Office 2010 beta leaks early

Those who can't wait until next week for the beta of Office 2010 can apparently find the code already on torrent Web sites.

According to Neowin, the beta code has popped up on peer-to-peer sites in recent days.

Meanwhile, another enthusiast site has posted screenshots of what it says is the beta of Office 2010 and its source--Microsoft itself. Craving Tech said that it got the code on a flash drive from the software maker, and the site has posted a number of screenshots.

Microsoft is widely expected to release the updated test version at next week's Professional Developer Conference in Los Angeles. Microsoft has said that it will have a beta of Office 2010 this month and has hinted on its Twitter feed that it will have big Office news next week, all but guaranteeing the release of the beta.

The beta is an update to the technology preview of the software that was released in July. That version also leaked to the Web ahead of its official release.

In addition to the desktop versions of Office 2010, Microsoft is also prepping browser-based versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. It has released a preview version of the Web apps (except for OneNote), but it is unclear if those will see an update next week.

For its part, Microsoft is staying mum. "We have not officially released the beta code of Office (2010)," a representative said. "We recommend that people do not download code from unauthorized sources."

Among the features of Office 2010 is a "paste preview" function that lets people see what different options will look like before they paste text from the clipboard.

(Credit: Microsoft)

[shellcodes_coder]

Why did they replace "Pearl" with that button? Nonetheless it's gonna be great :)

[redmarine]

Tried Office 2010 and I must say I enjoyed it every bit of it!

I seriously hope my 2007 language pack is compatible with the new Office 2010 beta as the earlier beta wasn't.

[moonbeard]

I see that the "ribbon of doom" lives on...how such a disappointing bain to producutivity could continue in this release defies logic...oh wait, this is Microsoft junkware, sorry...

[Paul_Christie]

Its junkware that everybody uses, so...

[swanky303]

I guess your opinion counts more than others. I, for one, think the ribbon was probably the best GUI enhancement Microsoft has come up with in the past 10 years.

[lennie22]

if you don't like the Ribbon then I'm sorry for you, but I like it a lot. I think you're in the minority about not liking the ribbon. MSFT actually did some innovation on software that no one thought could be innovated anymore

[TheraCaffe]

If Apple invented the ribbon, people would be fawning over it. Personally, I think it's a pretty inventive and fresh new UI improvement, very unique and useful.

[xaduurv]

Firstly, the word is BANE, and second, I think you'll find the majority of users prefer the ribbon (myself included). I can't stand going to an older version of office now, simply because everything is buried under countless menus.

Finally, I suspect you don't care about these points. You seem to have made up your mind when it comes to anything Microsoft produces (not that your opposition seems to be based on anything concrete). *sigh*

[B1gC72]

i don't know. i didn't really like the ribbon at first. but that was because stuff wasn't were it usually is. but after using it for a couple years now, i can't imagine using anything else. it's very intuitive and stuff is easy to find. looking forward to Office 2010 to see the newest improvements.

[cnet_user_0]

Try not to use "code" in your articles when referring to programs. The end-user does not see code but the program (i.e., code that is compiled).

[ddesy]

"Source code" would refer to what you are simply calling "code." Once compiled it is still technically code, so I fail to see an issue.

[lennie22]

c'mon man, let it slide, it's not that serious even though you are wrong with your definition. but it's cool though

[papa_delicious]

why people keep buying this overpriced crap is beyond me. you can get something equally as capable for the low low price of FREE in openoffice.org

[shootfirst]

Or you could go with google docs if you trust all your data in a cloud, don't they know that clouds cause rain!

From what I see most people do not need the full Word to do their job and openoffice can easily make docs that office can open. BUT OMG I need Word so I can type up my shopping lists!

[lennie22]

correction: openoffice is not equally capable. its good for what you pay for it, but it's nothing compared to office from MSFT.

[firefoxluva95]

Or the price of FREE in Office 2010 Starter when that's released. Starter brings the familiarity of Office at the price of free while only sticking a few non-invasive ads here and there. It won't be another ad based MS Works.

[Lerianis3]

Actually, lennie22.... I have found that comparing OpenOffice and Microsoft Office, they are pretty much equal in terms of capability, with Microsoft Office having some things that OO cannot do and vice-versa.

Biggest thing that I like about OpenOffice is that when you save a file in .odt or whatever the format it.... it is INVARIABLY smaller than the same Microsoft Office saved document in one of MS's proprietary formats.
There was one text file I was looking at that in .txt was 200KB..... OO got it down to 20! Microsoft shrunk it some, but it was still over 50KB.

[dhavleak]

@Lerianis3

I'll keep that in mind the next time I'm 30KB short of disk space.

[metomjr]

Yeah...I still have office 2002 and that's good enough for me. Anything with the docx crap is a nightmare. Won't be spending any money on Microsoft anytime soon.

[deepen05]

thats what torrents are for!! :D

[lazycat202]

torrents aren't safe :P

[TheraCaffe]

Well for most people who do just the basics (like you and I), Office hasn't really offered much that we don't already have. All I do is Word processing. Heck, I'd be willing to bet that going back to Word '97 wouldn't change much of anything for me.

[Richie312]

Really, I see no difference between 03 and 07 versions of Microsoft Office except different UI.

[TheraCaffe]

I think that Word changed a lot between '03 and '07, but I have to agree that the other '07 Office apps were like carbon copies of '03 with the Ribbon UI on them. At least '10 is looking more like an overall improvement.

[firefoxluva95]

And the fact that you double click for the header/footer and there are options to set "Different First Page" or "Different Odd and Even pages". The paragraph options and many other options now only take one click to reach. It's easier to change proofing options to also correct Style as well as Grammar...comes very useful when your teacher is a stickler for passive voice and expletives. There's also a ribbon for inserting citations into the page. It's very useful...much easier to access things that I need as a student.

[sundoggy]

There is little difference in functionality between Office 03 and Office 07-it's mainly that crap RIBBON thing all over the place, which makes it a PIA to customize menus or find commands that used to be "right there." Office O7 (especially Outlook, and PowerPoint to a lesser degree) had some good improvements, but the extreme, unnecessary UI change seemed to be change for the sake of change (or for the sake of selling new Office licenses, when there are only 3 features left people want). Oh wait now there are 4, one of them big. The 4th is removal of the damn ribbon. If the ribbon comes to the OSX version of office, I think I will puke. A while ago I read a hint on how to turn the ribbon off and go back to the regular menus, but I haven't been able to find it (not that I expect to be able to find any advanced command in the RIBBON).

Anyone know how to eradicate the damn RIBBON? Yeah, I know the caps are obnoxious, just like the RIBBON.

The worst thing going for the beta preview screen snaps are that the ribbon is still there in all its ugly glory. I work at a big Fortune 50 technology company where we've had the option to upgrade to Office 2007 for over a year, and half the people won't do it because of this thing.

OK, done venting.

[Albert_Kallal]

Not sure why you don't like the ribbon, but if you find it takes up to much room, then just minimize it and you wind up with MORE room then the old menu bar system.

Also nice in 2010 is that a ribbon customizer is built in so you can add buttons, or groups to your ribbons (just right click on ribbon and choose customize). Very nice.

As for new features, the list is really quite amazing, I think the new context paste in word is the best feature. I always thought just about everyone wants to paste text into word without formatting from wherever the text came from (now you don't have to use a drop down menu, just super!). Perhaps the largest new feature is that the desktop parts now also have a web part. Here is a video of mine running access on the desktop, and at the half way mark, I switch over to running the application in a browser.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AU4mH0jPntI

So, I find office 2010 very cool indeed...

[sphinxrb]

I still say INTERNET EXPLORER/WORD/OUTLOOK should all be one program. It's time to bring them together. You can browse the internet in Outlook right now, try it. Write a letter in Word and Send it via email or attachement. Should be one seamless progam. Open Word as a tab, along with other website tabs, or Outlook could be a tab as well.

[firefoxluva95]

And that'll be the biggest piece of bloatware aside from Norton Antivirus. I want to get a paper done for school and not have my email bugging me every single time I get one or the internet bugging me and distracting me. Chances are if you are writing a letter in Word, you are planning on printing it out...not emailing it or you would have done it in email. They've already tried your suggestion in Lotus Symphony and it just doesn't feel smooth...it's clunky and sometimes doesn't work right. Crashes on start up often and I haven't seen it work properly on Windows 7. Keep them separate or you'll end up distracting bloatware.

*pokes username* Clearly I don't use Internet Explorer either nor do I use Outlook. I use Firefox and Thunderbird. I don't want to pay for IE and Outlook when all I want to pay for is Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Onenote.

[Software_Lover]

When I'm using my web browser, I'm very thankful that it doesn't consume the resources of the word processor and email client that I'm not using.

[Lerianis3]

Software_Lover, they could make it so that when the word processing parts are not being used, they are totally unloaded from the system... it's not that hard to do.
I agree with sphinxrb..... convergence is going to be the future, and soon we are going to 'does everything' browsers that can open other applications in the browsers and allow you to edit documents on the web 'on the fly'.

[FrankFrankston]

geez - this torrent has been around for weeks.

[shengguan]

There is a reason why Office is expensive. Of course if you are a home user, OpenOffice would be way more than enough for you.

In the business world, Office is like a standard and a lot of features in Office are geared to businesses. Those features are not available in OpenOffice.