Microsoft has launched a new Office for Mac

Microsoft

Office_Mar12_BMac users have a reason to celebrate – after a long wait since its last update in 2011, the Microsoft Office for Mac suite of productivity applications has been given a makeover. The latest look brings on board the power of the cloud to take Office to new levels for Apple fans, including a move to deliver an experience that’s closer to that of the Windows version of the package. Better still, you can upgrade for free while it’s still in preview stage – here are some of the killer features of Office for Mac 2016.

Cloud power

Office for Mac 2016 takes the power of the cloud and puts it to full use, bringing the advantages of its cloud-oriented Office 365 applications to its flagship package. As a result, you can now access your Office documents whenever and wherever, and no matter which device you are using. Aside from Office 365, the new software is also integrated with OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, and SharePoint.

It’s now possible to jointly author Word and PowerPoint documents with colleagues, and to make challenges simultaneously. Much like Google Docs, you can run a chat conversation alongside the document, in order to discuss the changes you are each making. Word and PowerPoint automatically flag up updates to the document that you might not have spotted already. These features are already available to Windows-based users of Office.

Sharing documents also becomes simpler, with a dedicated sharing button in the applications’ top right corner that allows you to invite colleagues to collaborate on the document you’re working on. It’s possible to share a document either as an attachment or as a link, and of course to control access rights for each person to whom you give access. You can open others’ Office documents right from your email account and get straight to editing.

Ribbon refresh

Until now, there have been differences in the options available on the ‘ribbon’ of icons that appear beneath the File, Edit and other menus at the top of the screen. You might see one thing on your Mac but another on your PC, and another still on your tablet. With Office for Mac 2016, Microsoft has taken the opportunity to fix those inconsistencies, so you’ll now find the options you need in the same places across all the platforms you use. A new task pane is also intended to help simplify graphics editing.

Email grouping

The updates to Outlook, and OneNote too, were actually released in 2014 and so are technically not new with this release. But one such useful update that is carried through to Office for Mac 2016 is the organization of Outlook emails by conversation, as is the case with Gmail. Emails can be sorted using a variety of other criteria, too.

Presentation aids

Office for Mac 2016 makes life a little easier for those presenting using PowerPoint slides. While your audience is shown the final product on your big screen, you can benefit from having ‘presenter view’ open on your monitor. This dedicated view gives you access to all of your presentation’s slides, any associated notes and also a timer to help you keep pace.

The entire suite of Office for Mac 2016 applications – including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Outlook – is available for free upgrade during Microsoft’s preview period, which runs until later this year. Once that comes to an end, you’ll need an Office 365 subscription or perpetual licence in order to keep making the most of the package’s features.

To find out more about boosting your company’s productivity with Microsoft Office applications, give us a call today.

Published with permission from TechAdvisory.org. Source.

Get the Most out of Microsoft Outlook

Outlook is surely one of Microsoft’s most popular products, widely recognized as a standard application alongside Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. Bundled inside Microsoft Office, Outlook is the personal information manager component of the ubiquitous office suite, blending email, contact management, a calendar, and task management into one package. Here are some tips to ensure you are making the most out of this popular application: Use Outlook with Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Sharepoint. Microsoft Outlook is a rich and powerful tool on its own, but when used with Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft Sharepoint, it provides enhanced functions for collaboration within organization, such as the ability to share mailboxes and calendars. With Exchange, you can create shared folders for important email communication and company-wide memos, as well as invite others to meetings and share your availability information. You can even create a company-wide address book of key contacts for shared use. With Microsoft Sharepoint, you can post all of this information in the company Intranet, and even expose some of this information to customers and partners in the company extranet or public website – allowing you to share information and collaborate more easily with people outside of the organization as well. Use Outlook Web Access. If you don’t have access to your PC, such as when traveling, you can still use Outlook if you use it with Exchange. Just access Outlook Web Access (OWA) using your browser and any internet connection. OWA is the webmail service of Microsoft Exchange Server 5.0 and later, packaged as a part of Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and previous versions of Exchange. Its interface resembles the interface in Microsoft Outlook. Sync your data. Because of the popularity of Outlook, there is a host of third-party applications and plug-ins you can use to sync your data. Always on the go? Sync Outlook with your mobile phone, PDA, and even your iPOD or Blackberry. Want to have your data accessible on any PC or device? Sync your email and calendar data to hosted services such as Google Calendar or Google Apps. Need to call a contact from your desktop? No problem – Outlook can integrate with Skype to allow you to do one-click calling from Outlook. Want integration with your company applications and systems? A host of enterprise applications from billing and accounting, CRM, and even ERP systems can sync key data such customer contact information to Outlook. Use add-ons. Many other third-party add-ons and plug-ins are available for Outlook to further expand its already considerable features. One favorite is a tool called Xobni (Inbox in reverse), which allows you to more easily search and organize your inbox. Google Desktop plugs in to Outlook so that you can search the web, your desktop files, and your email and file attachments from within Outlook in one place. There are many more available to check out. Learn Outlook inside and out. Dozens of websites provide useful tips on how to complete tasks faster, make your experience with the application smoother, and simplify your workflow. A good place to start is Microsoft’s website , which regularly offers handy, free tips for using Outlook to its fullest. Microsoft Outlook is widely used because it is a robust and versatile tool for information management, not only for individual users but for groups within an entire business as well. Time spent learning how to maximize its use is well worth it in terms of saved time and increased productivity. Call us now for ideas on how to get started!

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