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New Features Coming to Word Online and PowerPoint Online

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The Office blog announced that new features are coming to Word Online and PowerPoint online over the next few weeks that should make formatting documents even easier. While the Office Online (Web Apps) suite has always been a “lighter” version of the 2013 desktop programs, these updates give the Online versions more rich functionality.

Here’s what’s coming:

Text formatting improvements in Word Online

Word Online lacked some autocorrect features that longtime users of Word and other word processing software have come to expect. That’s changed now. We can look forward to straightforward changes like first letters of sentences being capitalized, two hyphens becoming a dash, and so on.

The Format Painter is also coming to Word Online! Users can “copy formatting from the selected content (Ctrl + Shift + C) and paste it onto a different set of content (Ctrl + Shift + V).”

Object formatting upgrade in PowerPoint Online

Soon, you will be able to edit PowerPoint Online illustrations more easily, with updates to selecting, moving, and resizing objects, plus an added Smart Guides feature that allows users to align objects easily.

Multiselect has been added so you can format more than one object at a time. You will also be able to move objects outside of the slide area.

Lastly, tables have come to PowerPoint Online in a more thorough way. Previously, you had only been able to view and relocate existing tables, i.e. if you were editing a slide that had been created in PowerPoint 2013. Now, you will be able to create, edit, and format tables in PowerPoint Online in the browser.

More user-friendly viewing in Word and PowerPoint

The Office 365 team has made it possible to use Office Online on all different kinds of devices, from Surface 3s to smartphones, and this update makes the Office Online suite more accommodating of that.

PowerPoint Online will have a full-screen Reading View and a zoom tool available in the Editing View that will make viewing and editing on smaller devices even better. Word Online will now include a High DPI feature for viewing PDFs.

We hope you enjoy these Office Online updates as much as we do!

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