Here comes Office 2016

Yes, that’s right – the 2016 iteration of Office is right around the corner and although it is not terribly different from Office 2013, there are some major differences.

Yes, I am sorry to say we still have the Ribbon to contend with but in this latest version of Office, Microsoft is introducing “Tell Me,” which features natural language to assist you in finding what you are looking for. The good news is that it is supported in all applications in the suite except for Publisher, OneNote and Skype. I won’t go into detail here, but it sounds as if this is going to be very helpful and will actually help you to get things done!

Another great change involves Real time document collaboration. Office 2016 has really improved the core applications in the suite. Word, Excel and PowerPoint make it very easy to work on files with multiple authors.

Backstage has also been updated. If you recall this was introduced in Office 2013, but now there will be improvements like better access to storage locations. You will be able to easily save, open and access your documents!

Outlook E-mail Attachments is another nice upgrade in the suite. You will now be able to attach your Office documents that you most recently used to your e-mails from your Ribbon or Action Bar by selecting it from the drop-down options.

There will also be Desktop Groups in Outlook! Skype for Business! – Also included in Office 2016!!

You will be able to use image rotation once you have inserted an image into one of the applications like Word or PowerPoint and they will have the correct orientation!

This is just a thumbnail sketch of what you can expect in Office 2016. It looks like Microsoft is finally listening to what the users want!

I won’t give anything else away until I have my hands on the latest Office suite and then I will explore it and tell you lots more about it!