Word, Excel and PowerPoint are applications that are well known around the world, applications that have been on the market for more than 40 years and that, over the years, have evolved by adding new functions and remodeling their design to adapt it to the different versions of Windows that Microsoft has launched on the market.
Furthermore, with the launch of Microsoft 365, the company founded by Bill Gates decided to offer this set of applications in the cloud, accessible from any web browser. The design of the web version and the desktop applications have evolved together, however, it seems that the paths have begun to separate.
Yesterday we informed you about the new functions available in the online version of Excel, functions designed to make interacting with rows, cells and columns much more intuitive and which, for the moment, are not available in the desktop version, although it is assumed that they will not take long to arrive, or at least that is what we users hope.
Design changes in Office online
One of the most striking changes in terms of design that all the applications that are part of Office received was the File menu, a change that was not to the liking of users who were accustomed to the classic design that allowed them to save the document, export it, print it, and open new documents in a very intuitive way.
The design change completely affected its aesthetics, but not its functionality, a change that Microsoft has begun to reverse, at least in the web version where the new design is already available, a new design that completely replaces the previous design, showing the classic and functional design that had been with us for several decades.
As we can see in the image above, when clicking on the File menu in any of the Office online applications, a window will appear that takes up half of the screen with all the options we may need, such as opening recent files, saving the file, printing, exporting it, accessing the options, among others. This is the same menu that is currently also available in the desktop version of all the applications that are part of Office.
The new menu that appears when you click on File, as we can see in the image above, uses the characteristic design of Office, a menu that takes up less than half the space and with which we can access the same functions as with the previous menu, using drop-down boxes to access the same functions that, until now, were available independently.
Now available for all users
The new design of the File menu is now available for all Office online users, although, at the time of publishing this document, it only appeared in PowerPoint and not in the other available applications, so it will be a matter of hours before it reaches all users.
At the moment, Microsoft has not confirmed that this change in the design of the File menu will be available in the desktop version. If it is not implemented, at this rate I will opt to uninstall Office and start using the online version.
