#Microsoft office 2017 for mac reviews for mac#
#Microsoft office 2017 for mac reviews Pc#
#Microsoft office 2017 for mac reviews mac#
#Microsoft office 2017 for mac reviews windows#

#Microsoft office 2017 for mac reviews mac#

The mail protocol that refuses to die, POP, is also supported.įor me, the killer feature of Outlook in Office 2016 for the Mac is its ability to unify accounts, with a shared Inbox, Sent Items, Drafts, and Junk folders. For Gmail, I needed to create an app password, because the new Outlook doesn't support Google's secure authentication features. The latter two set up in IMAP mode automatically, with me only having to enter the email address and password. I had no trouble setting up multiple accounts from Office 365 (Exchange),, and Gmail. This rewrite is refreshingly modern, with a new database format and the familiar Outlook three-pane layout. Outlook and its predecessor, Entourage, were always the weakest link in the Office family on the Mac, clunky to use, with databases that were far from robust.

#Microsoft office 2017 for mac reviews windows#

Here's a quick look at each of those five core apps, available for Office 365 subscribers today, from the same portal where you'll find the Click-to-Run Windows programs. I'll be very happy when OS X El Capitan finally implements the window-snapping features that Windows users have grown to know and love for years. I liked the ability to work on charts and large, data-packed spreadsheets using Excel in full-screen view, although that option is much less useful for Word.

#Microsoft office 2017 for mac reviews for mac#

All of the resources in Office 2016 for Mac are made for a Retina display, Microsoft says (I couldn't test that claim).Īll of the apps support pinch-zoom and other OS X multitouch gestures, as well as working in full screen mode.

#Microsoft office 2017 for mac reviews Pc#

If your business relies on Microsoft Access, Publisher, or another member of the extended Office for Windows family, you'll need to keep a Windows PC or virtual machine handy.Īnd although the new design is specifically geared to cross-platform users, there are still plenty of Mac-specific touches. The five apps that make up Office 2016 for the Mac are the heavy hitters: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote. You can connect directly to Microsoft's cloud services: OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, and SharePoint.įor other cloud services, such as Dropbox or Google Drive, you have to sync to a local folder and then open synced files from that location.Ī few other Office 2013 features have finally made it into the Mac version: Themes, which apply predefined sets of styles, fonts, and colors to a document and task panes, which allow easier access to formatting tools, styles, and other things that don't fit on the ribbon. The pane for finding, opening, and saving files is reminiscent of the Mac design and conceptually similar to its Windows counterpart (albeit less feature rich). If those colors are too much, there's an option to use a more sedate and traditional gray scheme where the color hints are more subtle.

See for yourself: That's Office 2013 for Windows on top, Office 2016 for Mac on the bottom.Ĭolor coding matches the Windows programs as well, with Word in blue, Excel green, and so on. To add a table to a Word document, for example, you use the Insert tab, which is always in the second position. Because the feature sets aren't a perfect match, the ribbons aren't completely identical, but the layout and order of tabs is consistent across platforms. The Mac Ribbon is now nearly identical to its Windows cousin, with a customizable Quick Launch toolbar above it. That shouldn't be a surprise Microsoft's record on 'round trip' document capability has been excellent since the switch to XML-based formats in 2007, across desktop, mobile, and web-based apps. I haven't had a chance to do extensive compatibility testing, but so far every Office document I've opened has displayed perfectly. Instead, the entire experience feels familiar and.

I haven't run screaming from this version of Office-far from it. I've spent the past few months using the preview release of Office 2016 for Mac and have had the final build for the past few days. According to Microsoft, roughly 75 percent of the Office for Mac customer base is made up of cross-platform users, typically with a Windows PC at work and a Mac at home. If you fit in that category, you have plenty of company. I don't expect to hear many complaints from Mac users about Office 2016 for Mac, especially if they've already adapted to the iPad version, which has many similarities with the new Mac release.īut the real beneficiaries of the all-new design are people who switch between Macs and PCs regularly. More importantly, it's left the quirkiness of the old Office for Mac behind. This version is a complete rewrite, with the Office for Mac team moving from its legacy (Carbon) codebase to the more modern Cocoa framework. This version of Office for the Mac is arguably an improvement over its Windows counterpart, at least in some measures.

With Office 2016 for Mac, available for Office 365 customers today, Microsoft has finally turned the tables.