When used as a noun, "sway" now means a project created using cloud-based media and composed in the newest program of Microsoft's Office suite.
The new program is called Sway and projects created with the tool are called sways, according to a blog post by Microsoft's Sway Team. Sway relies heavily on the cloud to help users work on projects whenever and wherever they are.
Just as Microsoft Office 365 is available on all popular platforms and devices, Sway enjoys the same level of cross-platform support. Users can create sways inside Mozilla's Firefox and Google's Chrome browsers, using desktops and mobile devices.
Composing sways is meant to be simple. Users can find all of their cloud-based content in Sway and bring pieces of it together by tapping, clicking, dragging and dropping.
Users can pull in content from sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and OneDrive. They can also cloud-lift locally stored content.
"Your ideas have no borders, edges, page breaks, cells or slides," states a Sway Team representative. "Your mind is a continuous canvas, and Sway brings this canvas to life. Sway helps you focus on the human part: your ideas and how they relate to each other."
Right now, the level of dynamics Sway offers keeps the software from moving too deeply into PowerPoint's territory. Sway was designed to make it easy for any user to deliver a professional presentation, as the software does all of the heavy lifting.
"The magic of Sway really shows as you're creating a Sway -- Sway's built-in design engine takes the hassle out of formatting your content by putting all of it into a cohesive layout as you create," states a Sway Team representative. "This means that from the first word, image, Tweet, or graphic you add, your Sway is already being formed for you. This is thanks to a lot of Microsoft Research technology we've brought together in the background."
This is just the beginning and there's lots more the Sway Teams says it intends to add. As of now, there's no integration with other Office products and the Sway Teams says it would like to bring embedding to sways.
"We'll continue to add new delights we hope you'll realize you never could live without. This is just the beginning," says a Sway Team representative.
Microsoft announced a preview of Sway Oct. 1. An iOS app will be released soon, followed by an app for Windows devices.
