Microsoft Outlook 2010 screenshots

Thursday, November 19th, 2009

There’s little doubt that Outlook is the most physically changed of all the applications: in particular, Outlook 2010 now has the Ribbon properly integrated into its interface. Here, we take a quick-fire tour of the new-look.

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Microsoft Outlook 2010 screenshots: Backstage view

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

We’ve already given a more general introduction to Microsoft Office 2010’s Backstage view, but Outlook 2010 deserves a special mention.

Above is the first screen to meet you when you click File, the Info screen. This makes it much, much easier to change settings than the horrible meandering mess that was Outlook 2007 and predecessors.

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Microsoft Office 2010 screenshots: Recover unsaved items

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

This is the screen you’ll see in the Microsoft Word 2010’s Backstage view if you click on the Info tab. Think of it as a glorified version of the File Info dialog you currently access if you click Properties, but with a much nicer layout and more power – including the ability to recover unsaved items.

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Microsoft Word 2010 screenshots: Text Effects

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

Microsoft Word has long offered artistic effects to add to your headings, but we welcome the new Text Effects as they make them easier to apply and also don’t convert them into some fancy graphical format – which means you can search on the words, just as with any text within your document.

The effects themselves won’t have Adobe Illustrator users fainting in awe, but they’re strong enough to add a bit of impact to newsletters or even the funkier company report. As ever, use sparingly.

Microsoft Word 2010: inserting screenshots

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

This is one of those features I just happen to like: the ability to insert a screenshot quickly and easily into a document. So, you’re writing a report or some technical documentation. All you need to do is head to the Insert tab and click on the Screenshot button sitting in the Illustrations area. If you have a multitude of other applications open, you’ll see a screen rather like this:

You then just select your chosen screenshot and it’s inserted painlessly into the open document.

Microsoft Office 2010 screenshots: Accessibility Checker

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

Part of the Backstage view, Microsoft has built in a handy little checker that will reveal which parts of your Excel, Word and PowerPoint files will cause problems for people with disabilities such as impaired vision. For example, it will tell you if pictures lack Alt text, highlight headings that are too long, and point out if the document doesn’t use heading levels in a logical way.

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Microsoft Office 2010 screenshots: Backstage view

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

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).

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Microsoft Office 2010 screenshots

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

There were many good reasons why Microsoft Office 2007 earned a place on the PC Pro A List, but if we were to boil it down to one then it would be the Ribbon. While not everyone welcomed the new interface, it made it much easier for the vast majority of users to create professional-looking documents. And quickly. Microsoft Office 2010 would always struggle to have the same impact, but there are a number of nice new features that make this the best version of Office 2010 yet.

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HTC Touch HD2 review: first look

Monday, November 16th, 2009

The comparison between any smartphone with a large touchscreen and an Apple iPhone has become a cliché, and one we honestly try to avoid, but this time it’s 100%, completely and utterly unavoidable. What’s more, our early impressions are that the HTC Touch HD2 is in many ways better than the iPhone. And that’s despite the use of Windows Mobile 6.5, aka Windows Phone. (more…)

Acer 3D laptop review: first look

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

Acer wasn’t satisfied with just unveiling the dual-booting Android and Windows 7 netbook at today’s global press conference: it also revealed the world’s first mainstream 3D laptop, the Acer Aspire 5738PG (at this point, I should point out to Acer that if Apple launched a 3D laptop it probably wouldn’t give it a terrible name like 5738PG).

(And before any pedants jump in to point out to me that, actually, all laptops are 3D – yes, I know.)

The background you see above is, actually, really in 3D. That is, it uses a combination of software, hardware and specially coated glass (if you’d like more detail than this hazy description, we wrote a whole feature dedicated to the future of 3D a few months ago), and you then have to watch the image using the polarised glasses supplied.

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