Microsoft Publisher 2010

Microsoft Office 2010 contains a suite of tools, several of which are frequently used in desktop publishing projects. Specifically, Publisher 2010, Word 2010, and PowerPoint 2010 are associated with typical desktop publishing projects including brochures, newsletters, letterhead, fliers, calendars, slide shows, and Web pages. For some individuals and small businesses, it's all the in-house desktop publishing power they need.

Microsoft Office 2010 is expected to be available on retail shelves in Spring 2010. This is also the first Office suite to come in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

Pricing is to be announced.

The primary desktop publishing application in the Office suite is Publisher. It is available in the Professional Plus, Professional, and Standard editions of Office 2010.

Professional Plus
(Only available via volume licensing) includes:

• Excel
• Outlook with Business Contact Manager
• PowerPoint
• Word
• Access
• InfoPath
• Communicator
• Publisher 2010
• OneNote (new to suite)
• SharePoint Workspace (new to suite)
• Web Apps
• Integrated solution capabilities such as enterprise content management (ECM), electronic forms, and information rights and policy capabilities

Professional
includes:

• Excel
• Outlook
• PowerPoint
• Word
• Access
• Publisher 2010
• OneNote (new to suite)

Standard
(Only available via volume licensing) includes:

• Excel
• Outlook
• PowerPoint
• Word
• Publisher 2010 (new to suite)
• OneNote (new to suite)
• Web Apps

Home and Business
(new) includes:

• Excel
• Outlook
• PowerPoint
• Word
• OneNote

Home and Student
(for non-commercial use) includes:

• Excel
• PowerPoint
• Word
• OneNote

System requirements: Windows XP SP3/Vista/7; 500MHz processor; 256MB memory; 1.5GB Hard disk (some space can be freed up after installation). If you can run Office 2007, you should be able to run Office 2010.

The Office Web Apps will offer free browser-based, stripped-down editions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote and will also be released at the same time as the desktop suite. Web Apps require SharePoint 2010 (in Professional Plus) or a Windows Live account. Designed to work with Internet Explorer, Safari, and Firefox these apps give users access to their files from a Smartphone or computer with Internet connection.

Information on what is and isn't changing is somewhat more plentiful for Word and PowerPoint than for Publisher. From a desktop publishing perspective, here are some of the features, improvements, and non-changes you can look forward to exploring.

The Ribbon -- new and improved over the Office 2007 versions -- is now in all the Office 2010 applications, including Publisher. The Ribbon can be customized with custom tabs to fit the way you work.

The Office button/menu now gives you Backstage View. This is also where you go to open, save, share, and print documents and access templates from Microsoft and from others who have shared their templates through Microsoft Online. Options in Backstage View are things you do with your documents (print/share) as opposed to things you do to your documents (write/format/edit).

You can now take screenshots from within Word 2010 and insert them into your documents with a click of the Screenshot button on the Ribbon. This feature is not part of Publisher. Get a preview of Screenshot in Word 2010.

While the improved photo editing features aren't likely to sway diehard Photoshop users, for others the ability to edit images and apply artistic effects -- including thumbnail effects previews -- from within Word, Excel, and PowerPoint will be a welcome addition. Video editing features include trimming, fades, and reflections. You can also embed videos within PowerPoint.

Ah, but what about Publisher? It seems those photo editing features won't be a part of Publisher 2010. Here's the explanation posted on the Microsoft Office Publisher Blog by Janet Schorr, Publisher Lead Program Manager at Microsoft:

"All of the new graphics effects introduced last release in Powerpoint, Excel, and Word are the result of a new graphics engine. Integrating a new graphics engine is a huge undertaking, particularly in page layout applications like Publisher, where everything you see on the page requires the graphics engine to edit, display, and print correctly. With the Ribbon, Backstage, workspace, pictures and typography work in Publisher 2010, this feature just didn't make the cut for us this time.

Get a preview of the Artistic Effects in Word 2010. Get a preview of the Background Removal Tool in Word 2010.

So, the photo editing improvements for Office didn't make it into Publisher 2010. Well, what has changed? In addition to getting the Ribbon and Office button and sharing a common look and feel with the rest of the Office 2010 suite, there are also a few Publisher-specific improvements.

Workspace

• New visual page navigation with nice sized page / spread thumbnail previews
• Template layouts preserved when substituting, cropping, or otherwise manipulating images in a template
• Object outlines only appear on hover or when an object is selected
• Page margin guides can appear as you drag the edge of an object near them and then disappear when not needed
• Automatic alignment guides that only appear when relevant

Images/Type

• Picture manipulation improvements including picture insertion, alignment, panning, cropping
• Text formatting improvements including ligatures (with OpenType fonts - also in Word 2010) and Stylistic text -- with previews (for adding flourishes)

Printing/Sharing

• Print preview is no longer a separate feature, it's integrated into the Print functions in the Backstage View
• Print preview lets you 'flip' 2-sided documents to see more easily how it will print on each side
• Backstage View is where you'll also find the commands for saving Publisher files as PDF or XPS and commercial printing options

Watch Publisher 2010 in Action

• Microsoft Publisher 2010 From Microsoft. See the interface and some of the features such as the Stylistic text.
• Microsoft Publisher 2010 Sneak Peek From a user. No sound. See the different tabs on the ribbon and use of the Backstage View to select a template and save the file.
• Publisher 2010 Screenshots From a user. No sound. Series of screenshots.

Information on improvements and new features of Microsoft Office 2010 and its individual applications is based on statements from Microsoft, its employees, and users of the Beta and Technical Preview versions of the Office 2010 Suite and may be subject to change or modification in the actual release.

Sources:
^{http://www.microsoft.com/office/2010/
http://blogs.msdn.com/microsoft_office_publisher/archive/2009/07/13/the-publisher-technical-beta-is-released.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/microsoft_office_publisher/archive/2009/07/15/giving-feedback-on-publisher-2010.aspx
http://www.word-2010.com/
http://www.off14.com/new-microsoft-office-2010-page/
http://pcworld.about.com/od/office2/How-Office-2010-Beta-Stacks-Up.htm
http://pcworld.about.com/od/office2/Microsoft-Office-2010-A-Simpl.htm}