Office and Outlook Online now let you video chat with Skype and create new docs via Chrome

Skype is about to get a lot more useful on the Web. Microsoft today announced it’s tightening Skype integration to Office Online and Outlook.com, allowing you to use voice and video with your contacts while working on a document.

This should make it easier to communicate when actively making modifications to a file; you can’t type in two places at once, after all. If you do choose to use messages, however, Skype will now connect your message history to the document, so you can pick up where you left off last time you opened a document.

Meanwhile, Microsoft’s also making it a bit easier to access its Web Office Suite. A new Chrome extension now lets you open a variety of Office documents right within Chrome – whether they’re stored in OneDrive or your computer.

The improved Skype integration is arriving on Office Online and Outlook.com today in the US (other regions are coming soon), while the Chrome extension is available here. For some other updates coming to the suite this month, check out the Office team’s post at the link below.

➤ The new Office—October feature update [Office Blogs]