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Office Web Apps can now run commands for you

The online suite's new "tell me what you want to do" feature takes some of the leg work out of formatting your document.

Lance Whitney Contributing Writer
Lance Whitney is a freelance technology writer and trainer and a former IT professional. He's written for Time, CNET, PCMag, and several other publications. He's the author of two tech books--one on Windows and another on LinkedIn.
Lance Whitney
Tell me what you want to do, says Office Web Apps.
Tell me what you want to do, asks Office Web Apps. Screenshot by Lance Whitney/CNET

Microsoft has added a type of "your wish is my command" feature to its Office Web Apps.

Described in a Microsoft blog post Wednesday, the online version of Office now sports a "tell me what you want to do" field in the top toolbar. Want to run a certain command but don't know how or where to find it? Simply type the action in the field, and Office displays a list of possible commands.

For example, type the phrase "double space" in the field. Office responds with a line spacing menu from which you can choose the number 2 along with other line space numbers. Click on the number 2, and Office automatically double-spaces your current paragraph. This is a cool feature that Microsoft should also add to the desktop version of Office.

What else is new to Office Web Apps? Microsoft is also touting a more seamless layout, easier access to footnotes and endnotes, and better rendering of Shapes, Textboxes and WordArt.