Facebook users can create and share Microsoft Office documents, spreadsheets and presentations without leaving the social network, Microsoft said today.

The service, called Docs for Facebook, is in beta testing phase, according to a Tuesday blog posting by Lili Cheng at Microsoft Fuse Labs. "...It's our belief that we may increase the value of Office 'docs' by giving everyone the ability to seamlessly take their friends and connections with them from Facebook to docs.com," Cheng wrote on the Fuse Labs blog.

The service integrates Office Web Apps, the the free Web-based version of Word, Excel and PowerPoint coming out with Office 2010, the new version of Microsoft's productivity software. Office 2010 launches May 12 in New York.

"It’s all of the power of Microsoft Office suite online with a simple Facebook integration," said Facebook's Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg spoke about the new service during his Tuesday morning keynote speech at F8, a developers conference for Facebook. You can watch the replay of his speech here, which goes into details about other new features.

Documents can be created directly in Facebook, or uploaded from a PC or Mac to Facebook for sharing and editing.

You can find out more about Docs for Facebook service by going to docs.com.

It looks like Microsoft is going to try to take over the brand name "Docs" from Google, which has long had Google Docs, its own free Web-based word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software.