Office Web Apps: Microsoft’s online office suite

Word Web App creates documents in the DOCX format
The trio of Word, Excel and PowerPoint make up the core of Office Web Applications. From your user interface you simply have to click on Office and New to create a file/folder or add a file/folder which already exists on your machine. Word Web App has been purposely designed to look the same as Word 2010. We find the File, Home, Insert and Display menus and about forty font types (Calibri, Courier New, Times New Roman, Arial…). The only things "missing" are some menus which have been deemed to be less critical for most users (References, Publipost, Revision and page layout). This helps make the reading mode and modification modes a little clearer.

Most keyboard shortcuts are functional within the IE and Firefox browsers with "CTRL + B" still being Bold, "CTRL + I" for Italics, "CTRL + S" for save the current document and "CTRL + A" for select all. The full list of shortcuts supported in Word Web Apps can be found here. It is unfortunately not possible to save a Word Web App document in a format other than DOCX (compatible with OpenOffice.org and Office 2007), which may pose some problems for users on older versions of Office or Works as the corresponding filters will need to be installed. Finally, you will see that the mouse’ right click button does work (Cut, copy, paste, language selection, spell check, insert a link…).
 

Excel Web App’s allows for the insert of graphs!
Like with Word, there is only a single file format supported, with XLSX being compatible with Excel 2007 and 2010 and Openoffice.org Calc. For each workbook, you can create a maximum of three spreadsheets. The user interface is basic (File, home and Insert), while the menu options have been greatly reduced (Page layout, Formulas, Data, Revision, Display). We do find the essentials for entering information into the cells (number, text, currencies, hour, date, fraction, percentage, etc.) while the program also supports basic calculations.

The copy and paste, undo and redo (left and right arrows), and fonts are the same as for Word and PowerPoint (not those installed on your system), while line return, table insert and a few graphs are also available (2D graph, bell curve, 2D bars, cloud points, radar, etc.). Internet users have also had the possibility of publishing Excel Web Apps spreadsheets to their site or blog recently added, with the data being updated in real time when the original spreadsheet and calculations are changed, while it is also possible to open a workbook on your mobile phone through the browser.
 

PowerPoint and One Note Web App
The other two light applications are PowerPoint (PPTX) for your presentations and OneNote – the digital notepad where you can write notes and memos. PowerPoint is just as fluid and easy to use as the standard version. We find the Read and Slideshow display modes, with the slideshow being run as full screen in another window allowing you to add comments, slideshow models, and, since very recently, the possibility of inserting pictures, clipart and new themes from Microsoft’s online collection. All of your presentations can be published in a blog.