Microsoft Office 2010, the next iteration of Microsoft Office productivity suite is the most popular and most critical application in the entire suite.

In fact, Microsoft Word 2010 is the single most desirable application in entire Office suite. Also, stats don’t lie! As per sales statistics, Word 2010 is the best-selling standalone application in Microsoft Store or any other online store where its available such as Amazon.

All the Office applications within the suite have been upgraded and the most popular application, Microsoft Word 2010 has got some major upgrades in terms of features and enhancements.

Below is the in-depth description about various features, which have been introduced in Microsoft Word 2010.

1. Browser version of Microsoft Word 2010

The most significant addition to Microsoft Word 2010 is the introduction of its browser version, apart of the existing desktop version. With this latest addition, the word document can be published on the web from the desktop version itself and can be edited via browser version as well. This eliminates the need of having desktop version of Microsoft Word 2010 on every computer you work with.

Online version of Word 2010 is supported via Office Web Apps.

2. Document Fidelity

Fidelity is the ability to recreate the original source. With both the browser and desktop versions of Microsoft Word 2010, the user may like to switch between the two versions, while working on the same word document. Now, Microsoft has given special attention in preserving the fidelity of the Word document. This means that the appearance of the Word document in browser version will be almost similar to appearance of the same document in desktop version. Formatting, margins, fonts etc will not be distorted at all.

This is a significant development in right direction as more users are active on web these days and they prefer to work online to collaborate on various projects. With close to 100% word document fidelity available through Office 2010(native) and Office Web Apps(Web), the frustration of dealing with a distorted recreation or messed-up formatting.

3. Instant Screenshot

With Microsoft Word 2010, there is a ‘screenshot’ button integrated within the ribbon, which enables the user to take an instant screenshot of the background of the word application. It has been assumed that the user wants to take the screenshot, present just below the word 2010 application. In case, the user wants to take a custom screenshot, then an option is provided called ‘Screen Clipping’, which enables the user to adjust the screenshot size and embed it directly into the word document.

There’s a ‘snipping tool’ in higher versions of Windows 7 OS which also does similar function of background image clipping but the clipped image still needs to be inserted into the word document through conventional ‘Insert Image‘ procedure.

‘Instant Screenshot’ takes the user through the shortest route possible and gets the screenshot clipped and inserted into the word document in couple of clicks.

4. Images background removal

Another feature that has been introduced in Microsoft Word 2010 is ‘background image removal’. This is a feature which eliminates the need of using Adobe Photoshop for the same purpose of removing background image.

In the ribbon, click on ‘Format’ within ‘Picture tools’ and select the option ‘Remove background’. Further, mark the area which you want to keep. Once selected, the feature removes the image background.

The quality and accuracy of ‘background scrapping’ largely depends on the type of image. A high contrast image will produce better results than a low contrast image. This feature will produce satisfactory results for basic images and it’s primarily meant to cater with basic image editing requirements only.

5. Collaborative Document Editing

This feature is exclusive to desktop version of Microsoft Office 2010. Using this new feature, multiple users can co-edit same word document simultaneously. Both the collaborating users are notified about the current editor of the word document and they are work together on a single document over the internet, much like working offline.

6. More Art Effects in WordArt

More designs have been added to existing WordArt collection, such as ‘Neon effects’, Glass effect and more such variations, which were earlier possible exclusively with photo editing applications such as Photoshop.

7. Artistic Effects

This is another image based feature which was exclusive to Photoshop and similar heavy-weight softwares and has now been included within Word 2010 application. You can now add artistic effects such as ‘Pencil effect’, ‘Cartoon effect’, ‘blur effect’, ‘Black & White effect’ among many other effects to any of your image inserted in Word document.

The image below shows various options available in ‘Artistic effects’ feature.

Important Update: In case, you have not yet updated your Office 2010 software with latest service packs, here is the link for

• Office 2010 Service Pack 1 and
• Office 2010 Service Pack 2