Upcoming changes to Backstage in Office 2010 Beta this fall

Over at the Office 2010 Engineering Blog, they’ve given a sneak peak at what to expect from Office 2010 Beta Backstage view. A few tweaks and improvements are planned based on user feedback of the Technical Preview builds. They’ve also disclosed the fact that Office 2010 Beta will be available this fall.

Here’s a summary of the upcoming changes:

1. The Office button on the top left will be named the File button.
2. Back button in the backstage view will also be named as the File button.
3. Visual Update. A lot more white around in the Backstage view than in the technical preview. Here’s a screenshot of how it looks right now compared to the internal beta build shown above:

1. The save, open and close buttons are now located beneath the File button and the info button moved below them. Help button also makes a return in the Backstage view navigation pane.

1. Recently used documents can be accessed from the Quick Access Toolbar button which will open the Backstage view with Recent tab selected in the navigation pane. Not sure why it’s listed as a change for the Beta since it already works this way in the Technical Preview too. An addition is that you can now change the number of recent documents right from the Recent tab in Backstage.

For a more detailed walk through of these changes, visit the Microsoft Office 2010 Engineering Blog.