2013-08-26

Personally, I really like the Office Web Apps feature and always recommend it to our customers. I would like to share the five top reasons to use the Office Web Apps:

  1. Search and document preview and deep refiner
  2. Tablets
  3. No local Office client needed
  4. Speed
  5. Creating new Office documents in the browser

Let’s take a closer look!

Search and document preview and deep refiner


A preview of an Office document is visible in a document library or search results. The end user can see immediately whether this is the correct document through the option to zoom in and out of the document. This saves precious time! The above screenshot shows a header called Take a look inside. The first five chapters of the Word document are clickable and directly open the document corresponding to the selected chapter. This feature also exists for PowerPoint presentations.

Tablets

A requirement for working with Office Web Apps in SharePoint 2010 was an installation of Microsoft Silverlight. On an iPad or Android tablet it isn’t possible to install Silverlight. This was an obstacle to the use of SharePoint 2010 on an iPad or Android tablet (without third party apps). The 2013 version of Office Web Apps is no longer based on Silverlight. This means that Android tablets and the iPad can open and edit documents using the local browser. This supports the use of Bring Your Own Device and working with mobile devices at the workplace.

No local Office client needed

Since an Office document using the OWA opens in the browser, an end user doesn’t need to have a local Office client. The end user can open an Office document from any location (home PC, tablet, Internet cafe). There are also no restrictions based at the Office version. You can open a 2007, 2010 or 2013 Office document in the browser.

Speed

Opening an Office document via the browser is much faster than opening an Office document in the local Office client.

Creating new Office documents in the browser


SharePoint 2013 in combination with Office Web Apps makes it possible to create new Office documents with the browser. Office documents are directly stored in a document library. In SharePoint 2010 you had to choose one Office template while creating a document library, in SharePoint 2013 all templates are available.

In SharePoint 2013 you need a separate server to install the Office Web Apps. A previous post of mine contains more cool features of the Office Web Apps. You can click here.

Hope you find this post useful, don’t hesitate to leave any feedback.

About the author 

Jasper Oosterveld

My name is Jasper Oosterveld and I live in Amsterdam with my wife Katie, our daughter Flora and our dog Millie. I have been working with SharePoint since 2007 as a SharePoint Consultant. In my role as SharePoint Consultant I support customers with the process of implementing SharePoint. Collaborating in the SharePoint and Office 365 community is a passion of mine. I speak regularly at SharePoint and Office 365 community events such as DIWUG, Office 365 User Group, SharePoint and Office 365 Saturday, SharePoint Connections and the European SharePoint Conference.