Office Productivity Software

Computers could be considered as the biggest invention of the 20th century. This Technology Era has removed so many obstacles and pushed boundaries much farther. You can love it or hate it, but they have invaded our present and would continue to expand in the future. From simple computing operations to robotic science, much of mankind’s progress till date could be attributed to computers and its related technologies. The functionalities of the computers have grown leaps and bounds and we are discovering new necessities every passing day. This machine has a great impact in advancements of every field that we cared to venture upon. Several tasks that were considered as uphill and mundane before are reduced to a matter of just-a-few-clicks now. One such development that made this dream possible for human beings is the productivity software.

spreadsheet (1)The Productivity software, often called Office Suite, is an application program that is programmed to make operations related to creating and processing of information much easier. We can now manage huge amount of data and perform a variety of operations in just a few seconds. With many million downloads a day and so many office programs in the market, there is no dearth in the availability of options. Let us dive deeper and know more about office software’s functions and how it has managed to make our lives easier.

The multi-faceted program

Office Suites can perform an array of operations, each with many dimensions, thus providing you all the solutions for your office needs. A few programs such as Word Processors, Spreadsheets and Presentation creators are used widely than other programs like mailer, database software, note-takers, project management software etc. These programs have cross-linking and sharing capabilities which make them so powerful and efficient.

The Word Processor is a program such as Microsoft Word, iWork Pages, Google Docs etc. that lets you create a document with pictures, hyperlinks and graphics. It offers you full freedom to customize the layout, fonts, size etc.; helps you to correct the grammar and spelling mistakes in the documents; provides you with suggestions from dictionary and thesaurus and allows you to save in many formats to run across many platforms. Advanced word processors help multiple users to edit a single document at the same time, help to create table of contents, provide version control for a document and so on. The Word Processors are widely used by authors, editors, copy writers, and students for their everyday works.

The Spreadsheet is intelligent software that typically has many sheets with thousands of rows and columns. The main purpose of a spreadsheet is to allow a user to record and analyze data in a tabular format. These spreadsheets have made accounting and other calculations easier with their built-in formulae. All you have to do is enter data, choose a row for your answer and select the formula that you want to apply. Advanced spreadsheets allow users to enter their own formulae to scale its functions. We can also compare the data entered and produce an analysis report with a variety of graphs and charts. A spreadsheet is capable of much more functionalities that make it one of the best tools for an organization. This software is especially useful for data analysts and accountants. Examples of spreadsheets are Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, and iWork Numbers etc.

Presentation programs are designed to project your thoughts in a more intuitive and elegant way. This program has built-in layouts for slides that you can fill with the information you intend to present with pictures, graphs and animations. This software is very useful to create an effective visual aid for the students to learn. For businesses, this tool has become a necessity during meetings and brain-storming sessions. The presentations can be also be loaded with audio clippings and flash animations. When your presentation is equipped with interactive integrated hardware elements, you can project your information across many geographic locations.

The other products of productivity suites like email clients, desktop publishing software and personal information managers etc. are used by specific set of people for their business or academic requirements. The mailer software is used for sending and receiving of emails – from small groups to big enterprises. Note-taking programs are used to create and maintain notes from various sources. It also allows editing, analyzing and sharing of the notes. There are so much more programs that are tailored for personal use, thanks to the open source network.

The Audience

These office programs are particularly beneficial for the so-called “Knowledge Workers”. The knowledge workers can be students, doctors, engineers, data analysts, inventors or coders. This group consists of people from many streams of life whose day-to-day work involves processing of information. These programs evolve in order to meet the new challenges that they are exposed to everyday, thereby reducing time and increasing the efficiency. They need data and they need it in the way they can easily understand and process. These office suites are designed with them as the target beneficiaries.

Another group of users are the businessmen. They need information everyday to introspect and grow. In the age where information is considered to be the wealth, no wonder they consider these programs as God-sent. They use many office programs such as spreadsheets, presentation, note-taker etc. The dynamic nature of their industries goes well with the dynamic capabilities of these applications.

The Future

With the technology moving towards smaller and more compact models, smart phones and tablets have almost replaced the computers. Subsequently, these application programs are designed to work effortlessly in all these platforms. With many new service providers entering the market every day, the necessity to scale and fit has become inevitable for every technology. Another major enhancement that has been recently added to all these programs is the cloud-share capability for storing and sharing of information on the go. While we cannot accurately predict the next big thing in this industry, we can still say that we are equipped with technologies that can evolve, fit and work efficiently in any given scenario.