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CWorld writer Ian Paul and I have a lot in common. We are both big adopters (and fans) of Microsoft’s entire product line, but we have a few gripes with certain products. For me, it’s about the lack of Instagram on my Nokia Lumia 920, but that’s a story for another blog.
Paul’s grip is with Office 365 Home Premium – the web version of Microsoft Office. In one of his latest posts, he addresses five key issues that Microsoft should fix, especially if they want to supplant Google docs. Here is a brief clip, along with an excerpt on the two issues I found the most interesting (and annoying).
Microsoft recently said it plans to roll out new features to Office Web Apps that would allow you to “create polished Office documents from start to finish, all from the Web.”
New features planned for Office include real-time document co-authoring, faster launch times for apps, improved file management, and Chrome for Android support.
It’s great to see Microsoft making Office for the Web into a more full-featured version, especially while we wait for rumored Office apps for Android and iOS. Before Microsoft straps on a bunch of new features to its online Office suite, however, the company needs to make some improvements to the current version first.
And here are the two issues I referenced earlier:
Fix the connection problems
Has this ever happened to you? You’re typing up a document in Word when suddenly you get a notification that the spell checker is down. Even worse, sometimes Word documents won’t save because there’s a problem connecting to Microsoft’s servers.
Google Docs in my experience rarely has connectivity issues, but when it does it’s not a huge deal. You know why? That’s right, auto-save.
Ribbon collapse: go big or go home
The Office Web apps let you maximize your workspace by collapsing the Office Ribbon into a simplified menu, just like on the desktop.
Unless you’re a longtime Office user, you’ll miss out on this benefit since the collapse button is a tiny little arrow in the far right-hand corner of the screen. This should be bigger and more prominent so it’s easier to find.