Microsoft’s Office suite for Windows is still the company’s bread-and-butter product when it comes to revenue, even though it is moving away from a Windows-specific platform focus. This has led to the release of Office for Android and iOS before Windows Phone, and Mac before Windows, as is the case with the Office 2016 previews.
It's still very early days for Office 2016 for Windows preview, with no information on release date or pricing, and not many feature updates.
Feature-lite so far
Installation of Office 2016 for Windows preview is more tricky than with the Mac version. First you must sign up to the Office 2016 program preview on the Microsoft Connect site. From there, you can download a file, which you can extract and run either the 32 bit or 64 bit program installer. Project and Visio must be extracted and run separately. You need an Office 365 account to access the suite of applications.
Once you've gone through the process (which downloads Access, Excel, Lync, OneDrive, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, Project, Publisher, Visio, and Word), you won’t be able to run Office 2013 side-by-side with this new version. It’s important to note that these programs aren't available separately and must be downloaded as a package. Microsoft is keen to note that this is an early preview and many new features have not yet been added, which is just as well as you won’t notice many differences beyond the more colorful interface.
One major difference that you will see is that Lync is now Skype for Business.
At first glance, Word’s look and feel is pretty similar to the 2013 version, albeit a touch more colorful with “Word blue” topping the Ribbon interface. The icons are arranged slightly differently, but the main options remain the same.
The biggest visible addition is the “Tell Me” box, which is more than just a searchable help menu. For example, type “comment” and it will suggest the “Insert Comment” feature but, instead of telling you how to insert a comment, it will do it for you automatically. This feature is also found in Excel and PowerPoint.
Other new Word features include a Store where you can download apps for Microsoft Word, as well as simplified "Save As" location options, and email addresses being added to cloud accounts such as OneDrive to avoid confusion with on-premises options.
Behind-the-scenes improvements
Excel has a slightly streamlined menu, but the interface is basically the same as the previous version. While you may not be able to see any surface changes, those who use Excel to work with a lot of data, will be pleased to know that Microsoft has enhanced its business intelligence (BI) functionality.
The company has integrated several of its BI add-ons that were only available separately in previous versions of Office. These add-ons include Power Query, which allows business users to surface relevant data more easily without input from IT (known as self-service BI); and PowerView, which allows users to more easily build reports from the data they have surfaced.
Outlook is somewhat of a surprise because it is still very focused on pure email and calendar functionality, lagging behind Outlook 2016 for Mac’s impressive productivity-focused redesign. The functionality may be pretty similar in Outlook 2016 for Windows, it’s just hidden away and arranged in a less user-friendly way. The Ribbon interface works in a slightly different way: instead of always displaying every option, many are now hidden until you click on the relevant tab.
However, Microsoft has made other backstage Outlook improvements for Windows devices. You can now chose to sync one, three, seven or 14 days of email (a feature already found on Outlook for smartphones).
There are several changes Microsoft has made that aren't visible to the eye, but that will help protect data from getting into the wrong hands, as well as accessibility enhancements, and improvements for IT managers looking to deploy the suite.
More to come
Overall, the changes in Office 2016 for Windows are minor and, other than the useful “Tell Me” feature, won’t be visible to the casual user. In terms of Excel’s BI capabilities, Microsoft is making strides forward for power users, while surprisingly Outlook is lacking compared to the 2016 Mac version. We expect Microsoft to release more details on improvements in the coming months before the product reaches general release.
Download Office 2016 Preview 16.0.3823.1005
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