Microsoft has announced general availability of its new Office Suite application dubbed Sway that lets users create “interactive, web-based expression” of their ideas.
The Redmond said over one million people have visited Sway.com and over 175,000 people have requested invites to try Sway since the service was launched back in early October and that those numbers are growing by “thousands daily.’
Built on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, Sway allows users to create interactive and easy web shareable projects either through a normal web browser like Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Internet Explorer or through any desktop or smartphone app.
Dubbed as a Prezi competitor, the application enables users to make presentations by dragging and dropping photos, videos, and other files from OneDrive, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other built-in cloud-connected sources. The presentations are stored on the web, so users can access them from anywhere and at any time.
Unlike other Office suite applications like Word, Excel and Power Point, Sway doesn’t have a specific file extension as it is completely a web-based application. While users’ sways are stored in Microsoft’s Azure cloud, pictures and videos used to create Sways are saved in Microsoft’s OneDrive.
Apart from the launching the public version, Microsoft has also updated the Office Sway Preview with new features including undo and redo buttons to let users easily roll back if they make a mistake, bullets and auto-numbering, direct text editing on the canvas, easier reordering, enhancements to the color picker, PDF import and several more features following user requests.
Furthermore, the Redmond has expanded smartphone support for Sway to Australia. This means that the updated build of Sway for iPhone is now available for download in Australia as well as in New Zealand.
