Office 2016 for Mac has been finished and is available today to Office 365 subscribers and students. As long as your Office 365 subscription includes the desktop Office suite (Home, Personal, Business, Business Premium, E3, and ProPlus) you can install it from your account page. Not a subscriber? You'll have to wait until some time in September, though we're not exactly sure when. Microsoft hasn't announced the precise release date or how much it'll cost.

It's been five long years since Microsoft last released Office for Mac. While the Windows version of Microsoft's productivity suite was last updated in 2013, most of the OS X version dates back to 2010. The two exceptions were Outlook, which saw a hefty update last year, and OneNote (likewise). That pair has been continuously updated since.

The new version makes the suite look a lot more like its forthcoming Windows counterpart. The ribbon layouts are the same between OS X and Windows, and the title bars and ribbon headers of the apps are boldly colored in each application's respective color. But consistency between OS X and Windows is not absolute, and respect is paid to OS X design norms. For example, Office for Mac doesn't include the "backstage" area that the Windows apps show when you go to the "File" menu, instead using more traditional menus, dialogs, and settings panes for this kind of thing.

Both sets of desktop apps similarly take styling cues from the various touch Office apps that Microsoft has released; it's clear that Microsoft is trying to make sure that its apps look and feel similar whether you're using them on a smartphone, tablet, or computer.

Perhaps the most important features across the updated suite are the integration of OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, and SharePoint, and making the apps "fully" Retina aware. Office 2011 made the main document areas Retina-capable, but portions of the user interface were not.

The cloud connectivity trickles down into Word, with better simultaneous collaborative editing capabilities and threaded comments. Recent files lists will also roam between machines, making it easier to pick up where you left off even on different devices. PowerPoint similarly supports co-authoring and threaded commenting. For Excel, the biggest changes are support for Windows keyboard shortcuts and inclusion of "most" Excel 2013 for Windows functions.

Broadly speaking, the gaps between the Windows and Mac versions should be much smaller. The Mac version is no longer the Windows version's forgotten sibling; it's now its equal peer. And with its immediate availability, Office for Mac has slightly leapfrogged Office 2013; Windows users won't get their Office 2016 until fall, and their touch apps should be finalized within the next few weeks.

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