Following that began in March, Microsoft today of its next-generation office software designed for Mac users, Office 2016. The new Office 2016 software is the first major Mac release since Office 2011, and it brings new versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint with redesigned, Retina optimized interfaces, new features, and a focus on collaboration and cloud integration. If you already use Office on a PC or iPad, you will find yourself right at home in Office 2016 for Mac. It works the way you expect, with the familiar Ribbon interface and powerful Task panes.

Mac users will appreciate the modernized Office experience and the integration of Mac capabilities like Full Screen view and Multi-Touch gestures. With full Retina display support, your Office documents look sharper and more vibrant than ever.Office for Mac 2016 has adopted many elements previously found in the Windows version of Office and the mobile Office apps for better cross-platform familiarity. For example, Office for Mac now uses the Ribbon to organize tools and formatting options, plus there's a task pane for improved graphics customization in all three of the main Office apps, along with new themes and styles. The software includes a new Yosemite-style design that takes advantage of features like full-screen support, Retina displays, and multi-touch gestures, while cloud integration makes all Microsoft files available across a range of devices.

Word 2016 for Mac includes a new Design tab for quickly customizing layouts, colors, and fonts while working on a document, and the multi-author experience has been improved. There's a sharing interface at the top right of the app that allows multiple people to work on the same document at once, with threaded comments to communicate. Excel 2016 for Mac's chart preview feature suggests the charts that best fit a set of data and it adds deeper data analysis functionality with PivotTable slicers for dealing with large amounts of data to find patterns. Shortcuts within Excel and the other Office apps have been updated to match their Windows counterparts, and there's improved autocomplete and a better formula builder that makes it easier to create spreadsheets and add data. PowerPoint 2016 for Mac includes an improved Presenter view that shows current slide, next slide, speaker notes, and a timer, much like the PowerPoint for iOS app.

In the top left, the presenter sees exactly what the audience sees, including animations in real time, for a better idea of how a presentation is going. There's also a new animation pane for designing and tweaking animations, plus new slide transitions.

Outlook for Mac, is also designed to work with the new Office apps, with push mail support, an improved conversation view, and message previews, as is OneNote for Mac,. According to Microsoft, several major changes like improved Mail Merge for Word, Propose New Time in Outlook, and support for External Data Connections in Excel were added based on user feedback during the beta testing program. Microsoft plans to introduce new updates to the software at least once per quarter going forward. Is available for users beginning today, and is officially supported on machines running the latest version of OS X, Yosemite. Office for Mac will also be available as a one-time purchase in September.

Office 365 Personal, which includes Office access for 1 computer, 1 phone, and 1 tablet, is priced at $69.99 per year or $6.99 per month. Office 365 Home, with access for 5 computers, 5 tablets, and 5 phones is priced at $99.99 per year or $9.99 per month. There are also Office 365 plans designed for students and businesses at different price points.

So, Microsoft are trying to force me on to the 'Pay us whatever we demand, for the rest of your life, or your files stop working' model. There's no way I'm ever going to do that, either sell me the software or do without my money. Or your files stop working? Considering that Pages/Numbers/Keynote can read Office files, and so can Google Docs and even Microsoft's own, OneDrive (which is free), your files don't 'stop working'. OneDrive also replicates the desktop layouts pretty well (since Docs and iWork sometimes mangle layouts). Also, since you clearly didn't read the article: Office 2016 for Mac will become available as a one-time purchase option this September.

After years of treating the Mac as an also-ran, Microsoft has changed its tune: Microsoft formally released Office 2016 for the Mac on Thursday morning, even before it released it for Windows. The only catch? If you’re not already an Office 365 subscriber, you’ll be forced to wait until September. If you do subscribe to Microsoft’s Office 365 subscription service, obtaining the new software should be a snap: just surf to and follow the instructions. Students can also check to see if they qualify for a free or discounted copy.

The supported Office 365 subscriptions start at $7 per month or $70 per year with Office 365 Personal, and also include the pricier versions of Office 365 Home, Business, Business Premium, E3, or ProPlus. Each Office subscripton also includes the rights to use Office on both iOS and Android, as well as Mac and Windows PCs. We first, when Microsoft released a preview version of the software. It includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Outlook, with a Mac-like feel to it all. Why this matters: In the intervening five years since Microsoft last released a version of Office for the Mac (Office 2011!), numerous other office suites have put down stakes on the Mac, not the least of which has been Apple’s own iWork productivity suite. But Microsoft’s argument is that, with Office, your work is connected and stored in the cloud—available on basically whatever platform you wish. Microsoft has also tried to differentiate itself from other office suites by adding intelligence to both its software and data sets that you can connect to—providing up-to-date sales data in a spreadsheet, for example, rather than just a moment in time.

Toshiba satellite c850d-b541 drivers for mac. OneNote makes its first appearance in a Mac office suite with Office 2016, although it did launch as a standalone Mac app in 2014. Bringing Office up to date The new Office suite also addresses general shortcomings with the suite that Microsoft has struggled with, regardless of platform. A good example is real-time collaboration, where users can edit a document simultaneously, rather than send it back and forth for updates and other edits. Google has offered this with its online Google Apps suite, but it’s a feature that Office has lacked until recently. Microsoft highlighted a few of the improvements that it provided for each specific Office application: in PowerPoint, for example, the new improved Presenter View shows you your current slide, the next slide, your notes, and a timer, while your audience sees only the presentation itself. Outlook contains a conversation view and threading (nothing really new where email is concerned, of course), and Excel will do a better job of recommending specific charts to showcase your data to best effect. New PivotTable Slicers also help you filter large volumes of data, Microsoft said.

Excel for Office 2016 for the Mac. The newest addition to the Office for Mac suite is OneNote, Microsoft’s note-taking app for Windows and mobile platforms, although OneNote did launch as a, and it’s on. You can save your notes in notebooks that reside in the cloud. Notes can include a mixed bag of text, Web pages, and graphics, especially handy for, say, college lectures that combine a variety of media. For those of you who have tried out the, what’s your take?

Microsoft Office 2016 For Mac Release Notes

Is iWork superior to the new Office, or is this just what you’ve been waiting for? We’ll have our own formal review soon.