Microsoft’s Office Suite is a mature and much-used product. According to the Verge, there are approximately 1.2 billion Office users worldwide. Being a mature set of programs, Office 2016 doesn’t have many new features, but there are a few key changes and additions.

The most visual change in Office is the new look and feel of the program, including some changes to the program menus, that closely resemble Windows 10. However, even with these changes you will still find most of the tools you use in the same locations as the previous version of Office.

The “cloud” is a major focus of Office 2016. You will still be able to purchase a boxed copy of the software, but Microsoft is really pushing users to the cloud. When you subscribe to Office 365, you get 1 terabyte of space on OneDrive for each user, and the integration between Windows 10, OneDrive (Microsoft’s cloud storage) and Office 2016 becomes very tight. Also, saving and opening documents to the cloud has gotten a lot more seamless. The new Outlook, for example, just sends a link to attached documents that are saved to OneDrive. This allows for faster emails, less used space due to saving multiple copies of the same attachment, and the ability to edit the document after the link has been sent.

Office 2016 will be available on a variety of devices and computers.
This version of Office will be available across eight or more platforms including Android, Windows, and Mac devices. Your settings and documents will be available on whichever device you use.

The most exciting new feature is the collaboration feature in Word. When a document is stored on OneDrive, multiple people can edit that document at the same time. Google Docs has had this feature for years, but Word 2016 is a much more powerful program with even more complex tools.

Skype is now integrated into Office, and the new Microsoft Sway makes its debut in this version. Sway is a new online-only program for creating webpages and presentations. Think of it as Word and PowerPoint mashed together with some great special effects. You can use Sway for free (without buying Office) at https://sway.com/.

More information about Microsoft Office 2016 is available at https://products.office.com.