Microsoft has already announced that a preview version of Office 2013 will be a part of all Windows RT-based devices, including Microsoft's own Surface tablet. Microsoft will automatically update Office 2013 to the final version sometime in early 2013. Today, Microsoft has offered up some new information on how one part of the Office 2013 software package, Word 2013, will work with Windows RT.
In a post on the official Word blog, Microsoft says that when a user of a Windows RT device stops using Word 2013 for a certain time period, it goes into a mode known as "deep idle", which puts the software in a battery conservation mode. Microsoft says, " ... when you interact with Word again, it’ll throttle up instantly to give you the great responsiveness that you crave."
Word 2013 will also be optimized to make sure it uses as little memory as possible on a Windows RT tablet. Microsoft says:
More specifically, Word releases 10% to 35% of its private memory usage whenever the user minimizes Word or fully obscures Word with another application. We call this “Low Resource Mode” (aka LRM), which is actually an Office-wide feature that is implemented for each Office application. Word and LRM are doing a great service here by preemptively releasing memory on our terms without sacrificing the user experience. Without LRM in play, the user is at greater risk for running low on memory and triggering expensive OS paging behaviors that can lead to indiscriminate user pain across multiple applications.
Finally, Microsoft wanted to make sure that typing on Word 2013 on a Windows RT touch screen was seamless, along with scrolling through a Word document. We will learn a lot more about Office 2013 on Windows RT when the first such devices are launched on October 26th.
Source: Word blog | Image via Microsoft
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