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Office 2013, SkyDrive, and the Office Web Apps

  • May 20, 2013
Steve Schwartz shows you how to use Windows Live SkyDrive and Office Web Apps to do your Microsoft Office computing in the cloud.
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In January 2010, Microsoft launched Windows Live SkyDrive, providing free online file storage to anyone with a Windows Live or Hotmail account. (Currently, each account has 7 GB of storage to use as you see fit.) Later in 2010, the new Office Web Apps were rolled out. Unlike Microsoft Office, the Office Web Apps aren’t programs that are installed on your computer. They reside on Microsoft servers. Using them is an example of cloud computing.

Using SkyDrive storage and the Office Web Apps individually or together, you can do the following:

  • Use SkyDrive to store backup copies of Office and non-Office documents.
  • Create and edit Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or OneNote documents using Internet Explorer, Safari, or FireFox—even without having an installed copy of Office on the current computer
  • Save and open files on SkyDrive from within Office 2013 (and earlier versions), treating SkyDrive as another hard drive
  • Share selected folders or documents and allow collaborative editing

Creating an Account

SkyDrive is the repository for the Office files you’ll be creating, editing, and sharing with Office and/or with the Office Web Apps. Whenever you use SkyDrive, you must log in to Windows Live. If you haven’t registered, you can gain access by creating a free Hotmail or Windows Live account at www.hotmail.com or www.live.com, respectively.

TIP

✔ A Windows Live or Hotmail account has advantages in addition to gaining SkyDrive access. For instance, you can send and receive email from the account using a browser and Outlook (the mail component) or using an email client such as Microsoft Outlook 2013 (see Chapter 16).

TIP

✔ Because Hotmail is much older than Windows Live, most simple words and combinations have already been claimed as user names. You may find, however, that a user name that’s unavailable in Hotmail is yours for the asking in Windows Live.

TIP

✔ If the user name you want is already in use, try combining it with some numbers. For instance, although samjones, sam_jones, and sam-jones may already have been assigned, chances are much better that samjones729 is available.

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Last Update: November 17, 2020