Office Live Workspace is Microsoft's web office extension to their desktop-based MS Office applications such as MS Excel, MS Word and PowerPoint. At first glance, the service looks similar to Google Docs, but it is not. This article will walk you through the basics of using Office Live Workspace.
Contributed by Codex-M Rating: / 2 October 01, 2009
If you're curious about the differences between Google Docs and Office Live Workspace, you can learn more at the link.
Now the question is, as a Microsoft Office user, how can you get the most out of Office Live Workspace? If you are interested in learning about this, keep reading.
What you need first
You need to own MS Office before you can use Office Live Workspace. You need to have this because Office Live Workspace is just a "free documents online and file sharing storage" service from Microsoft, as opposed to Google Docs which is a complete online office suite.
What this means is that you cannot create documents online with Live Workspace as opposed to Google Docs. You cannot even edit online with Live Workspace UNLESS you have MS Office installed on your computer. However, there is an obvious advantage to using Office Live Workspace, which will be discussed later in this tutorial.
Another thing that you need before you can start Office Live Workspace is to have Windows Live account. If you do not have, you can visit the Office Live Workspace site and sign up for a new Live account by clicking "Get started now."
After logging in at this URL, you will see the Office Live Workspace dashboard, which should look like this:
The heart of Office Live Workspace is what we call "Workspaces." This is analogous to an office cabinet. Of course, you cannot mix documents belonging to different applications; the same thought applies with workspaces. You can, but it would be a confusing office environment for you. It is highly recommended that you have different workspaces for different types of document applications. For example you have a workspace for work, office, home, hobbies, etc.
To create a workspace, follow the steps below:
Step 1: In the Office Live Workspace dashboard, click "Create a workspace now."
Step 2: Office Live Workspace will then ask you to select what type of workspace you are going to create. Your choices include "class workspace," "Essay workspace," "Household workspace" and so forth. Microsoft provides descriptions of each workspace type.
Let's assume you are going to use Office Live Workspace to share MS documents with project team mates. So the best type would be a "Project Workspace."
Step 3: Give your Workspace an appropriate name to make it easy for you to organize your workspaces if and when you eventually have many of them. So in our example, we will name it "Project Website Revision."
Step 4: Accurately describe your workspace. With a good workspace name and an accurate description, it will be easier and faster for your teammates to share documents.
At this point, your workspace creation is complete. Microsoft offers user-friendly templates (using MS documents, of course) relevant to your workspace type. Since we selected project type, relevant documents are shown, such as Project notes, Project Proposal, Project schedule, etc.
To revise the workspace name and description, just click the name and description, and you can edit them. See the screen shot below for the "Project Website Revision" workspace after creation.
After creating a workspace, you can start editing and adding documents to it. So for example, you can revise the content of "Project Proposal" as shown in the screen shot on the previous page.
All you need to do is click the link "Project Proposal" under the column name. The next thing you will see is the exact content of the proposal. Note that this is a Word document, because when you see the edit icon it uses a MS Word icon.
To edit it, click the EDIT icon. Depending on how your Windows and Live accounts are set up, it will most likely pop up a message like "Downloading from codexm.workspace.office.live.com." Since you cannot edit right on the Microsoft servers using Office Live Workspace, you need to click "OK" to edit this document on your desktop.
After clicking OK, again depending on how your Windows and Live account are set up, it might ask you to "Add a .NET Passport to your Windows XP user account." Microsoft is very strict about privacy, so they require that you have this feature enabled in order to protect documents during the download process, as well as your privacy, when visiting websites.
According to the .NET passport support page, they have a "very powerful encryption technology and comprehensive privacy policies" for protecting information and your logins.
Just follow the user-friendly procedure by clicking "NEXT" and then entering your Live email username and password. You may choose not to associate your email identity with your Windows account.
After successfully creating your .NET passport, Office Live Workspace will let you download the file. It will open automatically within your installed copy of MS Word, right on your local Windows XP computer.
At this point, you can edit the Project proposal in MS Word. After editing it, you will save it back to your Office workspace. To do this, click the "SAVE" button on your MS Word. It will save the document directly to your workspace online. See screen shot below:
One of the biggest problems when working with MS documents in other online file storing and sharing systems like Google Docs is compatibility. Below is a simple diagram of this problem:
Original File created on Desktop -> Uploaded to Google docs (shared with others) -> downloaded to Desktop
It has been observed that the file downloaded to the desktop differs significantly (especially the formatting) from the original MS Word formatting.
So for example, in this scenario, if you are working with a lot of MS Word Documents, you will spend a lot of time revising the MS Documents when it is downloaded to the desktop. This revision can consume a lot of time, which affects office and team productivity.
Using Office Live Workspace, you can maintain the formatting of your MS documents, whether they are online, offline or being shared with your teammates. Below is a diagram of what is it like to use Office Live Workspace:
Original File created on Desktop -> Uploaded to Office Live Workspace -> Download/Edited in Desktop
Below is a sample screen shot of the formatting differences of an MS Word Document downloaded from Google docs and Office Live Workspace.
The formatting of the document processed under Live Workspace is untouched and retains the original document formatting, whereas the one edited and downloaded from Google Docs differs significantly.
What About Sharing?
In the Live Workspace Dashboard on the left part, look for the name of the workspace under "My Workspaces." Click it and then click the "Share" icon. You can invite your teammates by entering their email addresses. You can also customize their access; for example, you can let everyone view the workspace without needing to sign in.
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