Microsoft has released the first preview of Office 2016 for Mac. Given that the current version of Office for Mac 2011 was released in October 2010 and the time since has provided plenty of time for things to change. Fortunately, Microsoft is working on the next version of the Office productivity suite for the Mac OS X operating system and released a preview of the upcoming version today.
Office 2016 for Mac Preview was announced on the Office blog. Along with the announcement, a Mac Office Preview page is available that does a great job answering common questions. Some of those questions ask the official release date, system requirements, update frequency, how long the builds are good for, and how to find the software after installing it.
The official release is in the second half of 2015.
The new Office for Mac is officially supported on machines running Yosemite (10.10).
Every build will expire roughly 60 days after it is posted. The last preview build will continue to function for roughly a month after our official launch date.
We will update the preview regularly, and you will receive the update via a notification from our Office for Mac Auto-Update tool.
Once you have downloaded a build:
1. Copy the build to your desktop.
2. Follow the installation prompts.
3. Close the installer window once the install is complete.
4. The relevant applications will be installed under the Applications folder on your Mac. You can launch the apps from there or drag them to your dock.
You can install the Office 2016 Preview alongside Office for Mac 2011 without having to uninstall the previous version. The 2.5 GB OfficePreview.pkg can be downloaded from the Mac Office preview page for your own testing to provide feedback to Microsoft. Not only is the design refreshed but the update will also help Office 365 compatiblity. The look is very modern compared to Office 2011. It inherits many of the clean design traits from Office 2013 for Windows and the white backgrounds helps it look clean, minimal, and updated. You can see screenshots of the various products below. To see it in more detail, just download and install the application package and dive in.
