Microsoft Launches Office 2016 for Mac Preview, Available for Free to Mac Users

[sracer]

Can I respectfully say that I think you may be exaggerating a little when you say that Mavericks killed your 2 year old MBP?

Yes, you can respectfully say that, but it isn't an exaggeration. If there is any exaggeration it is in the age of the device. It might've been 3-4 yrs old rather than 2. I've got 7 OSX devices and I could have mis-remembered which one had the problem with Mavericks.

 

[rohithbasu]

install on mavericks

I was able to easily install this on OS X Mavericks (10.9.5) using the simple version number change trick in the SystemVersion.plist file. Trouble is if anyone knows of a workaround to get the individual .app files to open.

 

[punchwalk]

One of the few things I really liked about Office 2011 was Word's "minimalist" full screen mode. I suspect that this has been removed in the 2016 preview, but can someone please confirm?

As a side note, I'm a bit disappointed by the Yosemite requirement; I installed Yosemite Beta on my late 2013 rMBP and disliked it intensely enough to downgrade to Mavericks after only a week or so (I don't currently own any iOS devices, so I don't feel that I'm missing out on any new features). I'm currently weighing whether Office 2016's restriction is enough of a motivation to give Yosemite another try.

 

[iamyoda]

probably celebrated too soon

Thanks I need to re install office 2016 today and hopefully your advise sorts outlook

Yes its worked 1st time outlook has offered try free preview option after re installing running the command and launching Thanks iamyoda

Actually, cleaning the cache DID allow me to connect to my Exchange instead of to a 365 account, but quickly after syncing all my emails, Outlook started to crash every few seconds. Cleaning the cache only helps until syncing starts again.

Crap

 

[jason.siegel]

I find Excel extremely buggy, almost to the point of unuseability. I am constantly restarting the program. Just to be able to do things like click a certain column or cell. I'm also getting "out of memory" errors when I try to save. Anyone else having similar issues?

Running on a Late 2011 Macbook Air.

 

[campyguy]

not sure if this because its a beta release

I click delete to delete e-mail and the emails stay in my inbox?

Anyone else find this is happening

I do not have a definitive answer for you, however, I noticed this behavior last night with one of the 5 accounts (MS's Outlook.com account).
The default setting Outlook for each account appears to be to load only the email's Header, and not the entire message.

As I was "deleting" several test emails from a folder, they weren't being deleted right away - but they were being deleted after several seconds. Outlook was loading each email message, then moving them to the account's Trash folder.

After an entire message was downloaded (I don't load images unless I know who the sender is), I could move or delete the emails much more quickly.

So, to "speed things up" a workaround would be to turn off the option (for each account as you see fit) to load only the Header. The only other constraint would be the amount of time it takes Outlook to contact your email providers - I noted my Exchange account deletions were almost instantaneous, but my IMAP accounts were much slower in this regard for "Header Only" accounts.

 

[Donfor39]

e-mails are deleting fine since a few re starts through today

not sure if i'll upgrade to 2016 on release

not yet convinced t.b.h.

 

[campyguy]

I find Excel extremely buggy, almost to the point of unuseability. I am constantly restarting the program. Just to be able to do things like click a certain column or cell. I'm also getting "out of memory" errors when I try to save. Anyone else having similar issues?

Running on a Late 2011 Macbook Air.

I'm not having issues with Excel 2011 or 2016 on my Late 2013 rMBP, with the latter app is connected to a robust network connection.

I have, however, noticed a significantly different means of the two Excel applications (2011 & 2016, both connected to an Office 365 account) talking to MS's network which has negatively affected performance on one my my Macs (a 2012 Mac Mini Server that is transported to a field office and to my home office) that's not always connected to the internet; a test at the field office with the internet down brought Excel 2016 to its knees, but 2011 worked fine.

I'm using Little Snitch to check service and network connections.

Excel 2011 seems to run fine, and "talks" to my OneDrive and MS Office 365 through a service named "Microsoft Ship Asserts" (at least, that Service is running when I'm using MS Office 2011 apps), and both the OneDrive and Asserts Services get polled occasionally.

OTOH, Excel 2016 is talking to three network services very often: "nexus.officeapps.live.com", "login.live.com", and "osiprod-wus-bronze-000.cloudapp.net" - if I temporarily blocked any of those three services (with a Little Snitch Rule or manually), Excel 2016 choked, even on a simple document with no calculations being performed and with no restrictions to my OneDrive. I noticed that Excel 2016 activated those 3 network service connections immediately upon an Excel Window being clicked on (i.e., being clicked on from another application including the Finder), a calculation being made (via "Calculate Now"), or after several data entries - Excel 2016 seems to want to "talk" to those network services very often. When connected to a robust network connection Excel 2016 works for me without issue, given that MS's servers are likely still being hammered by us.

I'll be passing on my findings, rather, a gripe, to MS via their feedback panel.

 

[617660]

I find Excel extremely buggy, almost to the point of unuseability. I am constantly restarting the program. Just to be able to do things like click a certain column or cell. I'm also getting "out of memory" errors when I try to save. Anyone else having similar issues?

Running on a Late 2011 Macbook Air.

I haven't received that error yet but it is buggy. Plus, the windows keyboard shortcut still doesn't work. I don't know what Microsft is on about, I know it's beta but keyboard shortcut should be relatively easy to implement.

 

[bmac89]

I haven't received that error yet but it is buggy. Plus, the windows keyboard shortcut still doesn't work. I don't know what Microsft is on about, I know it's beta but keyboard shortcut should be relatively easy to implement.

I haven't checked all the keyboard shortcuts, but I noticed that the windows shortcuts Ctrl + C (Copy) and Ctrl + V (Paste) work in Excel but not Word. The mac shortcuts Command + C etc work in both Excel and Word.

 

[mortenandersen]

REAL full screen view in Word 2016?

One of the few things I really liked about Office 2011 was Word's "minimalist" full screen mode. I suspect that this has been removed in the 2016 preview, but can someone please confirm?

I too really hope that the new version of Word still has this feature, as I hate the silly columns on the left and right sides: They just steal very precious screen estate from the writer/user. I also would like to have the option of completely removing the ribbon from the top of the screen.

Anyone who can tell about whether this REAL full screen view still is an option in Word 2016 - or not?

 

[campyguy]

I too really hope that the new version of Word still has this feature, as I hate the silly columns on the left and right sides: They just steal very precious screen estate from the writer/user.

Anyone who can tell about whether this REAL full screen view still is an option in Word 2016?

Yes, it's there and it's easier to configure in Word 2016 what one's viewing than Word 2011.

 

[davidlv]

In response to: "Originally Posted by Azzin View Post
You can set it to automatically check for updates."
"

Thank you for the info! I found where to change the settings.

OK, where do you "set it to automatically check for updates"?

 

[slang51]

problems with word

Is anyone else having problems with drag and drop in Word 2016? I can select the text but can't move it anywhere else

 

[617660]

I haven't checked all the keyboard shortcuts, but I noticed that the windows shortcuts Ctrl + C (Copy) and Ctrl + V (Paste) work in Excel but not Word. The mac shortcuts Command + C etc work in both Excel and Word.

Any shortcut with ALT doesn't work.

 

[campyguy]

Is anyone else having problems with drag and drop in Word 2016? I can select the text but can't move it anywhere else

No problems here.

Make sure your cursor is pointing toward the upper-left and not the upper-right, just like Word has done since v. 4, as you may already know. Toward the upper-right for selections, toward the upper-left for selections and moving selections.

I've created a few new documents and edited a couple of (copies of) existing complex documents with no issue, including moving large blocks of text.

My favorite Word-for-Windows/Mac keyboard shortcut for moving blocks of text or entire selected sections - Alt/Option-Up/Down Arrow key - doesn't work.

 

[slang51]

word 2016

Thanks for your feedback, I've been using Word 2008, didn't bother upgrading to 2011, so am finding my way around the new interface. I'm not getting any change when I hover the cursor over the top right or left of the selection. I can still use command X and command V to move text but the drag and drop doesn't do anything.
Please excuse if this goes somewhere else in the forum, I'm still trying to figure out how to make a reply to someone else individually

 

[jess.atd]

Its a good start but needs performance improvements

I downloaded the preview and finally installed it today and I've been working on it all day. I haven't has any real issues; a slight scrolling issue in excel but that’s about it. The new UI is much nicer, it don’t feel like I’m still running Leopard. I still hate outlook and refuse to use it, Mail and Calendar are far superior in my opinion, but even as much as I have tried to get away from Word for Pages, I cant so I’ve stopped fighting it. The biggest issues I noticed is that opening, loading and saving time for all the apps. Its like going back to the experience I had with a spinning hdd not what I would expect form a 3 months old top tier 15 inch MBPr. The old apps do everything in less then 2 seconds but the new ones average 8 seconds for those operations (yes I actually used a stopwatch). This may not seem like a huge thing but when you’re used to extremely snappy performance this much lag is annoying. I seriously hope MS makes some serious and drastic improvements in the performance of this suite, I want to like this, I really do.

 

[Swiss-G]

In response to: "Originally Posted by Azzin View Post
You can set it to automatically check for updates."
"
OK, where do you "set it to automatically check for updates"?

You use Microsoft AutoUpdate. It's a separate app which can be launched by selecting Help>Check for Updates in one of the Office apps.

Once launched you can select to update manually or automatically. The frequency can be set to daily, weekly or monthly.

 

[RickyB]

Didn't see any mention of it, but is Lync 2016 included in this beta?

No. I thinks they are rebranding it to "Skype for business" before then anyway.

 

[davidlv]

You use Microsoft AutoUpdate. It's a separate app which can be launched by selecting Help>Check for Updates in one of the Office apps. Once launched you can select to update manually or automatically. The frequency can be set to daily, weekly or monthly.

Thanks for the info!
I noticed that the font list in Word 2015 is huge, as it includes all of the fonts installed on my system, even the ones I have disabled using Font Book! (I wonder if this is the same in the Windows version?).
I will try deleting all of the fonts I will never use, the ones you can disable in Font Book (leaving the ones that have the disable button greyed out) in an effort to make it easy to select fonts that start with a letter way down the alphabet. Scrolling down to Times New Roman takes forever!
Just tested this using Word 2011 and it does the same thing so this may be an Office-Yosemite thing, but I don't remember having that issue running Mavericks.

 

[Damfino]

Found a fix for the repeated Outlook crashing...

Involves a couple Terminal commands to delete preferences:

Image

http://crunchify.com/microsoft-offi...ook-crashes-after-fresh-install-fix-included/

Thanks for posting the fix. Worked for me.

 

[kwokaaron]

I was able to easily install this on OS X Mavericks (10.9.5) using the simple version number change trick in the SystemVersion.plist file. Trouble is if anyone knows of a workaround to get the individual .app files to open.

It has already been mentioned before that simply changing the version number check will not work. See this post.

 

[nickday]

How to get Outlook in full screen!

One thing that was really bugging me about Outlook is that you can't make it full screen - well yes you can!

Follow the instructions here - http://www.tuaw.com/2011/07/25/hackinations-making-any-os-x-app-full-screenable-in-lion/

The file you want to convert/edit is /Applications/Microsoft Outlook.app/Contents/Resources/en.lproj/OutlookMainWindow.nib. I used Sublime Text to do it, and didn't bother converting the XML file back to a binary file at the end as suggested in the article.

Obviously you'll have to do this after each update (until Microsoft actually add full screen support into the app).

A great bonus of this over Mail.app's fullscreen, is that the message composing window stays as a normal window, which is useful when you want to find and refer back to a previous email when composing replies etc.

 

[doynton]

I noticed that the font list in Word 2015 is huge, as it includes all of the fonts installed on my system, even the ones I have disabled using Font Book! (I wonder if this is the same in the Windows version?).

It is not only Word. All MS fonts are duplicated in all of the .apps (eg /Applications/Microsoft Excel.app/Contents/Resources/Fonts). This is (mainly) why the apps are so big. Presumably in the final version will use the ones in /Library/Fonts/Microsoft rather than duplicating them.