Office Online gets even better in 2015

Brink · Feb 12, 2015

Office Online is getting even better in 2015. We’ve been listening to your feedback and we’re rolling out updates that improve the Reading View, file management and editing experiences.
Here are some of the new features to look for:

Enhanced reading experience

To make the Reading View easier to use we updated the toolbar so that the Edit, Print, Share and Comments commands are now one click away and more the advanced tools, such as Translate or Download a file, are easier to find.

Also, now you can print faster and easier by enabling direct printing of PDF files from Word Online without having to first download the file.

More options to save and manage your files

Save As options have expanded to provide you additional file management options that we think you will appreciate.

Save As—Saves a copy of the file to your OneDrive. You can to select a new location and name for the file if desired.

Rename—Helps you easily change the file name.

Download a Copy—Allows you to save a copy of the file outside of your OneDrive onto computer or any attached storage device like a flash drive.

Download as PDF—Converts your file format to a PDF and then gives you the same choices as “Download a Copy.”

Remember, Word Online automatically saves your changes in real time to OneDrive.

Add files to OneDrive from the toolbar

We’ve also made it easy to add files to your OneDrive. If you’re accessing a file that you aren’t able to edit—such as a file someone shared with “view only” permissions—you can save your own copy with one click. Simply click Add to OneDrive, which is now on the toolbar, choose a destination in your OneDrive and press Save. You can now edit or share like you would any other file.

Get started editing faster

The new start experience is optimized to get you into the right editing experience as fast as possible. Now you can directly navigate to your most recently used files or see more files on your OneDrive. You can also quickly create a document with the new blank page template or any other template on your screen.

Integrated help

We’ve integrated the ? Help icon with Tell Me, the expanded Office Online help tool. Now you can click in the “Tell Me” box, located on the top part of the ribbon, type in what you’re looking for and then either select the relevant Office tool, go to a help article or get additional information from Bing.

Improved proofreading tools

When you turn in a paper, you want it to be perfect. That means no mistakes and meeting the guidelines of the assignment. Besides making backend improvements to our proofreading service, we’re introducing the highlighted word count feature. Instead of only knowing the total word of your document, you can check on specific sections.

Highlight the relevant text and then in the lower left corner of the screen you’ll see the highlighted word count and the total document word count together.

Office Online on the go

The release of Office for Android tablet brings you an exciting new way to edit your documents on the go. After installing the new Word, Excel, and PowerPoint apps on your device, you can easily get to these apps from within Office Online. Just open the file in Office Online using Chrome for Android and tap the Open in Word, Open in Excel or Open in PowerPoint button in the top right corner. Your file automatically opens in the new Word, Excel or PowerPoint app.

There is much more to come this year. If you have any feedback or a feature request for Word Online, Excel Online, PowerPoint Online or OneNote Online, please send it our way. If you haven’t tried Office Online yet, just go to Office.com to get started!