Microsoft rolls out public preview of Office 2016 for Mac

Microsoft today announced a public preview of Office for Mac 2016, the suite's first major upgrade in almost five years. The suite contains redesigned versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook and OneNote which are now more much more in line with their latest Windows counterparts. In addition, each application has been built to support OS X’s full-screen view and scale correctly on hardware with a retina display.

"[Office for Mac 2016 is] another proof point of our commitment to cross-platform support and a consistent experiences across devices," said Kirk Koenigsbauer, Microsoft's Vice President for the Office 365 Client Apps and Services Team. "Unmistakably Office, but thoughtfully designed for the Mac".

Mac users are able to download a free preview of Office for Mac 2016, which will continue to operate for a month after the final product launches in the second half of this year. The preview build can be run alongside Office for Mac 2011. Office for Mac 2016 requires OS X Yosemite.

The Office for Mac 2016 preview can be downloaded here.