Following on from yesterday’s post on OneNote Web App, we’ve got the chance to take a look the Editing View of the Word Web App, currently disabled in the recently released Office Web Apps technical preview. Here’s a screenshot of it running in Windows Live SkyDrive:

 
(Note: Just like the screenshot of OneNote we posted yesterday, the document contents in the screenshot above had been edited because our own contents failed to load. But the Ribbon UI and everything else comes from the actual Web App.)

The Home tab in the Word Web App Editing View looks very similar to OneNote’s, also supporting functionalities such as basic text formatting, copy and paste, styles, as well as spell-checking. This is not surprising as we’ve learnt that the Word and OneNote Web Apps were built by the same team, and the fact that both Web Apps are built on the same “editing surface”.

And just like OneNote Web App, the Word Web App also allow you to insert tables, pictures, clip arts, and hyperlinks into your documents. However, what’s different is that the Word Web App does not have co-authoring capabilities, meaning that like the PowerPoint Web App, only one person can work on the document at any given time. Whether this would change in future versions we don’t know, but we certainly hope that it’ll support simultaneous co-authoring capabilities in the future! (After all, if Word and OneNote share the same “editing surface”, surely if OneNote can do it, Word can as well.)

From the screenshot of the File menu above, we found it quite strange that there isn’t a Print option in Word Web App’s Editing View. What this means is that to print a document directly from the Web App, you’ll need to return to Reading View to access the Print options. Of course, what we’ve shown here are all subject to change when it gets released to the public, so perhaps the Print mode might make a return by then (hopefully!).

We’ve also got a screenshot of Office 2010’s revamped Backstage view, showing the screen that now allows you to save your Office documents directly to your SkyDrive folders from the Office client, very neat! Have a look:

We just can’t wait for the next release of Office Web Apps! After all, the technical preview is missing two of the most exciting and useful Web Apps (Word and OneNote), so expect more to come soon! In the mean time, you can still try out the Excel and PowerPoint Web Apps at http://skydrive.live.com!