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MS Office 2013 US$9.95 Corporate/Enterprise Home Use Program - Mini-Review

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Innuendo:
Anyway, now that I do qualify, I'm still wondering about the value of upgrading from MS Office 2010 Pro to 2013 Pro.-dr_andus (January 19, 2014, 03:58 PM)
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Well, the value of getting the latest and greatest versions of Microsoft's flagship suite for $9.95 should count for something! :)

I've checked out a few reviews and on balance (including user comments), they are far from being overwhelmingly positive.
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The biggest batch of negative feedback I've seen are the reviews over at Amazon, but once you cut out all the "I can't get it to download and install" and the "OMG! Amazon's not an authorized retailer so MS will not help you!" posts, you aren't left with a lot. True, there are some things MS has removed, but they are seldom-used features, IMHO. You can go over and read the article on Wikipedia about Office 2013 to see what has been removed.

I mostly use Word and Excel in Win7. It sounds like a lot of changes were made mostly to serve the Win8 environment.
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One of the biggest changes were to 'whiten' the interface so one isn't as distracted by the UI when one tries to work. It's going to be up to personal taste as to whether you love or hate that decision. The other is that MS integrated SkyDrive with Office to more easily allow cloud operations.

I wasn't happy to see that they've removed the split screen feature from the scroll bar in Word. I use that feature daily.
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Are you talking about the 'Split' function that is on the ribbon under the View tab in the Window section? The one that has the tooltip that says "See two sections of your document at the same time. This makes it easier to edit one section while editing another." If so, that feature is still there. :)

rgdot:
How I can get in on this?  ;D


Seriously though, good deal, in my opinion for even OneNote alone

dr_andus:
Well, the value of getting the latest and greatest versions of Microsoft's flagship suite for $9.95 should count for something! :)
-Innuendo (January 19, 2014, 05:23 PM)
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Well, yes, but only if it is really better than Office 2010... It comes down to specific features that I use in Word 2010.

Re 'split' function, here's what this review says:

Microsoft Word 2013 Review & Rating | PCMag.com

Some of the most powerful features that Microsoft built into Word twenty years are still there, but now you have to look for them. For example, Word is the only current word processor that lets you split a document window into two panes so that you can (for example) edit page 1 in the top pane and page 100 in the bottom pane, while your edits in both panes are instantly reflected in the document. Until now, Word's vertical scroll bar had a "split" tool at the top—you simply dragged on that tool to split the window into two panes. Now you have to go to the View tab on the Ribbon and select Split. Only a tiny percentage of users bothered with the split-screen feature, but it seems unfair to penalize them by hiding a useful tool.
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Unfortunately I'm part of that tiny percentage... I use it daily, all  the time. So it would be a nuisance if it takes several steps to activate it.

And then this is what another review says:

Office 2013 review | PC Pro

Word 2013 is a strange mix. It remains the most powerful word processor around, and there are a lot of new features in this version. If you have a touchscreen device, it’s your only option. And yet not all of these new features are successful – and some, in fact, are aggravating. Ultimately, if you already run the previous version and don’t have a touchscreen, there isn’t enough here to warrant the outlay.
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$9.95 might be a good deal, but not if I have to uninstall it afterwards and reinstall 2010...

But thanks for your comments, they were helpful. I'm still deciding... The improvements to the review (collaboration) features sound good, and also the headings apparently are now collapsible.

P.S. This also doesn't sound promising:

Office 2013 review: Word 2013 | TechRadar

Also, the AutoCorrect features have disappeared from the menu when you right-click a spelling mistake; you have to go all the way into Word's huge Options dialogue to add corrections you want to use.
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Innuendo:
Unfortunately I'm part of that tiny percentage... I use it daily, all  the time. So it would be a nuisance if it takes several steps to activate it.-dr_andus (January 19, 2014, 06:17 PM)
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All is not lost. I just did an experiment. I went to the View tab and right-clicked Split and selected "Add to Quick Access Toolbar" and bam! It will always be right there at the top left of the screen for you to use with one simple click.

I think some of these reviewers just fire a program up, play with it for an hour or so, and then call it a day.

dr_andus:
Still mulling it over whether it's worthwhile for me to upgrade from Word 2010 to 2013 (the other Office software are not that important to me, except maybe OneNote, if there is a big improvement from 2010 to 2013).

But I had come across a few reviews on Word 2013 by David Hewson, which seem to suggest that for writers specifically Word seems to offer some improvements. It sounds like he switched from Scrivener to Word 2013:

Word 2013: any use for writers?

Word 2013 for writers: look and feel

How to map a story with Microsoft Word

Scene planning and navigation in Word

Making OneNote and Word partners in writing

Microsoft Word revision – the best solution yet

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