Microsoft Office 2016 for Mac is here

If you use a Mac and you have a subscription to Office 365, Office 2016 for Mac is available to you from today. The updates made available by the company also included some new functions for its applications such as Excel’s new support for External Data Connections, Outlook’s Propose New Time and Word’s Mail Merge. The new apps also feature Mac specific capabilities such as multi-touch trackpad gestures, and optimisation for Retina displays and full screen view.

Why this matters: In the intervening five years since Microsoft last released a version of Office for the Mac (Office 2011!), numerous other office suites have put down stakes on the Mac, not the least of which has been Apple’s own iWork productivity suite.

Microsoft has additionally integrated its OneDrive cloud storage into office 2016 for mac, that means you’ll quickly access recent documents you will are editing on your smartphone, tablet, or desktop.

Here’s what’s what you can expect from Office 2016 for Mac. Mac and Windows versions are sold the traditional way, too, with a one-time payment, though you can’t use Office on another PC without buying it again.

It all starts with the familiar “ribbon” interface at the top of the various Office program, as well as the task panes for helping folks do such things as format images and apply different font styles.

The new software is now available for Office 365 subscribers in 139 countries and 16 languages, Redmond said.

The wait for Office updates has been a long time coming for the Mac, iPad, iPhone, Android and Windows.

During the beta testing phase of Office 2016, many users provided feedback on certain features they desired, which have been added by Microsoft.

Microsoft has updated the software seven times to improve its performance and stability, taking all the reports and feedback into account. “It’s one of many important releases this summer where we are improving the Office experience across devices and platforms”.

This week the folks at Microsoft have released the full version of Office for Mac 2016.

Commenting on that launch, Gabe Aude, our guide through the Windows Insider Programme, said: “I’m also excited to announce that Office 2016 is now available for Insiders to preview on Windows 10”.