With the Office Web Apps viewer, you can open Microsoft Office Documents in the browser or embed them into your website.

The formatting is often not retained when Office documents are opened inside Google Docs Viewer

Google Docs Viewer is a useful service that helps you preview Microsoft Office files in the browser itself. The online tool can come handy when you don’t have the Office suite installed on your computer or when you would like to quickly preview the content of an online document without having to download it locally.

Office Web Apps, Microsoft’s answer to Google Docs, too offer a similar online document viewer that is superior to Google’s tool as it retains the formatting while rendering the document in the browser.

For instance, here’s a standard PowerPoint presentation (PPT) in Google Docs Viewerand the same file rendered inside Office Viewer. Next, compare a slightly-complex Word document (docx) inside Google Viewer and Office Viewer. The latter retains all the styling and even the fonts look sharp there.

How to Use Office Web Apps Viewer

If you are to open an online document/spreadsheet/presentation inside the Office viewer, all you need to do is append the URL (web address) of that file to “view.officeapps.live.com” as shown in the following examples:

http://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=http://img.labnol.org/di/Word.docx

http://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=http://img.labnol.org/di/PowerPoint.ppt

In addition to previewing Office files, the same Office Web Apps Viewer tool can also be used for embedding Microsoft Office documents into your website or blog. The embed code would be something like this:

<iframe src='https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/embed.aspx?src=http://img.labnol.org/di/PowerPoint.ppt' width='500px' height='350px' frameborder='0'></iframe>

You need to replace the actual URL of the document and may also adjust the height and width attributes of the IFRAME tag.

While Office Web Apps viewer is definitely a better option that Google Docs Viewer, a limitation is that it only works with Office Files, Google Docs Viewer can also handle PDFs, Photoshop files and even AutoCAD drawings.

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Microsoft Office 2013 is the new version of Microsoft Office that you can download and install on any Windows 7 or 8 computer.

Microsoft is expected to release a new version of Office, called Microsoft Office 2013 (or Office 15) early next year. The new Office, the release version of which is already available for download to MSDN and TechNet subscribers, sports a minimalist interface and, among other features, is very tightly integrated with SkyDrive.

If you aren’t an MSDN/Technet subscriber, you can still download and install Microsoft Office 2013 as long as your computer is running Windows 7 or Windows 8.

Where can I download Microsoft Office 2013

Option A: You can go to office.com/preview and download the full-featured edition of Office 2013 that includes Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, OneNote, Publisher, and Microsoft Access (no Visio here). You can install this version on up to 5 PCs using your Microsoft account.

This is actually Microsoft Office 365 Home Premium Preview and what’s unique here is that you can get Office running on your computer within minutes of hitting the install button. This uses Microsoft’s Click-To-Run installation technology – you just have to download a 500KB installer and it “streams” the Microsoft Office applications to your computer.

The downside is that you have to install the entire Office package and second, this isn’t the final release of Office but a “preview” edition (version 15.0.4128.1025).

Option B: The other option is that you download the Microsoft Office 2013 installer from the Technet website (all you need is a Windows Live ID). Unlike the preview edition of Office, this one is the “final” Office Professional Plus 2013 release (version 15.0.4433.1506) that will continue to work for 60 days from the date of installation.

In order to install this version of Office, you’ll be required to download the full MSI installer (666 MB, OfficeProfessionalPlus_x86_en-us.img) but the advantage is that you can choose which Office programs should be installed on the computer.

Which Microsoft Office 2013 edition should I download?

Microsoft Office 2013 Pro is available as a 60-day trial while there’s no exact expiry date fixed for Office 365 Preview. Microsoft says that Office Preview will expire approximately 60 days after Office 2013 becomes available in that market. You will thus have more time to play with Office 2013 with the preview release.

Office 365 Preview can be installed alongside an older copy of Microsoft Office whereas in the case of Office 2013 Professional, it will override your existing installation.

One more thing. The Office 2013 preview release streams very quickly (click to run) and you don’t even have to be an administrator of your computer to install it. That’s not the case with Office 2013 Pro.

Microsoft hasn’t specified an exact release date for Microsoft Office 2013 but if you buy a licence of Microsoft Office 2010 now, you will get a free upgrade to Office 2013.

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