For example, Word's confusing Document Elements tab is gone most of what was there can now be found in the more logically-named Insert tab. Not only has the Ribbon been moved but it's been reorganized, which is all to the good. Click the arrow to make the Ribbon come back.
The Ribbon goes away and the arrow turns to face downwards. Not everyone is a Ribbon fan, though, and those who wish it were gone, or just want to give themselves a little more screen real estate, can hide it by clicking a small up arrow at the Ribbon's far right. It's a clever way to bridge the worlds of Office and Mac OS X. The usual Mac menu that sits atop Mac applications is hidden as well, although you can reveal it by moving your cursor to the top of the screen. The Ribbon is far more prominent and now sits close to the top of the screen rather than (as before) beneath a long row of icons for doing things such as opening and closing files, printing and so on. That's largely in part because the Ribbon has been redone, and now looks and works as it does in the Windows version of Office. It's less cluttered, cleaner and sleeker-looking, more logically organized, more colorful and simpler to use. The moment you run any Office application, you know you've left the aging Office 2011 behind. It will sell as a standalone Mac product later this month.) It’s currently only available as part of a subscription to Office 365, which allows you to install Office on multiple devices.
(Note: Mac for Office 2016 requires Yosemite OS X or better. Office 2016 for Mac sports a far better interface than Office 2011, integrates well with Microsoft’s OneDrive cloud storage and dramatically improves Outlook. But Mac owners had to wait until early July for the final release of the full suite, including the core applications Word, PowerPoint and Excel. Hints of what the new Office would offer have been out for quite a while, notably the preview of Outlook, introduced in October 2014. We’ll have more in-depth impressions to follow, but since it is a free download, it’s probably worth checking out yourself if you ever find yourself having to work with Office documents on a Mac.Mac users of Office who have felt left out in the cold by Microsoft (because the last version, Office 2011 for Mac, was released in October 2010) now have reason to be pleased: The final version of Office 2016 for Mac brings the suite out of the dark ages and into the modern world. Not having to look at those annoying down-sampled fuzzy graphics on either the Retina MacBook Pro or Retina iMac is also a huge plus. Some highlights of the updated Office for Mac include support for OneDrive, OneDrive for Business and SharePoint for cross-platform document syncing, as well as the redesigned Ribbon that should provide easier access to tools and formatting for anyone switching from Office for Windows, or who are more used to that software. When it becomes shipping consumer software, Office 2016 For Mac will be included in the price of an Office 365 subscription.
The preview will be updated on an ongoing basis and includes an auto-update feature, and while each new build will expire 60 days after its release, the preview will remain freely available to download until the official launch. Office 2016 for Mac includes redesigned versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Outlook for Mac users, and can be installed and used right alongside Office for Mac 2011 for anyone hesitant to switch entirely to pre-release software for their productivity needs. The updated software includes support for Retina displays, as well as iCloud syncing, and has a look and feel more in tune with the versions of Office currently available on Windows and mobile. Microsoft already told us Office 2016 for Mac was coming, but the public preview is out now as a free download, without any Office 365 subscription required.