Office suites are also known as

Microsoft Office Suite, also known as Microsoft 365, is one of the most widely used computer software packages. More than one million companies from around the world use Microsoft 365, which includes applications like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. No matter what Industry you work in, chances are you’ll use at least one of these apps on a regular basis. If you want a transferable skill that also makes you marketable to employers, take the time to learn the full suite. It will help you do your job more efficiently, be a better employee, and make you feel like you’re a regular technological wizard.

Here are the reasons you need to know Microsoft 365:

You’ll Use Microsoft Office in Any Job

No matter where you work, you’ll probably come across Microsoft 365. The Microsoft Office Suite is so common that there are versions compatible with both Windows and iOS. Once you learn how to navigate the suite, you’ll have a skill that you’ll be able to take with you to any job in almost any industry.

Microsoft Applications Continue to Evolve

Bill Gates announced the debut of the Microsoft Office Suite back in 1988, and the software has continued to evolve ever since. Now the suite includes applications like OneNote, Publisher, Access, and Teams—and who knows what applications may be introduced in the future. What does this mean for you? That now is a great time to learn how to use Microsoft 365! Once you develop your Suite skills, you’ll be able to keep up with the added features and updates. And you’ll also feel more comfortable with what comes down the line when Microsoft rolls out something new.

Microsoft Office Helps You Communicate with Co-Workers

Microsoft offers a variety of communication tools that improve collaboration with your co-workers. Outlook is its email service and is commonly used by businesses to send emails and schedule meetings. Over the past year, many businesses also started using Teams, which offers an instant messaging chat feature as well as video conferencing tools. It also allows team members to share and co-author documents with each other.

Microsoft Tools Enhance Productivity and Collaboration

Because of the tools that Microsoft 365 offers, you no longer have to draw a graph or write out a memo by hand. You can enter data into Excel and it will create a sleek-looking graph for you. You can use a Word or Publisher template to create a professional report, or a PowerPoint template to create a presentation. You can also make edits, track changes, add notes, and share files directly from the apps for easier collaboration.

If you want a career in business, you’ll want to become a Microsoft Office Suite expert. Not sure how to start? Check out the business career training programs at Charter College. We’ll not only teach you all you need to know about modern business software; we’ll teach you the hard and soft skills you need to become a business professional.

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An ‘Office Suite’ – also known as ‘Office Software Suite’ or ‘Productivity Suite’ – is nothing but a collection of programs that improve the productivity (hence the name) of the user. Office productivity software really is just the sum of its parts. If you’ve ever used a word processing program, spreadsheet application software or a presentation making software, you already have experience working with productivity software. And this is true for most of us – because in this day and age, working without these applications is almost impossible. They might not seem to be the most exciting software on the market, but they’re absolutely indispensable – be it for organisations, corporations or individuals. Be it for work, school or any other venture, the applications in your office software suites are extremely crucial since you’re likely to use them day in and day out. To give you a gist, even this article is being typed out on word processing software.

AN INTRODUCTION TO OFFICE SUITES

While most of us would be familiar with this class of software, there are still many aspects that remain unknown. Let’s find out more.

An ‘Office Suite’ – also known as ‘Office Software Suite’ or ‘Productivity Suite’ – is nothing but a collection of programs that improve the productivity (hence the name) of the user. Office productivity software really is just the sum of its parts. If you’ve ever used a word processing program, spreadsheet application software or a presentation making software, you already have experience working with productivity software. And this is true for most of us – because in this day and age, working without these applications is almost impossible. They might not seem to be the most exciting software on the market, but they’re absolutely indispensable – be it for organisations, corporations or individuals. Be it for work, school or any other venture, the applications in your office software suites are extremely crucial since you’re likely to use them day in and day out. To give you a gist, even this article is being typed out on word processing software. Among a few possible uses of office software is its ability to draft a letter, make a presentation, write a report or create a budget. Considering that the software is employed not only by offices, but also by schools, families and individuals – the name, Office Suite is somewhat a misnomer, and hence the term ‘Productivity Suite’ might be more apt to describe such a software package.

So which software would you find in a typical office suite? Though the features could differ in each suite, (almost) every credible productivity suite includes some basic applications. Other applications, though not a staple of every suite, are still important inclusions in many available office suites.

Basic applications include:

• Word processing software
• Spreadsheet building software
• Presentation creating software

Other applications include:

• Database manager
• Email client
• Publishing platform
• Project management software
• Collaboration software
We’ll cover the important features and details of some of these applications in the next chapter. As a primer, let us explain just the basics of what each application does.

Word processing software

‘Word processing’ is the act of typing, editing and printing textual/graphical information using a word processor. In the olden days, this was done mechanically using a typewriter. Typewriters are now slowly becoming extinct, and almost everyone does word processing electronically through their computers. The biggest advantage of this shift is the quick and easy creation of error-free documents thanks to the rewrite option, conspicuous by its absence in mechanical word processors. Sometimes abbreviated as WP, a word processor is capable of creating, storing and printing documents that can be saved for modification later and accessed from any other computer using the same word processor. A word processor shouldn’t be confused with a text editor. The latter only allows editing and creation of plain text documents. Word processors usually come with features such as password protection for files, track changes and grammar checking abilities.

Spreadsheet software

A ‘spreadsheet’, technically, is a table of values arranged in rows and columns with each value having a possibility of having a predefined relationship with other values. Spreadsheet applications (usually referred to simply as spreadsheets) are computer programs that simulate physical spreadsheets by capturing, displaying, and manipulating data arranged in rows and columns. In a spreadsheet application, each value resides in a cell, which is at the intersection of the corresponding column and row.

Apache OpenOffice spreadsheet

The spreadsheet is one of the most popular uses of the personal computer. In fact, it has been deemed to be the original killer app for personal computers – early spreadsheet programs were largely responsible for the growth in popularity and usage of computers as business tools. Thanks to their ability to perform mathematical operations, spreadsheets are often used to store financial data. Spreadsheets are also used to include graphing or charting data for identifying trends, or to sort and filter data to find specific information.

LibreOffice impress - a presentation application

Presentation software

Presentation software allows you to create (No prizes for guessing!) presentations. They help to create sequences of words and pictures that act as visual aid, help tell a story, support a speech etc. during a public presentation. Before presentation software reigned supreme, presenters would take the aid of large flip charts or blackboards to present information to their audiences. This limited the amount of information that could be displayed, and wasn’t as visually appealing, or were extremely tedious to make. With presentation software however, even a layman can create a presentation with charts, graphic images, animations and multimedia files to help get the speaker’s point across. The speaker also has the freedom to move around the place, since he isn’t forced to stay in front of the slideshow to change it physically. An absolutely integral part of every business, presentations is also used by students and teachers to aid them during their projects/seminars. The software’s ease of use is its biggest advantage – one of the main reasons why most blackboards are being replaced by projector screens these days.

Database management systems

Databases are a powerful and convenient way to organise information. Using tables, they offer an organised mechanism for storing, managing and retrieving information. Spreadsheet users will already be accustomed to storing data in tabular form, and will find it easy to make the switch to databases.

MS Access - Microsof Office’s Database software

Similar to spreadsheet tables, database tables consist of rows and columns, with each column containing a different attribute and each row corresponding to a single record. However, though they might seem to be mighty similar, databases are much more powerful than spreadsheets. Spreadsheets might be more streamlined than databases, but they generally don’t offer the ability to structure and label data items as fully as a database;

neither do they allow you to query a database. Databases allow you to update records in bulk, cross-reference records in different tables and retrieve all records that match certain criteria – all extremely tough or impossible functions in a spreadsheet.

Email client

An email client is a computer application capable of accessing and managing your emails. The application runs on your desktop and enables you to send, receive and organise your email. It’s called a client because this email system is based on client-server architecture. The clients send the mail to a central server, which re-routes the mail to its intended destination. Typically, email clients require an email address to be set up and configured before users can start using their email services through the client. The client is activated when a user runs it.

From then onwards, whenever you want to create and send mail, the email client will automatically handle the task by linking to your email account. Email clients often include scheduling calendars and/ or a task-monitoring system.

Publishing platform

Printing of documents and images require them to first be ‘published’. Before computers became commonplace, the publishing process required huge printing presses that copied and duplicated pages. The text and graphics would have to be printed out separately, placed on a single sheet, taped in place, copied and then printed. Luckily, computers with Graphical User Interfaces allow this entire process to be done electronically. Though the term is commonly used to refer to professional publishing, technically any occasion you use a computer to create a printable document, it can be considered ‘desktop publishing’. Documents such as newsletters, brochures, books, web pages, greeting cards, business cards, letterheads and signage are all created using desktop publishing software. There was a time when desktop publishing was exclusively about printing. Now however, it includes publishing documents as PDFs or e-books and publishing to blogs and design websites. It also includes designing content for multiple platforms such as smartphones and tablets. So what started off primarily for print

purposes, can now be explained as the assembly of digital files for both, printing and electronic distribution. The advancements in word processors have blurred the line between them and desktop publishing software, and while some may argue that this combined with the decline of print media spells doom for desktop publishing, desktop publishing is still relevant and can handle both, print and online presence of organisations – something that web design can’t handle alone.

Project management software

Unlike individual planners, project management software is meant for organisations to manage large-scale projects from start to finish, while allowing employees at different levels to contribute their input in the process. Project management as a concept began in the world of Engineering and Construction. Large-scale projects required management to see through the completion of the entire project. Project management techniques such as PERT and CPM started came to the fore, and this was the advent of multiple project management techniques.

Google Docs - an online office suite

Inevitably, these techniques and software were intertwined to automate the whole management process. All project management software caters to the primary functions of project management – planning, scheduling, resource allocation, communication and documentation. They can help create and assign tasks, track time for all tasks, notify about deadlines and status reports and provide updatable calendars to include scheduled meetings, dates and contacts. Today, a plethora of PC, browser and client based project management software exist and has become an integral part of almost all types of businesses.

Collaboration software

Collaboration, about a couple of decades ago, would have meant sitting together around a table, and pooling in all your resources to brainstorm over an idea. Today, however the definition has taken a drastic turn. Collaboration today relies mainly on technology, not on proximity. Workers today are always on the run, and with time being a scarce resource, productivity cannot be compromised for issues such as travel. This radical change in the pace of the business world has led to a clear-cut demand for collaboration software, which enables people to stay connected and work together on projects from any location on nearly any device. Before documents could be shared electronically, collaborating on documents would require manual transfer to and from different parties until the consolidated version was created. Collaboration software is an umbrella term for a wide variety of products, as technically any software that helps with communication, conferencing or co-ordination can be termed collaboration software. Collaboration software usually encompasses anything from email to discussion boards to document management, project management, intranet, workflow tools, and even instant messaging. Some collaboration suites offer you a collection of multiple individual collaboration tools, offering a single one-stop solution.

Now that we’re done explaining the basics of a generic productivity suite, let’s check out the various alternatives that are up for grabs in the market. There’s no shortage in the number of productivity suites available with literally hundreds of options, but undoubtedly the most popular is Microsoft Office. One of the primary reasons for this is that most of the computers in the world (more than 85%) run on the popular Windows Operating System. And since Microsoft Office is the apex office suite available for Windows, it’s obvious why it’s the number one choice for almost all Windows users. In addition, most of these computers come with full or trial versions of the software pre-installed upon buying them, making it the obvious go-to for most consumers. Nevertheless, to choose the best productivity suite you’d need to first gauge your own requirements. You may find programs from a particular company to be better suited to your needs. And then there’s the question of availability. Different professions may demand different functional abilities from their productivity software, which might be available only in a few. Some of the most popular productivity suites are listed below:

• Microsoft Office 2013 or Office 365 (Windows)
• Kingsoft Office (Windows, Android, Linux)
• Apache Open Office (Previously Openoffice.org) (Mac, Windows, Linux – Open Source)

Microsoft Excel, arguably the best spreadsheet application around

• Libre Office (Mac, Windows, Linux – Open Source)
• Google Docs (Cloud)
• Zoho (Cloud)
• ThinkFree (Cloud, Android)
• NeoOffice (Mac OSX)

Part of the challenge of developing productivity software is creating features that are easy to use and novel. Users can be very picky about certain features necessitating intuitive features which shouldn’t take too much effort getting used to.

We’ve seen a trend of some companies choosing to create Open Source software while others stick to their proprietary software. The latest trend is the gradual shift towards online productivity suites from traditional desktop software. Which of these tools is likely to work better for you? Let’s find out...

Features

First up, let’s look at the differences in features of both, online productivity suites and desktop productivity suites. Most traditional office suites have developed a bunch of advanced features over the years, and organisations that have gotten used to them will find them hard to replace. Online tools might work okay with standard documents such as reports, memos, presentations etc. but they don’t offer the more sophisticated features of their desktop counterparts. Features such as easy formatting or detailed control over fonts - stuff many tech savvy users usually rely on - wouldn’t necessarily be present online. In general, desktop applications can be typecast to be more robust than their online counterparts. No online office suite will give you the complete functionality of an installed suite. However, it can provide all the basic features an average user might need and then some. And if you aren’t sure whether or not an online suite is right for you, just upload a document and check out whether it includes all the features that you’re comfortable with.

Access & Compatibility

One attractive aspect of online suites is the fact that you can access them from any computer connected to the internet. This is a huge advantage, since you can access and work on your information from anywhere with an internet connection. So as long as you have a relatively decent internet connection, you should be good to go. Most web service applications are interoperable across multiple platforms, thus giving them an edge when it comes to compatibility.

NeoOffice Writer

With desktop suites, even across the same brand of computers, compatibility issues might arise due to frequent updates or software upgradation in phases – so one part of an organisation might work with software one or two versions behind the others (as it often happens with .doc and .docx). Web services, on the other hand, don’t face this problem since the service provider updates functionality uniformly. The reliance on internet, however, pops up one negative: you’re heavily dependent on the online vendor to stay up and running – if it goes down, there’s nothing you can do except wait for the service to be restored.

Security

In terms of security, both offline and online suites are generally secure. Traditional office suite files are as secure as your computer already is. They should generally be safe if you have a good firewall in place and password protection for your computer. Online docs – being password protected as well – are generally safe from prying eyes. However, you can never be too safe, and extremely sensitive information such as credit card information merits additional security. It’s better not to store such information online.

If you’re a conspiracy theorist and believe that the entire internet is being monitored by the NSA or aliens alike, then it’s better you stay away from online tools as they’re likely not the choice for you.

Interface

There’s no doubt that overall, traditional office suites are visually more appealing. But online suites are not far behind and are now being based on Java to amplify their visual appeal as well. When it comes to interface though, familiarity is the key. Users usually take to software that they find familiar and intuitive. Microsoft Office, being the traditional favourite, has been emulated in the interface of many office suites. This is a definite selling point for these software.

Cost

While cost might not be a huge problem for organisations, it usually is for most individuals. Many online suites are considerably much cheaper, or even free in some cases. That’s the starting point for everything you need to know about productivity suites. Hang on tight as we move on to explore office suites in detail.

What is an example of an office suite?

What are productivity suites called?

What are three popular office suites?

What are the office suites commonly used in business?