Office 2016 for Mac measures up to Windows equivalent

Microsoft has officially released a preview of the new Office 2016 for Mac computers.

Office 2016 for Mac is powered by the cloud so users can access their documents on OneDrive, OneDrive for Business and SharePoint at anytime on any device.

Office 2016 for Mac shares "an unmistakably Office experience", Kirk Koenigsbauer, corporate vice president for the Office 365 Client Apps and Services team, says on Microsoft's official blog site. "But it is also thoughtfully designed to take advantage of the unique features of the Mac.

The new Office 2016 for Mac includes updated versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Outlook. "And the moment you open any one of the apps, you'll immediately feel the difference," Koenigsbauer says. "We've modernised the user experience and made it easier to get things done.

Word  The new Word in Office 2016 for Mac includes 'state of the art' editing, reviewing and sharing tools.

Excel "With the new features in Excel, you'll be telling your data's story in no time," the company says. The new version includes support for Excel 2013 (for Windows) functions, ensuring users can easily share files across platforms.

PowerPoint Office 2016 for Mac's PowerPoint includes a new Presenter View that displays the current slide, the next slide, notes and a timer on the user's Mac, while projecting only the presentation to their audience on the big screen. "Walk into your next presentation with complete confidence. PowerPoint's new Presenter View is like mission control for your presentation.

Outlook  The recently released Outlook for Mac is also a part of the preview suite and uses push mail support to deliver an always-up-to-date inbox.

Microsoft says the 'improved conversation view' automatically organises the inbox around threaded conversations, so users will not have to hunt for related messages.

The new message preview gives the first sentence of an email just below the subject line so users can quickly decide if they want to read emails straight away or come back to them later.

OneNote "Capture, organise and share your ideas with digital notebooks that you can access on any device," Microsoft says of OneNote. OneNote tracks tags, indexes typed notes and uses OCR to recognise text in images and handwritten notes.

Microsoft says it is excited to share the new Office 2016 for Mac.

"It's not only full of new and improved features, it's another proof point of our commitment to cross-platform support and a consistent experiences across devices," Koenigsbauer says.

"Unmistakably Office, but thoughtfully designed for the Mac.