Microsoft surprised everyone by releasing a preview of the forthcoming Office 2016 for Mac today. It’s free for everyone during this test period and until official release, but does require Yosemite. The biggest change users will notice is the radical change in interface to bring the apps inline with Office 2013 for the PC and the iOs suite. In other words: orange and white and a love of formatting sidebars.
PowerPoint sports a handful of new features including an updated Presenter View and animation painter. But don’t go looking for anything ground-breaking in this update.
One thing that is very welcome is Microsoft’s in-app feedback button that allows users to send instant feedback directly to the Office team (and yes, feedback gets read by real people at Microsoft HQ very quickly.)
In case you’re worried, yes you can run Office 2016 alongside Office 2011 and switch back and forth. File format remains unchanged, so files saved in 2016 will still open in 2011. Download it here.
