In the IT world, software applications have an associated life cycle - newer versions of applications with new or enhanced features are often released after a certain period of time to replace the older versions.

As Microsoft Office 2013 had been released for more than three years, Microsoft reviewed its Office productivity suite and released the new version – the Microsoft Office 2016 in September this year.

The new Microsoft Office focuses on helping people work together on documents as well as allowing them to do so across different devices – from PC or Mac to Windows, Apple and Android phones and tablets. The followings are the highlights of these two new enhancements.

Working togethe?r

A number of new features have been added to the new Office to let people work together:

• Simplified Sharing
  
  A Share button
  
  can be found at the top-right corner of the ribbon of the Office components to simplify sharing. You can share your file easily by pressing the button and invite others to work on it. Different access rights – view/edit can be assigned to individuals. A head count of people who are viewing or working on the file will also be shown on the Share button
  
  .

  

• Co-Authoring
  
  The new Office allows multiple editing on a file at the same time. When two or more people are working on a file simultaneously, their intended changes might conflict with each other. A side-by-side visual comparison between your changes and the conflicting changes by others will be shown so that you can choose the slide with the changes you would like to keep before saving the file.

• Real-Time Typing in Word
  
  Now you can collaborate on documents in real-time with others in Word and see the works of others online. If you are in the document at the same time with others, you can watch what the others are working on and view their edits as they happen. A coloured flag represents each person and where they are editing in the document as shown below.

 

Microsoft has done a lot of work to break the barriers among devices:

• Available in nearly all platforms
  
  The new Office is available on nearly all platforms such as Windows, Mac, Android and iOS. Users can review, edit, analyze, and present their documents across any of their devices with a consistent and familiar user interface.
   
• Turn a Windows 10 phone into a desktop PC
  
  A Windows 10 smartphone can be turned into a full desktop PC by the Continuum feature of Windows 10. A Continuum environment that looks and feels exactly like the desktop environment of a real Windows 10 desktop will be shown by simply connecting the Windows 10 smartphone with the monitor, keyboard and mouse. A familiar taskbar with Start, Back, Search and Task View buttons will be displayed on the connected monitor. When launching the Office Mobile App in Continuum mode, a desktop-like Office you are familiar with will be started.

  

• Store and access all your files on Cloud
  
  The new Office is highly integrated with Microsoft OneDrive cloud storage. Users can access their files in the new Office anywhere on any device regardless the physical peripherals of the device.

How to get the new Office?

Office 2016 will be ready for download through O365 tentatively in February 2016. In addition, a notification for upgrade will be received on machines that have Office 2013 installed via O365 when the automatic upgrade becomes available.

Initially, the Computing Services Centre (CSC) will make Office 2016 available on Windows 8.1 in the CSC Teaching Studios starting Semester B this year. It will be launched to Staff LAN through the Work Desk Menu once all the compatibility issues have been resolved.

References

• What's New and Improved in Office 2016
  https://support.office.com/en-us/article/What-s-New-and-Improved-in-Office-2016-95c8d81d-08ba-42c1-914f-bca4603e1426
• Collaborate on Word documents with real-time co-authoring
  https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Collaborate-on-Word-documents-with-real-time-co-authoring-7dd3040c-3f30-4fdd-bab0-8586492a1f1d?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US
• Collaborate on PowerPoint presentations with co-authoring
  https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Collaborate-on-PowerPoint-presentations-with-co-authoring-0c30ee3f-8674-4f0e-97be-89cf2892a34d?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US
• Word real-time co-authoring—a closer look
  https://blogs.office.com/2015/10/30/word-real-time-co-authoring-a-closer-look/
• Microsoft Display Dock
  http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/mobile/accessory/hd-500/
• Windows 10 features
  http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/features

?