Microsoft Updates Office 2016 for Mac Preview with Updated Look and New Features

Microsoft today updated its Office 2016 for Mac Preview, just over a month after it first launched, with an updated look and new features. Word received the most new features while OneNote received no new features. Visual updates include a colored top bar and a more refined bottom bar for Word, Excel and PowerPoint; Outlook and OneNote did not receive visual updates.

word159

The new look of Microsoft Word in Office 2016
The new version of Word received scrolling performance improvements, new user information settings in preferences, support for the most popular Word keyboard shortcuts, improved support for VoiceOver and other performance enhancements and bug fixes. New features include "custom dictionary" and "exclude dictionary" support, a new search feature for online document templates and a new Macro recording feature.

Outlook's improvements include networking enhancements for Exchange accounts, bug fixes and a new feature called Propose New Time. Meeting attendees can propose a new time for a meeting and the meeting organizers can view the proposed time and modify meeting proposals and then send updates to all of the attendees.

Word158

The older look of Microsoft Word in Office 2016
The additions to Excel include a new Analysis Toolpack, a new feature called "Solver" and improved support for VoiceOver and bug fixes. Finally, PowerPoint received improved VoiceOver support and known bug fixes.

Microsoft's Office 2016 for Mac Preview is available at no cost for all Mac users running OS X Yosemite. Microsoft has plans to officially launch the software in the second half of 2015, following this beta testing period.

Update: Microsoft has also released Office Delve for iPhone, enabling Office 365 users to find and discover shared documents from work colleagues.

Tags: Microsoft, Microsoft Office, Office 2016 for Mac

Top Rated Comments

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taptic

44 months ago

I hate it when applications try to stand out so badly. Blue windows really? (and I'm guessing green for Excel etc)

It doesn't feel at all forced to me. I like it.

Rating: 26 Votes

snowman1

44 months ago

The colored window can actually be reverted to the old look (gray title bar) in the preferences.

Rating: 12 Votes

spaceballl

44 months ago

Looks nice. I can't wait to ditch the version of Office I have on my mac...

Rating: 7 Votes

danielsutton

44 months ago

[url=//cdn.macrumors.com/im/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif]Image (//www.macrumors.com/2015/04/14/office-2016-mac-update/)[/url]

Microsoft today updated (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3048768) its Office 2016 for Mac Preview, just over a month after it first launched (//www.macrumors.com/2015/03/05/office-mac-2016-preview/), with an updated look and new features. Word received the most new features while OneNote received no new features. Visual updates include a colored top bar and a more refined bottom bar for Word, Excel and PowerPoint; Outlook and OneNote did not receive visual updates.

Image (//cdn.macrumors.com/article-new/2015/04/word159-800x524.png)The new look of Microsoft Word in Office 2016
The new version of Word received scrolling performance improvements, new user information settings in preferences, support for the most popular Word keyboard shortcuts, improved support for VoiceOver and other performance enhancements and bug fixes. New features include "custom dictionary" and "exclude dictionary" support, a new search feature for online document templates and a new Macro recording feature.

Outlook's improvements include networking enhancements for Exchange accounts, bug fixes and a new feature called Propose New Time. Meeting attendees can propose a new time for a meeting and the meeting organizers can view the proposed time and modify meeting proposals and then send updates to all of the attendees.

Image (//cdn.macrumors.com/article-new/2015/04/Word158-800x524.png)The older look of Microsoft Word in Office 2016
The additions to Excel include a new Analysis Toolpack, a new feature called "Solver" and improved support for VoiceOver and bug fixes.*Finally, PowerPoint received improved VoiceOver support and known bug fixes.

Microsoft's Office 2016 for Mac Preview is available at no cost for all Mac users (http://products.office.com/en-US/mac/mac-preview) running OS X Yosemite. Microsoft has plans to officially launch the software in the second half of 2015, following this beta testing period.

Article Link: Microsoft Updates Office 2016 for Mac Preview with Updated Look and New Features (//www.macrumors.com/2015/04/14/office-2016-mac-update/)

Apple should continue to build out iWork and iWork for iCloud, adding new features and making it highly competitive with Office. There is. I reason why Apple needs to be played as a second-class citizen, always being behind the Windows version by a few years. Apple has what it takes to make a killer office productivity suite of its own.

Rating: 6 Votes

Rudy69

44 months ago

I hate it when applications try to stand out so badly. Blue windows really? (and I'm guessing green for Excel etc)

Rating: 6 Votes

JonneyGee

44 months ago

This is hideous. The previous preview version was much more "Mac-like." This is MS trying and failing to stand out.

Rating: 6 Votes

ArtOfWarfare

44 months ago

iWork is just a giant stick that Apple uses to smack Microsoft whenever they feel the version of Office available for iOS or OS X is less than it should be. Apple doesn't actually want to make productivity software - they just want to make sure that what their users can install is as good as what their users could get on any other OS. So when Microsoft slouches on iOS or OS X, Apple releases an update to iWork so that Microsoft feels the pain when people stop using Office. Apple maximizes that pain by offering iWork for cheap or free.

Without iWork, Microsoft would feel content to let OS X have a decade old version of Office with numerous features missing and a ridiculous price. Without iWork, Microsoft has no incentive to offer better.

Rating: 6 Votes

JayHova

44 months ago

i wish microsoft improved OneNote for Mac, would like to see more functionality and features that are available on the PC version.

Rating: 4 Votes

roadbloc

44 months ago

Apple did a full code reset. Removed and new features will be added in time. They said so themselves.

Doesn't matter. iWork wasn't even close to Office before the 'full code reset.' It's now 2015 and I haven't seen many of the features they promised would return, actually return. If they want iWork to be a true competitor to Office, they have a lot of work ahead of them.

As a writer, taking features from my writing software and promising them back later is just plain ****** in my eyes. And as a result, I don't use Pages for new documents anymore.

Rating: 4 Votes

Xenomorph

44 months ago

I just want it to look and work like it does on Windows.

When I Google how to do something in Office, and the "answers" list menu options I don't have or buttons on the ribbon that I don't have, or other things that don't exist in the product, it makes things hard.

Product A, made by Team A. It looks and works a certain way. It gets Name A.

Product B, made by Team B. It looks different and works a different way, but also gets Name A.

Calling a bunch of programs made by a bunch of different people that work a bunch of different ways all the same Office names is stupid.

Entourage was junk, but it at least had its own name. Then they changed its name to Outlook. Does it work like Outlook? NO. They just changed the word "Entourage" to the word "Outlook" in the program. It still works like Entourage. It doesn't work like Outlook.

Rating: 3 Votes

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