Microsoft is scheduled to launch Office 2016 for Windows desktop in just a few weeks — the first new desktop version since the launch of Office 2013 two and a half years ago. After using the Preview version, what strikes me most is that Microsoft has clearly moved its focus and energy away from the desktop to its cloud strategy. While there are some nice interface updates and a few new features, most users won’t notice much of a difference from Office 2013 for Windows. However it is a solid upgrade for those with an Office 365 subscription, and may be worth paying for if you need one of its smattering of new features.

Updated interface from Office 2013

With Office 2016, Microsoft has backed off a bit from the ultra-flat design of Office 2013. Like many others, I found it harder to find items on the ribbon than with its earlier, more-textured interface. Microsoft Office 2016 doesn’t bring back a 3D look, but it does use a little more color-coding to make the ribbon easier on the eye and a little more user-friendly. The default theme is now Colorful, but can easily be switched back, of course. The new version of the suite also adds support for 250% and 300% zoom settings for high-PPI screens.

Word, Excel, and PowerPoint get an additional interface feature in the form of a “Tell me what you want to do…” field on the menu bar. It allows you to type all or part of a command and then click from a list of matches. While a nice addition for infrequently used commands, it is unlikely to please users who dislike the ribbon interface and want the old-style menus back. I found it a lot quicker than clicking through the various ribbons, almost acting as a mini help system in addition to a command box.

Other than the interface tweaks, it isn’t easy to find any functionality changes in Word and PowerPoint. They do get the Ink to Math capability from OneNote (called Ink Equation), as does Excel. All three apps also get an expanded shape library. The biggest functionality upgrade in Word is better support for real-time collaboration. You can see others changes and even their cursor location live.

OneNote is frozen in time

Unfortunately for OneNote users, you’ll notice that the toolbar for the 2016 version is identical to the 2013 version other than color. There don’t appear to be any new features in OneNote 2016 at all, which is a real shame. Even some of the most annoying glitches — like sub-sections expanding whenever you add a page to them — are preserved instead of being addressed. Send to OneNote also appears to be missing, which would be fine if Office included a version of Microsoft’s excellent new Snip tool that integrated with OneNote — but it doesn’t. Presumably part of the reason for this is the effort the OneNote team has put into OneNote for Android, iOS, and Windows 10. It’s great that they’ve made the application cross-platform, but a shame that it has come at the expense of improvements in the full-featured desktop version.

Backstage upgrade and tighter OneDrive integration

If you don’t follow Office development closely, you might not even know that Backstage is the name Microsoft has given the File handling and Options functions in Office. Microsoft has responded to user requests for improved usability by making the Browse button more visible in Save As and in Open, and rearranging the order of storage locations to be more intuitive. Users can also do real time collaborative editing in Word on their documents stored on OneDrive for Business or Office 365 SharePoint sites. Outlook users can have attachments quickly uploaded to the cloud for easier sharing.

Outlook finally gets some love

One application that does get some attention is Outlook. The 2016 version has a nice new feature that shows recently-used files when you go to add an attachment. Clutter, which debuted with Office 365, is also added to Outlook 2016. It uses machine learning to automatically sort your incoming email by pushing lower-priority items into a separate folder. Unfortunately, it is still server-based, so you need to enable it using the Web version of Outlook and make sure any inboxes you want to filter are available to it.

Searching in Outlook adds a new feature that notices if you are looking for a person and automatically shows you your correspondence with them. In my testing with the current preview version, I couldn’t get this to work, but it should be a nice improvement over having to type in full names of people to filter your email. Adding attachment also gets a nice new feature where you can see all your recently used files quickly — since those are the ones you’re most likely to want to attach. You can also choose to send just a link to your OneDrive documents instead of the entire file.

Personally, I’m a very-heavy Outlook user and didn’t like many of the interface changes introduced with Outlook 2013. I still use the 2010 version on most of my systems (even the ones where I use the rest of Office 2013). The good news is that the new features in Outlook 2016 plus the easier-to-see coloring of the ribbon and menu bars mean I’ll be upgrading to it as soon as all my favorite add-ins are supported (Cloudmark does not have support for it yet).

A grab bag of other new features

Microsoft has also included a number of new, somewhat esoteric, features, including:

Some new financial, statistical, and hierarchical chart types

Dynamic data linking between Visio and Excel

Power Query now integrated into Excel

Pivot Chart, Power Pivot and PivotTable upgrades

Improvement in Click-to-Run management for IT pros

Data Loss Protection added to Excel

Multi-factor authentication using Active Directory

More secure translation options (now use SSL and have more-consistent privacy warnings)

You can get more details on the specifics of these features from the Office Support website. Microsoft is also continuing to take suggestions from users during the Preview with some indication that additional changes will be made before the final release, but it seems a little late to be doing anything major at this point, so I’d expect the final release to be very similar to what we’ve seen so far. Users of Windows tablets, can also already download Microsoft’s Office Mobile suite.

Should you upgrade to Office 2016?

If you already have an Office 365 subscription, or the option to get the 2016 version of Office with a new machine, I can’t see any reason not to go with it. You get some interface improvements and a smattering of new features. If you have a perfectly usable Office license already and would need to purchase the upgrade, I don’t see it being worth the money unless you are a heavy user of OneDrive or part of a corporation that needs the new security features or perhaps real-time collaborative editing in Word.