office

Microsoft changes Office licensing, allows transfer to new systems

Microsoft has changed its license agreement for its Office 2013 productivity suite, which now allows you to transfer serial numbers to new systems and activate it to allow the software to work.

Office is one of the more popular (if not required) programs for many activities, so having it on a system is often quite convenient to have; however, Microsoft has had an ongoing licensing restriction with its latest Office versions that prevents you from activating a previously used serial number on newer systems, even if you have uninstalled the software from prior systems. This setup obviously frustrates those who … Read more

Microsoft offers students three months free of Office 365

Microsoft is dangling a new offer to get students to try its Office 365 University software.

As of today, students with a qualifying .edu e-mail address can register to receive three months free of Office 365 University and an extra 20GB of space for their SkyDrive online storage. Share the offer on Facebook and you'll get an additional three free months of Office 365.

Geared for college students and teachers, a license for Office 365 University costs $79.99 for four years and is good for up to two PCs or Macs. The educational suite includes the same applications … Read more

Microsoft to patch critical holes in IE, Office, Silverlight

Windows users will get the usual round of security patches from Microsoft next Tuesday.

Among the seven fixes due to roll out March 12, four are rated critical, which means they address flaws that could let an attacker execute malware on a remote PC by steering a user to a malicious Web site or e-mail link.

The patch for Internet Explorer is designed to shore up all versions from IE6 to IE10 across all iterations of Windows from XP to Windows 8 and RT. The patch for Microsoft's Silverlight, a browser plug-in that can display online videos and other … Read more

Windows 8 hardware, take 2: Expect cheaper, smaller

With Windows 8 failing to spur PC demand, Microsoft is resorting to the oldest trick in the book: price cuts.

Reports Tuesday in Taipei-based Digitimes and the Wall Street Journal indicate that Microsoft will lower the price of Windows 8 for PC makers in the coming months.

Not surprisingly,that should result in cheaper Windows 8 tablets and hybrids, according to IDC's Bob O'Donnell.

"It lowers the vendors' total cost, which allows them to get to a lower price point," he said.

But maybe more importantly, Microsoft has offered another incentive: to spark the market for … Read more

Office 2013 licenses can now be transferred to another PC

Office 2013 users can now legally transfer their license if they buy a new computer or their current one breaks down.

In the face of user concerns over its previous policy, Microsoft today amended its Office 2013 license agreement. Now Office 2013 customers can move the software and license to another PC once every 90 days.

Effective immediately, the agreement covers Office Home and Student 2013, Office Home and Business 2013, Office Professional 2013, and all of the standalone Office 2013 applications.

Microsoft's previous policy for Office 2013 limited users to a perpetual license good for only one PC. … Read more

Create and edit documents with LibreOffice for Mac

Looking for a word processor, spreadsheet and slideshow maker, basic vector drawing creator, and database manager? Open-source LibreOffice for Mac is all that and more. Compatible with most known file types such as MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint, this software offers functionality, an intuitive interface, and overall good results.

LibreOffice for Mac is about 175MB, which is rather large, but this can be expected of this type of software. The program features a quite intuitive and user-friendly interface, very similar to Office but a lot simpler. When it comes to its looks, this program seems rather outdated and could use … Read more

Microsoft aims Office 365 updates at business users

In late January 2013, Microsoft launched its consumer-focused version of Office 2013, known as Office 365 Home Premium. Today, it's launching the updated business versions of its Microsoft-hosted Office 365 offerings.

Microsoft has added three new packages to its Office 365 lineup for businesses: Office 365 ProPlus, Office 365 Midsize and Office 365 Small Business Premium. These complement the existing Office 365 Small Business and Enterprise offerings, which Microsoft is updating with many of the latest new features and functions that it introduced late last year for the on-premises complements of the products in the suite. (Microsoft released to manufacturing Exchange Server 2013, SharePoint Server 2013 and Lync Server 2013 … Read more

Microsoft's DelBene: Want Office on an iPad? Use SkyDrive

If Microsoft is cooking up an Office app for iPhones and iPads, Office division President Kurt DelBene isn't saying.

DelBene gave little insight into the possibility, bandied about for the last few years, at Morgan Stanley's Technology, Media & Telecom Conference this morning. During a question-and-answer session, DelBene noted the premium tablet experience for Office is on Microsoft's Surface RT and Surface Pro devices, which run Windows 8. As for iOS devices, DelBene said that users can view Office files, such as Excel spreadsheets, on Microsoft's SkyDrive storage service.

"We think we have a pretty … Read more

How to bypass the Office 2013 start screen

Some of the applications in Microsoft's Office 2013 suite launch with a start screen by default. On the left side of the start screen is a list of recent documents and on the right side, a list of templates. It's a useful feature, but if you prefer, you can bypass the start screen and go right to the edit screens of those Office programs (Word, Excel, PowerPoint). Here's how:

From within the main edit screen, go to File > Options or use the keyboard shortcut, ALT+F, T. Under the General Options tab, go to Startup options … Read more

Microsoft to further integrate Yammer with Office this summer

Buried in a press release on Yammer momentum are a couple of new details about Microsoft's plans for integrating Yammer with SkyDrive Pro and Office Web Apps by summer 2013.

From the February 20 press release:

"SkyDrive Pro was previewed at the recent SharePoint Conference, and Yammer is implementing it as the underlying platform for file storage. In addition, Yammer is enhancing the ability to preview and edit files directly within Yammer feeds using Office Web Apps. The combination of these capabilities will dramatically enhance a user's ability to create, collaborate, share, and discover content within Yammer. … Read more