Microsoft Office 2016 Public Preview Now Available

By Nathan Kirsch

Microsoft has released Office 2016 Preview available for people to try out ahead of the general release later this fall. This means you have the opportunity to try out the next release of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook that make up Office 2016 on Windows desktop for free albeit in a pre-release program. Jared Spataro, GM of the Microsoft Office marketing team, wrote in the Microsoft blog that the company has worked for more than a year to make make Office 2016 a cross-platform, cross-device solution that allows people to get work done. Microsoft Office 2016 will run on Windows and Mac systems as well as iPad and Android tablets, iPhones and on the web.

Microsoft Word 2016

One of the most interesting features is the ability to work on a Word document in real time with others inside the desktop application! Mr. Spataro wrote: When you and your team are working in Word 2016 and/or Office online, youll be able to see where other editors are working and what they are writingall in real-time. Microsoft already rolled out real-time co-authoring to the Office Online app suite, and that feature will be in the final desktop version of Office 2016!

Office 2016 will also take advantage of machine learning techniques to make itself more useful. Users will be able to take advantage of a Tell Me feature in Word, Excel and PowerPoint that allows users to enter what they want to do in written form and get help. Excel users can also map their data faster with new data analysis tools that were designed for One-Click Forecasting that will base predictions based on the data inputted.

Microsoft Office 2016 Excel

If you’d like to try out Microsoft’s Office 2016 Public Preview it can be downloaded here. Just remember that Office 2016 isn’t final yet and there will likely be some issues that will be encountered, which is good as Microsoft is looking for feedback on the new features before making the build final. Remember folks if you are getting something for free you are the customer and in this situation they want you to beta test the software and find bugs!