Microsoft Announces New Features for Excel Web App

Written by | Published October 5, 2011

Microsoft Excel Web AppMicrosoft have announced updates for their Office Web Apps based on feedback from users. Microsoft Excel Web App is one of the web based Office Apps available free to Hotmail users allowing you to create, access, edit and share documents anywhere with an internet connection and a browser. For full details on how to use Excel Web Apps and why they are useful read our previous post Excel Web App in Office 365. Office Web Apps are the free alternatives to Office 365 which has a monthly fee.

Microsoft Office Web Apps have faced criticism for lacking the features of Google Docs. This update addresses some of the issues associated with Excel Web App that regular Excel users have been asking for. Microsoft have had a year to listen to feedback since the launch of Office Web Apps and so this update should reflect what users have missed.

Excel Web App – New Features

Merge and Autofit Cells in Excel Web App

There have been two useful additions to cell formatting in the update – Merge and Autofit. To Merge Cells simply highlight the cells you want to merge and click the button: Read the rest of “Microsoft Announces New Features for Excel Web App”

Posted in Blog Posts, Excel Tips, Excel Training, How To, Microsoft App | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | No comments yet

Excel Web App in Office 365 – Working in the Cloud

Written by | Published August 11, 2011

microsoft-excel-office-365You might have recently heard about Microsoft Office 365 – and if you work in IT you’ve almost certainly come across Cloud Computing.

Office 365 is Microsoft’s new “cloud” version of Microsoft office. Essentially that means online versions of Excel, Word, Outlook etc… that allow users to:

  • Access their office documents from any PC
  • Create, edit and share Microsoft Office documents (including Excel Workbooks) from PCs which don’t have the native version of MS Office installed on them

These online versions of the MS Office packages are known as Web Apps. Here we take a preview of the Excel Web App in Office 365 and how it will work.

Need help with Excel? Check out these 10 time saving Excel formulas

What is the Microsoft Excel Web App?

The Excel Web App in Office 365 is essentially a web-based version of Excel that runs in a web browser. This means that you can run it on any PC with web access (you don’t actually have to have Excel installed on your PC).

The look and feel of the Excel Web App is exactly the same as the latest versions of the Excel desktop application, so if you’re used to working in Excel 2007 or 2010 you should have no problem using the web app.

But if you’re using Excel online – where do your Excel Web App workbooks get saved?

Depending on how you are implementing Office 365, the actual workbooks are stored in one of two places:

  • Windows Live SkyDrive - which is a free online storage & sharing service (if you use the Mac “MobileMe” service – soon to be replaced by iCloud – this is the Windows equivalent – If you have a Windows Live ID (e.g via having Hotmail account) you’ll be able to log in using this.
  • SharePoint Site - If your organisation uses SharePoint server, all of your documents can be stored here

How to Create an Excel Web App Workbook

If you already have a Hotmail account or Windows Live ID – try logging in to your account (if you don’t have one you can set one up here)

Read the rest of “Excel Web App in Office 365 – Working in the Cloud”

Posted in Blog Posts, Excel Tips, Excel Training, How To, Microsoft App | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | No comments yet