Microsoft has announced a new application called Sway. It will become part of the Office family which currently includes the likes of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. Sway is a web presentation application which will blend other Office apps into a platform for presenting ideas, going far beyond a traditional document.
The rich content creation tool can turn any browser into a digital canvas which can be filled by the user and is not limited to a single file type or format. It will allow even non-technical users to design websites and online content from images, text, videos, GIFs or tables with ease. The app's built-in algorithms will work their magic and determine the best layout to present the information and organise the content automatically into that layout.
"It’s a new way for you to create a beautiful, interactive, web-based expression of your ideas, from your phone or browser," Microsoft's Sway Team wrote in a blog post. "It is easy to share your creation and it looks great on any screen."
The app will even choose the relevant colour schemes to apply to the template, but users will also have the freedom to change the colour theme or layout style, and rank content by importance in order for Sway to emphasise the most important pieces. The 'Sways' created can be shared via a web link, and will automatically reformat to be optimised to the device they are opened on, whether it's a smartphone, tablet or desktop PC.
Microsoft has launched Sway.com where users can preview the app and sign up for an invitation to test the program. The preview version is initially only rolling out as a web app, but Sway will come to mobile platforms and possibly Windows as an app in the future.
Microsoft is seeking as much feedback from early users as possible in order to tweak and add new ways to interact with the information before the official Sway launch. The video below shows the app and its capabilities and gives you a good overview of what it's all about.
