Skypify Your MS Office Documents
Over the past two years, Skype has developed, under the leadership of Peter Kalmstrom, Program Manager for Skype Toolbars, several utilities which facilitate the Skype experience when used in conjunction with email, web browsers and various Microsoft Office documents. The Skype Email Toolbar embeds Skype activity links into Outlook; the Skype Web Toolbars for both Firefox and Internet Explorer have been embedded into the Skype for Windows client installation. Finally the Skype Office Toolbar has recently been upgraded to cover the entire range of Office products: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Project and Visio. One challenge of developing the Office Toolbar has been the moving target of Office 2007 releases; however, now that it is officially released it is being reported that Office 2007 may be outselling Windows Vista.
The Skype Office Toolbar functions to:
Identify and tag phone numbers within a document: while associating them with any phone numbers in the authors' Skype Contacts.
Skypify Phone Numbers in an Office document such that right clicking on the document opens up a menu from which you can select an option for starting a call, sending an SMS message (the phone number is analyzed to determine if it is SMS-capable) and copying to your Outlook Contacts.
Provide a document author's Skype Call/Chat icons in the toolbar. All documents created in Office documents incorporationg and activating the Skype Office toolbar have the author's Skype Name embedded into the documents properties. As a result when a recipient with Skype installed opens the document s/he will be provided with Skype icons in the Toolbar to immediately launch a Skype call or chat, as desired, with the author.
Send the file directly out of the Office product to a Skype contact via Skype File Transfer via either the Skype Toolbar "Send File" Toolbar drop down item or via the File | Send To menu. This will bring up a list of Skype Contacts from which to select the recipient(s). This is a feature that will be found across all the Office documents and is perhaps the most used.
The Skype Office Toolbar is designed work with Office 2000/XP/2003 and 2007 under Windows and takes advantage of the newer Toolbar Ribbons characteristic of Office 2007.
Peter has prepared a complete 13-minute video showing all the features in action. Certainly well worth the time to review it and determine where you can use the Skype Office Toolbar in your daily routine. I think it is the "sleeper" of the Toolbars in terms of what is delivers across the complete range of Office products and documents as well as its potential for productivity enhancement.
Update: Peter has written about the Skype Office Toolbar on the Skype for Business blog.
Reference Posts
- Original Post on Skype Email Toolbar
- Skype Toolbars: Providing Contextual Access to Skype
- Eight Ways to File Transfer Using Skype
- Skype 3.0: I Don't "Dial" Phone Numbers".
- Remember "ET Call Home"? Now It's "Skype Call Home"
Tags: Skype, Skype Office Toolbar. MS Office, MS Word, Skype File Transfer, Peter Kalmstrom, Skype Email Toolbar, Skype Web Toolbar
Comments
I see simply a funny plugin that will cause more security concerns towards skype. On top of that it makes the whole ms outlook and ms office experience slow. I have had the same problem with skylook. Great applications, hoerai, hoerai, but has anybody thought about the security implications ? Or is this kind of concern minimized because something needs to be marketed...
Posted by: jan geirnaert | tropicaljantie | September 20, 2007 06:00 PM
Jan, two things. First, did you try the new Skype Office Toolbar on Office 2003 or 2007? On XP or Vista?
And what specific security concerns do you have about the Office integration that would be different from any other Skype plug-in?
Posted by: Phil Wolff | September 20, 2007 09:24 PM
very simple. linking your ms office document via a skype plugin to a black box like skype might not be the smartest of ideas. here is why ?
via dual login anybody who get's to your skype chat could start seeing what documents you exchange. skype is not a VPN-replacement, okay... the guys from verosee.com understood that after one year. but besides that. ask any IT-managers what p2p skype tunnel they would allow to sneak into their document-management (docs, xls etc...) just for the sake to skypefy them. corporations use other means to transport their documents. it's funny and skype-hip but serious companies will not simply start adding things like skype, plaxo, linkedin and other web 2.0. stuff to their documents which are private and confidential. reason is because you don't know what skype sees ont he matter of the traffic. i don't think a public chat/voip system is suitable for such things. of course some of us do what we like, since we are individuals, but not "just like that" in organizations that rules and procedures (for a reason).
Posted by: jan geirnaert | tropicaljantie | September 21, 2007 03:26 AM
Love you, Jan, but I have to call bullshit on this one. None of the concerns you raised about the office toolbar hold water.
First of all, you assume unauthorized access to a PC. That's not Skype's problem and certainly not related to this toolbar.
Second, the toolbar has nothing to do with "p2p". If an enterprise wants to lock down email, browser file transfers, IM file transfers and the like, Skype provides instructions for turning file transfer off at the administrator level. Skype is not only safer for file transfers, since the file exchanges are encrypted end-to-end, they are documented in a way that IT administrators can monitor. And Skype-transferred files don't get lost in spam filters or stored on intermediate servers.
I have no idea what VPN replacement has to do with anything; that happens a few layers down.
Back to my first question, about performance hits: is the new toolbar slower or faster than the older toolbar, and on which combinations of Office and Windows?
Frankly, I don't know how useful an Office toolbar will be; I'm no longer an intense, daily user. But I do know there's a burning demand for anything that saves time, helps connect you to the right people faster, and that you want these tools close when you need them. So for Skypers who live and die by their documents, presentations, and numbers, the Skype Office toolbars may be a gift.
Posted by: Phil Wolff | September 21, 2007 05:13 AM