Discounted version of MS Office 2013

Microsoft Office Home & Student 2013 is a special discounted version of the popular productivity suite released especially for home users and students.

Includes all the four essential packages

This program can no longer be downloaded. Take a look at Office Home and Student 2016 instead.

Microsoft Office Home & Student 2013 only includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote which are the major apps that most home users and students will need. This includes 7 GB of free online storage with Microsoft OneDrive. Note that unlike the Business and Professional editions, it does not include Outlook, Publisher or Access. However, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote are more than enough to meet the needs of those that need to complete school or university assignments and the requirements of the average home user.

Known uses, new features

With the new touch-optimized reading mode in Word 2013, you can skim through documents using a finger swipe. Making changes to documents has had a huge overhaul, and expanded to make editing documents easier. Microsoft Office Home & Student 2013 also edits PDFs without the need for additional software, which makes it a direct competitor of Adobe Acrobat.

In Excel 2013, the new Flash Fill function automatically fills out a range of selected cells. Excel analyzes the entire table, detects relations between cells, and suggests a value or text. Excel also makes it easier to create pivot tables and graphics by generating suggestions in a similar fashion. The new Quick Analysis feature in Microsoft Office Home & Student 2013 lets you preview certain formatting options in the spreadsheet itself.

PowerPoint 2013 splits the presenter mode into two different views for the audience and the presenter. Besides the presentation itself, you can also see a bullet list and more details on the presenter screen. On Tablets, you can switch between slides using finger gestures, paint with a stylus for a lecture on film, or use a virtual laser pointer.

Touch-optimized use and minimalist design à la Windows 8

When you use Microsoft Office Home & Student 2013, you’ll realize that there have been some changes. The famous ribbon bar is expanded only when necessary and it’s optimized for finger operation on touch screens. In addition to images, you can embed videos via HTML code in Microsoft Office Home & Student 2013. All of the applications come with new touch-optimized viewing modes.

Microsoft Office Home & Student 2013 uses the same minimalist tile design as Windows 8, and everything seems to mold together well. Large, cleanly arranged icons are there for the most important functions, while new templates provide visually appealing spreadsheets and presentations.

Conclusion: improved all-round Office Suite

Microsoft Office Home & Student 2013s comes with many useful functions, which lets it be selectively used on touch screen devices. Unfortunately, the Office Suite is anything but tablet-friendly. Many selection elements and options are too small for untrained fingers.

Other features of Microsoft Office Home & Student 2013 are, however, far more convincing: the PDF editor offers greatly improved options for collaborative editing, there is cloud integration with Skydrive, and extras such as embedding YouTube videos, are great innovations.