Microsoft Office 2013 with Visio and Project Pro (codenamed Office 15) is a version of Microsoft Office, a productivity suite for Microsoft Windows. It is the successor to Microsoft Office 2010 and the predecessor to Microsoft Office 2016. It includes extended file format support, user interface updates and support for touch among its new features. Office 2013 is suitable for IA-32 and x64 systems and requires Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 or a later version of either. A version of Office 2013 comes included on Windows RT devices. Mainstream support ended on April 10, 2018. Extended support ends on April 11, 2023.
Development on this version of Microsoft Office was started in 2010 and ended on October 11, 2012, when Microsoft Office 2013 was released to manufacturing.[13] Microsoft released Office 2013 to general availability on January 29, 2013.[1] This version includes new features such as integration support for online services (including OneDrive, Outlook.com, Skype, Yammer and Flickr), improved format support for Office Open XML (OOXML), OpenDocument (ODF) and Portable Document Format (PDF) and support for multi-touch interfaces.
Microsoft Office 2013 comes in twelve different editions, including three editions for retail outlets, two editions for volume licensing channel, five subscription-based editions available through Microsoft Office 365 program, the web application edition known as Office Web Apps and the Office RT edition made for tablets and mobile devices. Office Web Apps are available free of charge on the web although enterprises may obtain on-premises installations for a price. Microsoft Office applications may be obtained individually; this includes Microsoft Visio, Microsoft Project and Microsoft SharePoint Designer which are not included in any of the twelve editions.
On February 25, 2014, Microsoft Office 2013 Service Pack 1 (SP1) was released.
Development
Development started in 2010 while Microsoft was finishing work on Office 14, released as Microsoft Office 2010. On January 30, 2012, Microsoft released a technical preview of Office 15, build 3612.1010, to a selected group of testers bound by non-disclosure agreements.[15]
On July 16, 2012, Microsoft held a press conference to showcase Office 2013 and to release the Consumer Preview.[16] The Office 2013 Consumer Preview is a free, fully functional version but will expire 60 days after the final product’s release.[17][18] An update was issued for the Office 2013 Customer Preview suite on October 5.[19]
Office 2013 was released to manufacturing on October 11, 2012.[13] It was made available to TechNet and MSDN subscribers on October 24, 2012.[20] On November 15, 2012, 60-days trial versions of Microsoft Office 2013 Professional Plus, Project Professional 2013 and Visio Professional 2013 were made available to the public over the Internet.[5][21] Microsoft has released Office 2013 for general availability on January 29, 2013.[1] Microsoft released the service pack 1 update on February 25, 2014.[22]
Features
New features
Office 2013 introduces Click-To-Run 2.0 installation technology for all editions based on Microsoft App-V Version 5.[23] Previously, only certain editions of Office 2010 were available with Click-To-Run 1.0 installer technology, which was based on App-V 4.x, where a separate Q drive was created and installed files of Office were isolated from the rest of the system, causing many Office add-ins to not be compatible.[24] With the newer Click-To-Run technology, Office 2013 installs files just like Windows Installer (MSI) to the Program Files directory. Retail versions of Office 2013 use the Click-to-Run installer. Volume-licensed versions use Windows Installer (MSI) technology.[25] Some editions like Professional Plus are available in both retail (C2R) and volume (MSI) channels.
Office 2013 is more cloud-based than previous versions; a domain login, Office 365 account, or Microsoft account can now be used to sync Office application settings (including recent documents) between devices, and users can also save documents directly to their OneDrive account.[26]
Microsoft Office 2013 includes updated support for ISO/IEC 29500, the International Standard version of Office Open XML (OOXML) file format: in particular it supports saving in the “Strict” profile of ISO/IEC 29500 (Office Open XML Strict).[27] It also supports OASIS version 1.2 of ISO/IEC 26300:2006, Open Document Format,[27] which Office 2013 can read and write.[28] Additionally, Office 2013 provides full read, write, and edit support for ISO 32000 (PDF).
New features include a new read mode in Microsoft Word, a presentation mode in Microsoft PowerPoint and improved touch and inking in all of the Office programs. Microsoft Word can also insert video and audio from online sources as well as the capability to broadcast documents on the Web.[29] Word and PowerPoint also have bookmark-like features which sync the position of the document between different computers.
The Office Web Apps suite was also updated for Office 2013, introducing additional editing features and interface changes.[30]
Other features of Office 2013 include:
- PDF Import feature in Microsoft Word
- Improved text wrapping and improved Track Changes feature in Microsoft Word
- Flash Fill in Microsoft Excel
- Office Remote/Microsoft PowerPoint Remote app and Office add-in to control presentations from a Windows Phone or Android phone.
- Automatic slide resizing/refit in Microsoft PowerPoint
- New Office Open XML-based format, VSDX for Microsoft Visio
- Flatter look of the Ribbon interface and subtle animations when typing or selecting (Word and Excel)
- A new visualization for scheduled tasks in Microsoft Outlook
- Remodeled start screen[31]
- New graphical options in Word[32]
- Objects such as images can be freely moved; they snap to boundaries such as paragraph edges, document margin and or column boundaries
- Supports embedding of Online picture support with content from Office.com, Bing.com and Flickr (by default, only images in public domain) to in replacement to the cliparts gallery from previews office versions.
- Ability to return to the last viewed or edited location in Word and PowerPoint
- New slide designs, animations and transitions in PowerPoint 2013
- Support for Outlook.com and Hotmail.com in Outlook
- Support for integration with Skype, Yammer and SkyDrive[33]
- IMAP special folders support[34]
- Starting with Office 2013, proofing tools are separately and freely downloadable without being bundled in Multilingual User Interface (MUI)/Multilanguage packs, Language Interface Packs (LIPs) or Single Language Packs (SLP).
