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