More Office 16 news unveiled

We were already aware of Office 16 screenshots leaked by The Verge, which showed changes to the visual appearance of Office, along with hinting at the addition of a Tell Me assistant and a rotate feature automatic imaging. Now it's Mary Jo Foley who gives us new clues about other novelties that Office 16 will include, let's see what they are.

First of all, we're talking about an update to the PowerPivot data model used by Excel to create PivotTables and PivotCharts. This new data model will work only with the latest versions of Excel (we don't know yet from which version onwards), which means that older versions will not be able to update, edit or create PivotTables and PivotCharts that use this model, but will be able to view them. .

In Outlook there are improvements aimed at reducing disk space requirements: we will be able to choose thein a more granular way amount of mail that we want to be stored on the premises, choosing between downloading mail that is one day, 3 days, one week, or 14 days old. These are added to the current alternatives of saving mail that is 1 month old, or that of all time .

Microsoft is beginning to prioritize updating the mobile and web versions of Office, as part of the Mobile first, Cloud first philosophy.

In addition, it will be possible to zoom in charts more easily, and in Microsoft Project (the Gantt chart application) it will be possible to display multiple timelines with custom date ranges, all in one view. For its part, Microsoft Visio will add support for IRM (Information rights management) in the files created by said program, which should be useful for all those who use Visio to edit and create diagrams with proprietary or proprietary information.

Lastly, Office 16 would have greater integration with OneDrive, making it easier to attach or insert files saved in this service.

Of course, there are still other new features in Office 16 that haven't surfaced, but even so, Mary Jo Foley says Microsoft is starting to prioritize the upgrade Office Online and Office clients for mobiles and tablets, as part of the Mobile first, Cloud first approach. This explains why we are starting to see features appearing first on the web rather than on the desktop (such as the Tell Me wizard).

The final version of Office 16 would be released in March or April of next year, accompanying the launch of Windows 9

The most interesting thing about all of this is that the Public Preview of Office 16 could be just around the corner, and it could be downloaded starting next October Meanwhile, the final version should hit the market in March or April of next year, accompanying the launch of Windows 9 and Office Touch, the Office edition for Windows RT/Windows Phone tablets and smartphones.

Via | Mary Jo Foley