Microsoft Office 2010 provides some attractive features to assist users in work, including Backstage View, Paste Preview, Customization of Ribbon, Photo Editing Tool, Removal of Photo Background, New Screenshot Feature, Improved Sharing and Collaboration, Ribbon Interface for Outlook, and many others.

There is not much change in the “ribbon” user interface compared with Office 2007. Unlike Office 2007, Outlook users will also enjoy the beauty of the “ribbon” design and can now work with a consistent user interface. Therefore, Office users who upgrade from 2007 will quickly get acquainted with this new version without any difficulty. Office 2010 is much better than Office 2007 in feature support and integration with other Microsoft products. The Computing Services Centre (CSC) has decided to support this new version in place of Office 2007.

The CSC has already distributed the software media to departments, made it available on the Staff LAN’s Work Desk menu and announced its campus-wide support.

The launch of Office 2010 is summarized below:

1. Staff LAN

Office 2010 is released for installation through the Work Desk menu of the Staff LAN. This will directly replace the Office 2007 products. When a staff member clicks on any of the Office 2010 product option from the Work Desk menu, the upgrade program will check for available storage space of the staff's machine, remove Office 2007 from the machine and then install Office 2010 there. The whole process takes about 20 minutes, depending on the hardware configurations.

2. Teaching and learning

In Semester A 2010-11, Office 2010 will be made available on computers in the CSC Teaching Studios, the Library Information Space and Learning Commons, and in all LTs & Classrooms to support teaching and learning. Furthermore, Office 2010 will replace Office 2007 under the Windows 7 computing environment.

Apart from using Office 2010 in office, staff may install Office 2010 on ONE home computer for teaching and support purposes. Staff may borrow the software media from their departmental office for installation.

For Macintosh users, the current version of Microsoft Office is still Office 2008 for Mac. Microsoft plans to announce the new version, Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac, in late October this year.

Although Office 2010 looks similar to Office 2007, we have arranged training courses to help staff get started using this new version. The CSC has also compiled some FAQs and a simple guide describing the new features and changes. For details, please visit the following websites.

Training Courses:
http://www.ncm2.xyz/csc/deptweb/education/staff-course.htm

FAQs on Microsoft Office 2010:
http://www.ncm2.xyz/csc/deptweb/support/faq/MSOffice2010_FAQ.htm

Guide on New Features/Changes of Microsoft Office 2010:
http://www.ncm2.xyz/csc/deptweb/support/userguides/MSOffice2010_WhatsNew.htm