If there’s one thing you’re bound to notice when using Office 2010, it’s the Backstage view. This is a unified set of commands and information that relates to the particular file you’re working on.

For example, forget pressing <Ctrl+P> and getting that boring old print dialog (shown right for comparison).

Instead, you’ll get something that looks an awful like the below, complete with an automatic print preview and an overview of all the settings. That not only looks nicer, it also makes it far easier to pick up mistakes (printing in portrait when you meant to print in landscape, for instance, or choosing A4 when you wanted A3).

If you’re thinking what PC Pro deputy editor David Fearon was thinking – that by pressing the large Print icon you’ll be shown the usual Print dialog – then fear not, as the job is duly dispatched to your target printer. My only criticism is that Word should know that the HP printer shown here can only print in mono, so surely the print preview should be in mono too?

Here’s a quick run-through of what else you’ll see in the Backstage view:

Info This displays the document’s properties (eg when created, who the author is, metadata such as tags), and also gives quick access to permissions, version management and highlights any data contained in the document that you may not want others to see if you decide to share it.

Recent Nice and simple: all your most recently opened documents. The beta isn’t perfect – sometimes it shows files that I don’t recall opening, and doesn’t show files that I have opened but haven’t modified – but having a nice long list like this certainly helps power users.

New Nothing revolutionary, this displays standard built-in templates and also provides nice previews of templates available online.

Share A one-stop shop for sending documents by email. You can choose to send it as an attachment in its saved format, or send as a PDF. Or, obviously, the much-used (ahem) XPS format. Businesses that have invested, or choose to invest, in SharePoint can also send the document straight to a workspace, while non-business users might wish to share it on Micosoft’s free online workspace, SkyDrive.

The Backstage view is also where you install Add-ins, fiddle with Options and – our final entry here – access the Help and About dialogs.