Viewing is cool too
When I talk to people about how Office Web Apps provide “browser-based viewing and editing” of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote files, the thing people immediately get excited about is the “editing” part. That’s understandable: browser-based editing is new for Office, and editing is what makes “information workers” feel productive. Viewing – we’ve been viewing documents since people etched things on stone. Old hat. Boring.
And what difference does browser-based viewing make, especially for docs on my team’s SharePoint site, since I’m always accessing the site from a computer that has Office desktop apps installed? I click the link, the file opens in the app; I can read it. Big deal.
It turns out, it is a big deal. Think about it. If you’re an information worker, you probably read at least 10 documents or spreadsheets for every one you create. You probably watch scads of slide decks – maybe after the actual presentation, when someone archives it to the SharePoint site. If you’re clicking those links dozens of times a day, it means you get asked to whether you want to edit the file or open it read-only dozens of times a day.
And if it's that PowerPoint deck that shows how your team is getting closer to your goal, you miss out on seeing the animations flow on a single slide because you're just in too big a hurry to switch to Slide Show.
You've probably gotten so used to this, you don't even notice that it's a pain to open desktop apps just to read content. Once Office Web Apps got deployed to a SharePoint site I use all the time, I quickly became accustomed to navigating Office files as breezily as I surf the Web. I can read the things I need to, without all those read-only things getting in the way of what I’m working on in my desktop apps. A teammate can send me a link to a spec as easily as he sends me a link to information about the 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11 on NASA’s website – and following the link is just as quick and easy for me.
This is the Word Web App viewer:
Word docs look beautiful, in Page Layout view, the way the author intended. Excel workbooks are well behaved, opening on Sheet 1, with the top row visible. I click through PowerPoint presentations and see the animations, right there in the browser.
I frequently also use another SharePoint site, which has not yet had Office Web Apps installed. I’ve noticed lately a twinge when someone sends me links to libraries on this other site. It’s not that I dread the repetitious decisions (Read-only or Edit? Paper or plastic?) or the bazillion Word windows marching up from my Taskbar (which one has the blog post again?). It’s just that I’ve gotten used to a more lightweight, browser-based way of reading documents. I can’t wait for Office Web Apps to be deployed on all the SharePoint sites I use.
Roxanne Kenison
Content Publisher, Office
