Microsoft desktop version of Office 2016 Preview ready for download

Microsoft now lets anyone download Office 2016 Preview for desktop.

Microsoft Office install splash

Microsoft announces today that anyone can download and test Office 2016 Preview. Starting immediately, anyone with a Microsoft Account can download the upcoming version of Office, even though the software giant is aiming this preview for IT professionals and developers.

The company says that the preview represents what people can expect to come in the next version of Office, but the preview doesn’t include all the features Microsoft is planning to release in the final product later this year.

Microsoft explains some of the features included in the preview of Office 2016:

While Exchange, Outlook, OneDrive for Business, and SharePoint have been shipping with Data Loss Protection (DLP). Microsoft is now adding the same classification and policy features to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. This will enable IT professionals to create and enforce policies for content authoring and document sharing, and end users will get notify on any potential policy violations.

Outlook is receiving a number of improvements in this version. The software giant details that is replacing the RPC-base sync with MAPI-HTTP protocol for connectivity. Multi-factor authentication will also be supported through Active Directory Authentication Library (ADAL).

Microsoft is reducing the amount of time that takes to download new emails. Outlook also gets better storage management and search improvement.

For those with an Office 365 subscription, Office 2016 includes new click-to-run deployment, something highly requested by the community.

The preview also offers changes for keyboard accessibility for high-value Excel features like PivotTables and Sliders.

Furthermore, this version also includes a dark theme intended for users with visual impairments. However, recent leak of Office 2016 shows that Microsoft is also working on adding a new colorful theme that adds the same colors found on the suite of apps for iOS, Mac OS X, Android, and the touch version of Office for Windows 10.

Downloading the preview is simple, just sign-up in this page, after filling out a small survey, you’ll get the download link for Microsoft’s Office 2016 preview.

Source Microsoft

About the author

Mauro Huculak is a Windows How-To Expert who started Pureinfotech in 2010 as an independent online publication. He has also been a Windows Central contributor for nearly a decade. Mauro has over 14 years of experience writing comprehensive guides and creating professional videos about Windows and software, including Android and Linux. Before becoming a technology writer, he was an IT administrator for seven years. In total, Mauro has over 20 years of combined experience in technology. Throughout his career, he achieved different professional certifications from Microsoft (MSCA), Cisco (CCNP), VMware (VCP), and CompTIA (A+ and Network+), and he has been recognized as a Microsoft MVP for many years. You can follow him on X (Twitter), YouTube, LinkedIn and About.me.