Microsoft today release a new update for its Office 2016 for Mac apps, introducing small performance improvements, bug fixes, and 64-bit support across the Office lineup.
Outlook, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and OneNote have all adopted the 64-bit runtime environment to enable better performance and "new innovative features." 64-bit support has previously been available to Microsoft's "Office Insider" beta testers but is rolling out to all users today.
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Microsoft Office users who do not use add-ins will be unaffected by the change, while those who do will need to update their add-ins to 64-bit versions as add-in developers release the necessary updates. All add-in developers have had several months to make the updates thanks to the beta testing period, so the transition should be seamless for most end users.
Apple's Mac operating system has supported 64-bit applications for many years, but prior to 2016, Microsoft continued to offer 32-bit Office for Mac apps.
Microsoft Office for Mac is available through an Office 365 subscription or as a standalone purchase from the Microsoft website. Office 365 costs a minimum of $69.99 per year while the standalone version of Office 2016 for Mac is priced at $149.99.
Top Rated Comments
(View all)Apple's Mac operating system has supported 64-bit applications since OS X Lion was released in 2011
Uh, no, 64-bit GUI applications have been supported since Leopard in 2007 (and CLI applications even earlier, since Tiger in 2005).Every update breaks something fundamental. Microsofts quality control on their Mac office product is shocking and makes me anxious about any update.
The Office team at Microsoft is actually very receptive of problems and works hard to correct them. The Office 2016 has come a very long way over the past year. They're much better than other large companies such as Adobe, which is also slowly making steps to fix some of its problems.The 64 bit Office 2016 apps load noticeably faster on my computers.
Thank the maker, if this is true across the board!Office opens painfully slow and is by far the slowest opening set of apps I have.