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Business News/ Mint-lounge / Features/  Microsoft’s new Office for Apple Mac
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Microsoft’s new Office for Apple Mac

Among the updates for Mac OS X users are new versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote

Office 2016 for Mac is the first big update in five years.Premium
Office 2016 for Mac is the first big update in five years.

Microsoft has released the next-generation of its Office software suite for Apple MacBook and iMac users. It is called Office 2016 for Mac, and is the first big update in five years. Till now, Mac users had to make do with Office for Mac 2011. The new version brings major updates to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, which includes big design changes, optimization for the high resolution Retina screen that some MacBook variants have, bunch of new features, and greater focus on document collaboration as well as cloud storage integration. Office 2016 had been in the beta testing since March this year.

While Mac users waited five years for an updated Office suite, a lot of them switched to Apple’s own iWork suite or Google’s Docs . Microsoft has confirmed there will be updates to Office 2016 for Mac at least once every quarter. Essentially, this means quicker bug fixes, regular optimizations for performance and new features will be delivered sooner. This is the incremental update pattern that Microsoft is also adopting for the upcoming Windows 10 operating system.

Uniform experience

The first big thing that anyone notices about Office 2016 for Mac is that it has integrated a many elements and features that were exclusive to the Windows version of Office till now. This includes the new Ribbon for managing document tools and formatting options. The task pane offers deeper graphics customization and there are new themes and format styles. The idea is simple—better cross-platform familiarity regardless of which devices you are using to access your documents. In a nutshell, this will make it easier for users who either juggle multiple devices in office or at home, and also for anyone shifting from a Mac to Windows, or vice-versa.

Exclusive Mac features

Office 2016 for Mac has design elements that help it blend in well with the Mac OS X Yosemite operating system. A straightforward Windows design would have felt out of place on an Apple Mac, and hence, the further customization. Office now also takes advantage of the full-screen feature in OS X, that allows users to focus on one app and not get distracted by other apps or notifications. For the last couple of years, Apple MacBook Pro variants have been sporting the much higher resolution Retina displays. However, Office apps till now were not capable of fully utilizing that enhanced spec, but with Office 2016 for Mac, it can. The new MacBook launched earlier this year includes the multi-touch gesture capable Force Touch trackpad, and Office 2016 for Mac will be able to take full advantage of that with multi-touch gesture capability.

Word

The Word application focuses on making the multi-author usage scenarios simpler. There’s a Share button on the top right of the window, which allows the document creator to share it with colleagues who can then work on it at the same time. There will also be a chat feature, which will allow the collaborators to discuss while working.

Excel

Excel’s chart preview feature automatically suggests which types of charts of graphs would best fit the data that you want to show. Anyone who uses Excel extensively would appreciate the better data analysis capability when working with large amounts of data. The formula builder has been tweaked as well, for better suggestions based on the content in the spreadsheet.

PowerPoint

The new version of the popular slideshow software includes improvements to the Presenter view which now shows current slide, next slide, speaker notes, and a timer. The PowerPoint app available for iOS devices such as the iPad and iPhone already has the feature. The person hosting the presentation can now see each slide exactly as the audience sees it, which would include any animations or pop-up graphs.

OneNote

OneNote application is a new addition for Office 2016 for Mac, and is another option for working on documents. While it does not have the full-fledged feature set that the Word software has, but users can still modify text styles, insert notes, elements such as graphs or pictures and share the documents with co-workers. The improved search can now search for a word or phrase from even handwritten documents, using image recognition. Just like any other application that is already a part of Office 2016 for Mac, OneNote also integrates offers cloud storage features.

Getting the new Office

The new Office 2016 for Mac is available to download now, but it isn’t free.

Office 2016 for Mac is currently a part of the subscription based Office 365 service, which is the same for all platforms—Windows, Macs, Android and iOS. There are two options available at the moment. Office 365 Home ( 420 per month) which allows the user to run Office suite on up to 5 PCs or Macs and 5 phones and tablets. The lesser priced Office 365 Personal ( 330 per month) allows Office use on one PC or Mac, one phone and one tablet. If your organization is installing the new Office for Mac on your MacBook or iMac, pricing be as follows—Office 365 Business ( 495 per month per user) or Office 365 Business Premium ( 750 per user per month), and these plans also bundle additional stuff such as HD video conferencing and an email service.

However, if you are willing to wait, Office 2016 for Mac will become available as a standalone one-time purchase from September—Microsoft has not yet announced the price for that, but it’ll make more sense for someone who doesn’t want to get into the whole subscription pattern.

Microsoft has been pushing its subscription-based Office 365 service for more than a year now, and with the updated Office for Apple Mac users now also available, the entire package feels complete, at least for power users who have multiple devices and would end up subscribing to the Office 365 Home plan.

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Published: 10 Jul 2015, 12:18 PM IST
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