OTTAWA: Microsoft has made Microsoft office 2016 for Mac user with a free “preview” or public beta version available now.
The full software suite will be available this summer for purchase or as part of Microsoft’s Office 365 monthly subscription service, but until then the company is just handing it out as a 3GB download.
The updated look and feel of Word, Excel and PowerPoint make the old Mac suite look as dated as Steven Tyler. Outlook and OneNote are also included, though those new versions have been available separately since late last year. Similar to the Office 2013 for Windows, all the apps now have the new ribbon menu styling and are directly integrated with Microsoft’s One Drive cloud storage service. They also now support live collaborative editing over the Internet.
All the programs are also chock full of new features. PowerPoint has a slew of new templates and animations, Word now has threaded comments, Excel has stronger data analysis tools and Outlook a new dual calendar view. The programs also have full support for Apple’s Retina Display and Mac OS X Yosemite’s full screen app mode.
