Microsoft Updates Office 2016 for Mac Preview with Updated Look and New Features

Office 2016 appears to consume a lot of disk space

It seems to me that the evaluation edition of Office 2016 uses a lot more space than previous editions.

On my 2011 MBA, I see the following file sizes:
Excel 1.45GB
Word 1.62GB
Powerpoint 1.41GB
Outlook 812.4MB

Or roughly 5.3 GB

By contrast the entire MS Office 2008 folder in my Applications folder indicates a total of 867.5MB.

I realize that the previous version may have files in other locations, but it sure seem like there's a lot of bloat going on.

rbwca said:

It seems to me that the evaluation edition of Office 2016 uses a lot more space than previous editions.

On my 2011 MBA, I see the following file sizes:
Excel 1.45GB
Word 1.62GB
Powerpoint 1.41GB
Outlook 812.4MB

Or roughly 5.3 GB

By contrast the entire MS Office 2008 folder in my Applications folder indicates a total of 867.5MB.

I realize that the previous version may have files in other locations, but it sure seem like there's a lot of bloat going on.

Click to expand...

Did you notice that the applications are packaged?

alFR said:

Not used this yet, so can anyone tell me if the new apps are "proper" Mac apps (i.e. all the app resources in one container with preferences in a plist file in Library etc) or if they still create a horrific mess of nested resource folders in your Applications folder?

Click to expand...

The apps are now sandboxed, which means that yes, everything an app needs in order to run is within the .app bundle. The side effect is that "horrific mess of nested resource folders" is now duplicated within every .app bundle as rbwca noticed.

The other side effect is that stuff that used to live in the "Microsoft User Data" folder all is now in the sandbox container under ~/Library. Much better IMO than ~/Documents.

I'm happy because they fixed the scrolling immensely, which was a big issue for me in the last build. Laggy would be an understatement.

NOT happy with the Office for Mac 2016

To begin with, every time I opened one of the apps, it asked me MULTIPLE times if it could access my private identity information; there was NO way I could find to turn this off to stop the harassment. Next, after several weeks, Outlook developed an "issue" with the mailbox however, the ability to repair it that exists with the 2011 version was not available based on my research so uninstalling and going back to the 2011 version of Office was my only option.

Am I the only user to experience these problems? Has anyone found solutions?

Thanks,

Jack

Steviejobz said:

Excel VBA is totally f'd up.

Click to expand...

This latest preview is the first time I've tried using it (I normally use the Windows version). I wondered if the Mac version was just like that or if it was an issue with the preview. Glad to know it's not normal!

flur said:

This latest preview is the first time I've tried using it (I normally use the Windows version). I wondered if the Mac version was just like that or if it was an issue with the preview. Glad to know it's not normal!

Click to expand...

The most recent one actually improves it a tiny bit. But it's still not right. The first preview was completely crippled in terms of VBA. But I'm still getting some errors.

Krevnik said:

The apps are now sandboxed, which means that yes, everything an app needs in order to run is within the .app bundle. The side effect is that "horrific mess of nested resource folders" is now duplicated within every .app bundle as rbwca noticed.

The other side effect is that stuff that used to live in the "Microsoft User Data" folder all is now in the sandbox container under ~/Library. Much better IMO than ~/Documents.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. Somewhat improved but still some way to go then.

Rigby said:

Has anyone checked whether Outlook finally supports Exchange Activesync in the new version?

Click to expand...

I have. It doesn't...

alFR said:

Thanks for the info. Somewhat improved but still some way to go then.

Click to expand...

To be fair, I'm not sure what'd be better. It is out of the face of users now. Maybe if it was never in the face of users.

ArtOfWarfare said:

iWork is just a giant stick that Apple uses to smack Microsoft whenever they feel the version of Office available for iOS or OS X is less than it should be. Apple doesn't actually want to make productivity software - they just want to make sure that what their users can install is as good as what their users could get on any other OS. So when Microsoft slouches on iOS or OS X, Apple releases an update to iWork so that Microsoft feels the pain when people stop using Office. Apple maximizes that pain by offering iWork for cheap or free.

Without iWork, Microsoft would feel content to let OS X have a decade old version of Office with numerous features missing and a ridiculous price. Without iWork, Microsoft has no incentive to offer better.

Click to expand...

Agreed - it has served as a great way to make Microsoft lift their game so that the feature gap between a free office suite and what Microsoft is sufficiently large enough to justify what ever price tag they wish to affix to Microsoft Office. It is interesting to hear how much work Microsoft has got in front of itself; making their iOS 64bit, the move to iOS has forced them to update their OS X code base and I wouldn't be surprised if in the future we end up seeing the two share the same backends so then eventually the OS X version will be 64bit and devoid of any sorts of legacy un-Cocoa code in terms of user interface elements. It is also interesting that now their Windows division is no longer holding back the whole company we're seeing them branch out and supporting more platforms - Android, iOS, OS X etc. thus necessitating them to lift their game in terms of the quality of their multi-platform experience.

Krevnik said:

The apps are now sandboxed, which means that yes, everything an app needs in order to run is within the .app bundle. The side effect is that "horrific mess of nested resource folders" is now duplicated within every .app bundle as rbwca noticed.

The other side effect is that stuff that used to live in the "Microsoft User Data" folder all is now in the sandbox container under ~/Library. Much better IMO than ~/Documents.

Click to expand...

This is good to hear. The additional resource folders in Applications never really bothered me but the Microsoft User Data in Documents always bugged me. It was because of Office (and a few other apps) doing this that I'd always create my own docs folder elsewhere.

danielsutton said:

In typical Apple fashion, the 2013 update introduced a new look and feel to the suite, and laid the groundwork for many more features to come. So while we don't have a fully-functional suite at the moment, it will be developed into something great over time. This is how Apple works, it upsets power users (like you and me) at the offset, but we are thankful later, when many more useful features are added.

Click to expand...

It's easier to build something from the ground up, and recreate the best features, than frankenstein in with the old build and paste in a new UX and having it run inefficiently (e.g. MS Office 2016).

Same situation for Final Cut Pro X and Logic Pro X.

Finally my company updated the exchange server from 2003 to 2010 and now it turns out that Outlook 2016 needs Exchange 2010 SP 2 .... and of course they (my company's network people) didn't install this Service Pack...

Rigby said:

Has anyone checked whether Outlook finally supports Exchange Activesync in the new version? So far there is still nothing on the Mac that allows syncing Outlook.com contacts/calendars, which seems like a strange oversight on Microsoft's part ...

Also, it would be much appreciated by many if it could directly work with .pst files (as opposed to just importing them, which is a one-way street).

Click to expand...

Not sure what you are looking for. I use Outlook and it syncs just fine with Exchange, including contacts/calendars/tasks as well as Active Directory access. I take it Outlook.com does not allow syncing via web services?

My gripe with the new version is that it appears to require a 360 account and for security reasons I only want to sync with my Exchange server, not some MS cloud.

I do agree that it would be nice if they .pst file format was standard across platforms.

jlc1978 said:

Not sure what you are looking for. I use Outlook and it syncs just fine with Exchange, including contacts/calendars/tasks as well as Active Directory access. I take it Outlook.com does not allow syncing via web services?

Click to expand...

See my reply, above, to the same poster. It doesn't. Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 2 or later. Outlook.com is using EAS, and not EWS.

jlc1978 said:

My gripe with the new version is that it appears to require a 360 account and for security reasons I only want to sync with my Exchange server, not some MS cloud.

Click to expand...

No, it doesn't. Per MS, "Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 2 or later" and one of the applicable Office 365 plans.
https://support.office.com/en-sg/ar...-for-Mac-a07a593d-b383-4906-a6c1-962d5543ed57

campyguy said:

See my reply, above, to the same poster. It doesn't. Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 2 or later. Outlook.com is using EAS, and not EWS.

Click to expand...

Sorry, I missed that you were using Outlook.com

No, it doesn't. Per MS, "Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 2 or later" and one of the applicable Office 365 plans.
https://support.office.com/en-sg/ar...-for-Mac-a07a593d-b383-4906-a6c1-962d5543ed57

Click to expand...

However, to use it it requires me to login to my 365 account and I really don't like that as I am not sure exactly what info MS gets; and since this is a work account I want to maintain its security.

jlc1978 said:

Sorry, I missed that you were using Outlook.com

Click to expand...

???. The poster I was responding to wasn't asking about Outlook.com, rather EAS. You indicated you use Outlook.com - I don't and neither does that poster. I was addressing your query, about Outlook.com.

jlc1978 said:

However, to use it it requires me to login to my 365 account and I really don't like that as I am not sure exactly what info MS gets; and since this is a work account I want to maintain its security.

Click to expand...

DL the latest installer - it does not require an Office 365 account, as indicated by MS. The older installers - for Outlook only - required an Office 365 account; the latest installer for Outlook no longer requires an Office 365 account. I happen to have an Office 365 account, and use that on one of my Macs - my second Mac, a Mini Server, has the newer installer-based version of Outlook (15.9) and only connects to IMAP accounts, and I've never been prompted for my Office 365 credentials.

Both installations used to connect to my 2013 Exchange Server, but I sold that and my CALs a few weeks ago and ported to Office 365.

campyguy said:

???. The poster I was responding to wasn't asking about Outlook.com, rather EAS. You indicated you use Outlook.com - I don't and neither does that poster. I was addressing your query, about Outlook.com.

Click to expand...

I think somehow we got our wires crossed here, since I never said I used Outlook.com. The OP spoke about not being able to syncing Outlook.com contacts/calendars with the Mac, I commented that I use Outlook and it works fine with Exchange but wasn't sure about Outlook.com since it apparently does not allow use of EWS to synch.

DL the latest installer - it does not require an Office 365 account, as indicated by MS. The older installers - for Outlook only - required an Office 365 account; the latest installer for Outlook no longer requires an Office 365 account. I happen to have an Office 365 account, and use that on one of my Macs - my second Mac, a Mini Server, has the newer installer-based version of Outlook (15.9) and only connects to IMAP accounts, and I've never been prompted for my Office 365 credentials.

Both installations used to connect to my 2013 Exchange Server, but I sold that and my CALs a few weeks ago and ported to Office 365.

Click to expand...

I'll give it another look. I deleted it after my original install because of the Office 365 login and never tried it again.

rbwca said:

It seems to me that the evaluation edition of Office 2016 uses a lot more space than previous editions.

On my 2011 MBA, I see the following file sizes:
Excel 1.45GB
Word 1.62GB
Powerpoint 1.41GB
Outlook 812.4MB

Or roughly 5.3 GB

By contrast the entire MS Office 2008 folder in my Applications folder indicates a total of 867.5MB.

I realize that the previous version may have files in other locations, but it sure seem like there's a lot of bloat going on.

Click to expand...

I don't understand this bloat in size with new apps. I believe Office 98 could probably do 70% of whatever the new Office does and it was only 100mb or so?

jlc1978 said:

I think somehow we got our wires crossed here, since I never said I used Outlook.com. The OP spoke about not being able to syncing Outlook.com contacts/calendars with the Mac, I commented that I use Outlook and it works fine with Exchange but wasn't sure about Outlook.com since it apparently does not allow use of EWS to synch.

Click to expand...

Agreed on the crossed wires. None of this would even be an issue if the MS Mac BU created a feature-parity Outlook application so we can whine about something else...

jlc1978 said:

I think somehow we got our wires crossed here, since I never said I used Outlook.com. The OP spoke about not being able to syncing Outlook.com contacts/calendars with the Mac, I commented that I use Outlook and it works fine with Exchange but wasn't sure about Outlook.com since it apparently does not allow use of EWS to synch.

Click to expand...

Yes, that is correct. Outlook.com only supports IMAP (which can't handle contacts and calendars) and EAS for client-based access. Only Office 365 accounts support the other Exchange protocols. Given how hard MS has been pushing Outlook.com (and it is actually a very good email service) I find it surprising that they still don't fully support it on the Mac. EAS support was added for the Windows version of Outlook in Office 2013.

rbwca said:

It seems to me that the evaluation edition of Office 2016 uses a lot more space than previous editions.

On my 2011 MBA, I see the following file sizes:
Excel 1.45GB
Word 1.62GB
Powerpoint 1.41GB
Outlook 812.4MB

Or roughly 5.3 GB

By contrast the entire MS Office 2008 folder in my Applications folder indicates a total of 867.5MB.

I realize that the previous version may have files in other locations, but it sure seem like there's a lot of bloat going on.

Click to expand...

MacBH928 said:

I don't understand this bloat in size with new apps. I believe Office 98 could probably do 70% of whatever the new Office does and it was only 100mb or so?

Click to expand...

I agree with ct2k7, the applications are packaged and I'd hazard a guess that MS will slim these applications down considerably.

I owned Office 98 - check the size of the MS folder in the Extensions folder - it was huge and some of those extensions led to lots of crashes. I actually preferred using Word 6 over the version that came with 98... I ended up buying two Extension managers to weed out what I didn't need (I was also using Quark XPress at the time, which was a PITA to manage...).

FWIW, MS has more-or-less embedded the entire 2011 "Office" support folder into each 2016 application and they have not created localized versions of each app yet - 2011 includes US English resources for my install, and 2016 contains at least 14 language resources. Otherwise, here's hoping that MS has nailed down interconnect agreements with Comcast, Verizon FIOS, etc. on game day... I'm glad that I ponied up for a 1TB SSD...

Rigby said:

Yes, that is correct. Outlook.com only supports IMAP (which can't handle contacts and calendars) and EAS for client-based access. Only Office 365 accounts support the other Exchange protocols. Given how hard MS has been pushing Outlook.com (and it is actually a very good email service) I find it surprising that they still don't fully support it on the Mac. EAS support was added for the Windows version of Outlook in Office 2013.

Click to expand...

Not picking nits, Outlook.com also supports (still) POP and the Hotmail Connector (the latter for versions of Windows Outlook 2003/07/10).

Don't forget to click on that "smiley" face and strongly recommend expanding the Mac Outlook app's account types. I have!

jwh49 said:

To begin with, every time I opened one of the apps, it asked me MULTIPLE times if it could access my private identity information; there was NO way I could find to turn this off to stop the harassment. Next, after several weeks, Outlook developed an "issue" with the mailbox however, the ability to repair it that exists with the 2011 version was not available based on my research so uninstalling and going back to the 2011 version of Office was my only option.

Am I the only user to experience these problems? Has anyone found solutions?

Thanks,

Jack

Click to expand...

To be fair, this is a preview, not a finished product..... I'm sure it comes with warnings to not use in Production environments.....