16 Features: Microsoft Office Web Apps

15. Timeout Refresh

Microsoft finally launches a rough version of the long anticipated Office Web Apps. How does it stack up against Google Docs and other Web software?

When you’re working in the Office Web apps, the browser tab you have open has a live connection back to the Windows Live service. As long as you’re working on your document, this stays open and the changes you make are saved in the background (although to make sure it’s best to close the document from the ribbon or the Office menu rather than just closing the tab). If you leave the tab open without making any changes for awhile, the connection to Windows Live will close and you’ll see this warning. Click Refresh and your document will usually open again as normal, although we did see some errors if we’d left the document open for a long time. Click Close and the Office Web app will save any unsaved changes and close the tab, but this can take longer than you expect.

It’s another way in which the Office Web apps are definitely a preview of what’s to come. You could certainly use them to check files or make basic changes on the road but you don’t get as many features as Google Docs yet–and there’s no comparison to any version of the desktop Office apps.