Microsoft Office 2013 (formerly Office 15) is the upcoming version of the Microsoft Office productivity suite for Microsoft Windows and the successor to Microsoft Office 2010. Office 2013 includes extended file format support, user interface updates, and support for touch. Office 2013 is suitable for IA-32 and x64 systems and requires Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 or later version of either.A Windows RT version of Office 2013 is available as well.

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.Microsoft has planned general availability for the first quarter of 2013.

History and development

Development started in 2010 while Microsoft was finishing work on Office 14, released as Microsoft Office 2010.

In May 2011, a build of an Office 2013 alpha build was leaked by a tester.

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.

On July 16, 2012, Microsoft held a press conference to show off Office 2013 and to release the Consumer Preview.The Office 2013 Consumer Preview is a free, fully functional version but will expire. An update was issued for the Office 2013 Customer Preview suite on October 5.

Office 2013 was released to manufacturing on October 11, 2012. It was made available to TechNet and MSDN subscribers on October 24. 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. Microsoft has planned general availability for the first quarter of 2013.

New features

Office 2013 is more "cloud-based" than previous versions. This is notable as the default save location is the user's SkyDrive. Also, Microsoft is hoping that users will get Office 2013 through Office 365 subscriptions.

Microsoft Office 2013 includes updated support for ISO/IEC 29500, the International Standard version of Office Open XML (OOXML) file format as well as OASIS Open Document Format 1.2, which Office 2013 can read and write.Additionally, Office 2013 provides full read, write, and edit support for ISO32000 (PDF). Microsoft Office 2013 also supports Office Open XML Strict, a format which Microsoft has submitted to the ISO for interoperability with other office suites, and to aid adoption in the public sector.

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. Word and PowerPoint also have bookmark-like features which sync the position of the document between different computers.

Other features of Office 2013 include:

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

New Start Experience

New graphical options in Microsoft Word

New alignment lines when moving objects

Online picture support with content from Office.com, Bing.com and Flickr

Resume Reading in Word and PowerPoint

New slide designs, animations and transitions in PowerPoint 2013

Support for Outlook.com and Hotmail.com in Outlook

Support for Skype and Yammer

Excel 2013 supports new model limits.

Removed features

The following features are removed from Microsoft Office 2013.

Removed from the entire suite

Microsoft Clip Organizer

Microsoft Office Picture Manager

Office 2007 and Office 2010 chart styles

Ability to insert a 3D cone, pyramid, or cylinder chart

Features removed from Microsoft Word

Custom XML markup has been removed for legal reasons

Older WordArt objects are now converted to new WordArt objects

Features removed from Microsoft Access

Access Data Projects (ADP)

Support for Jet 3.x IISAM

Access OWC control

dBASE support suite

Features removed from Microsoft Outlook

Download Headers Only mode for IMAP

Outlook Exchange Classic offline/Cleanfreebusy switch

Ability to import/Export to Applications

Notes and Journal customization

Outlook Activities tab

Outlook Mobile Service (OMS)

Outlook Search through Windows Shell

Features removed from Microsoft PowerPoint

Support for Visio Drawing

Editions

Unlike its predecessors, Office 2013's retail suites will be complemented by four Office 365 subscriptions that also provide Office 2013 applications. There are 3 retail suites, all licensed for a single PC each and 4 online suites, licensed for subscription services, updates and multiple users.

Traditional Office 2013 suites

Microsoft will still make Office 2013 available as traditional retail suites for users to buy.

Office 2013 Home & Student: This will be licensed for one PC and will cost $139.99. It includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote 2013.

Office 2013 Home & Business: This will be licensed for one PC and will cost $219.99. It includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Outlook 2013.

Office 2013 Professional: This is licensed for one PC and will cost $399.99. It includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher, and Access 2013.

Comparison

Remarks

¹ Office 365 Home Premium comes with an additional 20 GB of online storage on SkyDrive, 60 free Skype minutes and also Office for Mac 2013.

² Office 365 Small Business Premium includes 25 GB Exchange Online mailbox and 10 GB of SharePoint Online-based cloud storage for the organization with an additional 500 MB per user account.

³ Office 365 Enterprise includes everything from Office 365 ProPlus, plus Exchange Online, providing archiving and legal compliance capabilities, SharePoint Online for managing and sharing documents and Lync Online for business communications.

⁴ Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote also come in RT editions for that run on Windows RT. These editions have restricted feature set.

Each Microsoft Office 2013 application requires the following requirements, although app-specific requirements may also: