs

Missed the webinar or unable to attend at the scheduled time? A video of the webinar will be posted shortly after the webinar.

There is a new 15-minute webinar every Tuesday. Previous sessions can be found via these search results: webinar | Search Results | Office Blogs