Comment by Closi
5 years ago
> Is there a real difference between the classic MS office applications, though?
Yes, there absolutely is.
You can create a document with styled text in Excel instead of Word, just as you can edit a photo in Paint instead of Photoshop. You can do it, but the two tools have dramatically different capabilities.
It's important to think about developing for use-cases otherwise we will end up with overly complex software that aims to be all-things to all-people.
> overly complex software that aims to be all-things to all-people
This is exactly what I believe the current state of the MS Office applications to be.
The interface and/or implementation isn't always ideal for the purpose you would generally use a specific app for, but the functionality is there.
> dramatically different capabilities
Embedding a fully functional Excel spreadsheet is only a few clicks through the ribbon and some frustration away in Outlook, Word, and even PowerPoint.
> Embedding a fully functional Excel spreadsheet is only a few clicks through the ribbon and some frustration away in Outlook, Word, and even PowerPoint.
This is effectively opening a reduced version of excel in a very limited way, primarily for embedding one document in another and allowing limited editing. You don’t get the full functionality of the other application.
I can see why I would want to change the axis on a graph even after I have pasted it into my email, but why would I want one app to be both my spreadsheet and my email inbox?
Are you a user of office suite? I spend about 70% of my work life between excel, PowerPoint and Word and have never once wanted them to be one app, but quite often have wanted better integration.
Perversely you /can/ use simple formulas (sum,average, etc) natively in Word tables. Thankfully I’ve never come across a document where someone was mad enough to do anything much with it.