Posted on 05/04/2015 5:48:07 PM PDT by dayglored
Back in March, Microsoft made Office 2016, the next major update to one of the companies' most important products, available to IT professionals to test and submit feedback on. Just as they have done with Windows 10, Microsoft is welcoming constructive criticism - or praise - that will help shape the product when it launches later this year.
The next step is to open Office 2016 up to the public. On stage at Microsoft's Ignite conference, CEO Satya Nadella announced that the public preview of Office 2016 has been released. In the accompanying blog post, Jared Spataro, general manager for the Office marketing team, laid out Microsoft's "most holistic" of what regular users can expect later on in 2015.
Office 2016 comes with a range of new features and changes that builds upon Office 2013. There is far more integration with the Cloud, allowing a user to access documents from any device, anywhere and Outlook now syncs with OneDrive when sending large files. Smart Applications are also available that extend the functionality of Office, including Tell Me, a new search tool, and Clutter, which unclutters your inbox based on machine learning.
(Excerpt) Read more at neowin.net ...
BTW, the original posting of the article on Neowin had a typo at the end of the word "available" (availalbe) and that was made into the URL/link. The headline on the webpage itself was corrected later but the link remains.

Just download? NSA (no strings attached)?
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I can't speak for the NSA :-) but yeah, download it and try it and give Microsoft some feedback.
Don’t know what it has or if it’s worth it (they never fix janky flaws decades old, like: in order for vlookup to work, NOT ONLY does the lookedup table have to be sorted but THEY DON’T EVEN TELL YOU there can’t be any duplicates) BUT in 2013, the menu item for everthing that lets you COPY THE PATH is worth the price of admission.
I wish these companies would live by the “if it an’t broke, don’t fix it” rule.
The March preview Spataro referred to was available only to a subset of Office 365 subscribers, and followed the release of a broader-based preview of Office 2016 for Mac weeks earlier. Because the latter was open to anyone two months before the Windows version's audience was expanded today, it looks likely that Office 2016 for OS X will debut in final form before the Windows edition.Just sayin'... :-)
True. But really, do you not expect them to keep taking your money for new versions? Hell, they'd be out of business in 2 years if everything worked and you didn't "need" new features... and of course, they are the ones to tell you that you need new features...
Those billionaires (at Microsoft, Apple, Google, all of 'em) are rich for a reason. We keep paying them.
I’ll stick with Libre Office
Yeah, that's what I use on my Linux workstation at the office. It's about 99% compatible with MS-Office, so I also have a copy of MS-Office on my Win7 VM for those times when it has to be "exactly so". Which also means the document's metadata. These days, any program that opens an Office document looks at the metadata to see what actually produced it. And you'd be annoyed at what they sometimes do about it, if they see it was produced by something other than "their" product.
But if you can stick to Libre Office everywhere, it's a really terrific product.
I may have to start not using microsoft. I can’t afford the data liability that comes with the cloud.
Does one need to have installed Windows 10 to install Office 2016?
No, it will install fine on Win 7, Win 8 and Win 8.1. Win 10 isn't even released yet (it's just in public trials).
Note that Win 8 has been superseded by 8.1 -- if you have 8 you should upgrade to 8.1 (Free) ASAP.
Office 2016 will not install on XP or Vista (according to the System Requirements posted on Microsoft's Office site).
They sure do want us to put stuff in the Cloud -- after all, that lets them have a shot at it.
But I can't believe they make it impossible to not use the Cloud. My sixth sense tells me there has to be a way to avoid that default.
I hate Microsoft for taking away their clipart in their Office/and Publisher programs. I need to illustrate charts and now they are directing me to use Bing Images, which may or may not have copyright protection.
I am very upset that they have all but dismantled a much needed tool.
Anyone got any ideas for a clip art site that doesn’t cost too much and in which I can “group and ungroup” images to modify them and change their colors?
Going to save a few things out to the cloud, install the MS apps on my iPad and see how they work. I'm expecting I'll be able to see/read the docs and do some minor edits and save back up.
Very cool that Microsoft is finally embracing other OS and device platforms.
You can still use msdos if you like.
LOL. Thanks.
Probably comes with a new .docZ format that won’t work in previous versions. There is nothing worse than .docx and the likes.
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