Office for Mac 2016 Preview

[vinodh]

Microsoft has released a preview of Office 2016 for Mac.

Download (2.7GB): http://products.office.com/en-US/mac/mac-preview

FAQ: http://products.office.com/en-US/mac/mac-preview#faq

 

[Cassady]

I'm eligible for the MS Office at Home licence - R81 or something. Will wait for the proper release, and then take the plunge. From what I've seen, it's looking good.

 

[creeper]

I downloaded the preview and played around with it. The look and feel is closer to Windows. Also a lot more flatter. It is however slower than Office 2011 and not all the features are enabled, so I recommend not using it for daily usage.

The biggest irritation is the bloody auto-height bug, Auto-height stops working when you have merged cells.

 

[vinodh]

I've got it running side by side with Office 2011 so I will always have a backup if 2016 decides to misbehave. I haven't really had a chance to mess around with it much but it works ok for that few minutes I played with it. I'll keep updating as newer builds get released and will eventually install the final version via my Office 365 subscription.

 

[MagicDude4Eva]

Works pretty decent for me. I don't notice any slow downs (running a 2014 Retina Pro with SSD/16GB RAM though). So far I have not come across something not working - all the complex Excel we use work perfectly fine - I guess it's a step up from Office 2011. Not sure what features are missing though.

 

[ghostR]

Works pretty decent for me. I don't notice any slow downs (running a 2014 Retina Pro with SSD/16GB RAM though). So far I have not come across something not working - all the complex Excel we use work perfectly fine - I guess it's a step up from Office 2011. Not sure what features are missing though.

That MB Pro though...

 

[MagicDude4Eva]

That MB Pro though...

Was a tough switch from my old MB Pro 17" though - really miss the big screen, but yes - awesome, beastly power on the MP Retina - running 2-3 virtuals and then EclipseIDE and a ton of other things and everything just flies

 

[creeper]

Was a tough switch from my old MB Pro 17" though - really miss the big screen, but yes - awesome, beastly power on the MP Retina - running 2-3 virtuals and then EclipseIDE and a ton of other things and everything just flies

Still running a MBP2010 with 8GB memory. I had a problem with file properties in Excel and some graphic glitches. But I do agree. Nice upgrade. Much cleaner

 

[Darko]

Got it just now. Looks cool!

I've had the new Outlook for a while since they released it, so happy that the rest of the apps have been brought inline.

 

[DrJohnZoidberg]

Furk me, they make it look prettier but it still as crap as ever.

Excel still only utilises a single thread. Seems it's nothing more than a new paint job and some bug fixes.

 

[DrJohnZoidberg]

And the 80's want their fonts back.

 

[krycor]

Some of it looks nice but it basically just aligns it with Windows version. Outlook seems to be buggy especially when via a proxy with SSL it seems.. meh

 

[MagicDude4Eva]

I spent some real production work with Excel 2016 today and what an absolute PITA. Very erratic behaviour, especially when dealing with large spreadsheets where you need to pivot, filter, sort and multi-select. It's like watching paint dry and frequently the ability to select rows stops working and I have to restart Excel.

 

[DrJohnZoidberg]

I spent some real production work with Excel 2016 today and what an absolute PITA. Very erratic behaviour, especially when dealing with large spreadsheets where you need to pivot, filter, sort and multi-select. It's like watching paint dry and frequently the ability to select rows stops working and I have to restart Excel.

Exactly. It's really unacceptable that a company as massive as Microsoft cannot fix something so fundamental. The reason for the slowness is because it can only access one processor core, so having a super fast multicore CPU helps jack. Check in Activity Monitor when you're running something, you'll see it never goes over 100%.

It looks better, but when Kingsoft office on a office Pentium PC can do something 10 times faster than my Macbook Pro then there is something seriously wrong.

 

[MagicDude4Eva]

Exactly. It's really unacceptable that a company as massive as Microsoft cannot fix something so fundamental. The reason for the slowness is because it can only access one processor core, so having a super fast multicore CPU helps jack. Check in Activity Monitor when you're running something, you'll see it never goes over 100%.

It looks better, but when Kingsoft office on a office Pentium PC can do something 10 times faster than my Macbook Pro then there is something seriously wrong.

It does feel sluggish and on my MBPr it hardly ever goes beyond 40% (the highest I see CPU spike is VMWare which sometimes goes to 102%, but that's about it).

 

[lupedelupe]

And the 80's want their fonts back.

Young professionals are wondering what that box-like thing above Save is.

 

[MagicDude4Eva]

You guys might want to download the update - http://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3048177 - this fixes at least that stupid Excel mouse-selection bug - surprised that no-one at M$ found that - was so evident of using Excel within 10 minutes.

 

[DrJohnZoidberg]

You guys might want to download the update - http://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3048177 - this fixes at least that stupid Excel mouse-selection bug - surprised that no-one at M$ found that - was so evident of using Excel within 10 minutes.

Lol, mine only updated now. That bug was infuriating, went back to using Excel 2007 after it happened the second time.

 

[DrJohnZoidberg]

Okay, I seriously think that MS is now purposefully designing awful apps for Mac. Either that or they give the work to the devs that are just ****.

I am feeling my laptop starting to heat up and fans so spinning up, I expect some app like Lync (another MS masterpiece) has locked up but no it's the MS updater that is DOWNLOADING a file that is using not only all my CPU but also every ounce of memory. While typing this Mac OS decided it had had enough and told my to do something.

Fsck you MS and your crappy apps!

 

[MagicDude4Eva]

Okay, I seriously think that MS is now purposefully designing awful apps for Mac. Either that or they give the work to the devs that are just ****.

I am feeling my laptop starting to heat up and fans so spinning up, I expect some app like Lync (another MS masterpiece) has locked up but no it's the MS updater that is DOWNLOADING a file that is using not only all my CPU but also every ounce of memory. While typing this Mac OS decided it had had enough and told my to do something.

Fsck you MS and your crappy apps!

Wow - what Mac are you running? Granted, in our office we run retina pros with SSD/16GB RAM and Office just flies. I heard from a power-user though that VLOOKUP and other functions are dodgy. Thankfully I don't go beyond sorting and pivots.