office 365

Office 365 and Yammer integration: What's coming

On March 19, day one of Microsoft's annual Convergence conference, company officials shed more light on how Yammer's enterprise social-networking technology will be integrated into Office 365 and SharePoint in the coming year-plus.

Microsoft officials originally shared a road map regarding this integration in November. But today, officials provided more dates and more details around the integration of Yammer feeds into SharePoint.

Last fall, Microsoft officials said in the "immediate future" Yammer and SharePoint would be unified via a single ID/sign-on, shared document-management capabilities and feed aggregation. In the longer term, the Softies said, the … Read more

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 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

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 addresses confusion over Office 2013 licensing

Can Office 2013 users transfer their license from one PC to another? Well, it depends.

Microsoft recently created some confusion and controversy when it revealed that Office 2013 would be restricted to one PC. People who need to install the software on another PC are out of luck, or so it seems. Ed Bott of CNET sister site ZDNet illuminated the licensing changes in the new suite.

You can't buy Office 2013 on DVD or other media. Instead, you have to purchase a key card, which allows you to download the software. But the real kicker is that Office … Read more

SkyDrive users can now share Office documents with anyone

People who need to access your shared MS Office documents via a SkyDrive link should now find the process a bit easier.

Using Microsoft's Office Web Apps or Office 2013, you can create a URL of any document that you store online. You can then e-mail that URL to anyone who needs to view or edit your file. Previously, that process required your collaborators to sign in with a Microsoft account before they could tweak your document. Now that restriction is gone.

Users who receive the URL to your document can click on it to view the file in … Read more

How to install the 64-bit version of Office 365

Office 365 is installed as a 32-bit program on your Windows PC by default. Microsoft recommends the 32-bit version, even on 64-bit systems, to avoid compatibility issues with third-party add-ons. However, there may be instances when you'd want the 64-bit version, like if you're using a very large database or worksheet.

Here's how to install the 64-bit version of Office:

Step 1: Go to Office.com and log in using your Microsoft account.

Step 2: Click on the "My Account" shortcut.

Step 3: Click on the "Language and install options" link under the … Read more

Bing rolls out five apps for Office 365 and Office 2013

Microsoft launched five new free Bing apps for Office 365 and Office 2013 today. These apps are geared toward integrating work templates with search functions. The apps include Bing Finance for Excel, Bing Maps for Excel, Bing Image Search for Word, Bing News Search for Word, and Bing Dictionary for Excel and Word.

The software giant released its 2013 version of Office and its subscription-centric version of Office -- Office 365 Home Premium -- just this week. The latter of these two products is downloadable and can be locally installed on versions of Office 2013. Users are charged annual or monthly fees … Read more