Microsoft announces plans to bring MacBook Pro Touch Bar support to Office suite
Less than 12 hours after Apple's announcement of the late 2016 MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, Microsoft has detailed future functionality of the new input method across the entire range of Office products.
In a blog post, Microsoft detailed the additions, including Word Focus mode, where the formatting tools for a document are taken off the screen and put on the Touch Bar.
In Powerpoint, the company has implemented graphic rotation tools, as well as a graphical map of all the slide layers.
Microsoft Excel has added an auto-fill formula bar, pulling up the most recently used functions in the Touch Bar when a cell is selected. The bar will also include formatting options, like cell colors, and borders.
Outlook provides quick access to the user's most commonly used commands. While composing a mail, the Touch Bar displays a list of recent documents for inclusion in an email, with communication facilitation through Skype possible through a single touch.
Microsoft has not yet revealed when modifications to Office bringing the new features would be implemented.
Microsoft Office 365 subscriptions begin at $69.99 per year for a one-user personal license, or $5 per month per user for businesses.
The 2016 MacBook Pro family, announced Thursday, is a major redesign to Apple's flagship notebook, and comes in screen sizes of 13 and 15 inches, with core models starting at $1,799 and shipping in two to three weeks. AppleInsider was at the event, and was able to spend some time with all the latest hardware.
To grab the lowest prices on Apple's new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, see AppleInsider's Mac Price Guide.
In a blog post, Microsoft detailed the additions, including Word Focus mode, where the formatting tools for a document are taken off the screen and put on the Touch Bar.
In Powerpoint, the company has implemented graphic rotation tools, as well as a graphical map of all the slide layers.
Microsoft Excel has added an auto-fill formula bar, pulling up the most recently used functions in the Touch Bar when a cell is selected. The bar will also include formatting options, like cell colors, and borders.
Outlook provides quick access to the user's most commonly used commands. While composing a mail, the Touch Bar displays a list of recent documents for inclusion in an email, with communication facilitation through Skype possible through a single touch.
Microsoft has not yet revealed when modifications to Office bringing the new features would be implemented.
Microsoft Office 365 subscriptions begin at $69.99 per year for a one-user personal license, or $5 per month per user for businesses.
The 2016 MacBook Pro family, announced Thursday, is a major redesign to Apple's flagship notebook, and comes in screen sizes of 13 and 15 inches, with core models starting at $1,799 and shipping in two to three weeks. AppleInsider was at the event, and was able to spend some time with all the latest hardware.
To grab the lowest prices on Apple's new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, see AppleInsider's Mac Price Guide.
Comments
I take my hat off to Apple (yet again) as upon reading rumors it sounded lame to me and I was truly expecting to be underwhelmed. Seeing it in action, and the phrase from of all people the Adobe representative, "It's like playing a musical instrument' summed it up perfectly. Sheer genius. I just hope Apple come out with a 'Super Keyboard' for those of us that ponied up for a high end new Mac Pro. After spending over $10K on a Mac set up I don't want to start over for a few more years! Adding a new keyboard with a Touch bar and integral trackpad is a no brainer for me.
As I simply have to use MS Office (neither Pages/Numbers/Keynote nor any of the OpenOffice forks handles even 5% of the documents I am getting properly – yes, it is because of proprietary junk, but it does not help), I am very happy about that. Especially the new full screen mode in Word (if you have a Touch Bar there will be no toolbars at all) is a fantastic solution. Office 2016 works quite well for me and on all my devices. (Not using Outlook on the desktop though despite having several Exchange accounts, it is abysmal, but same is true for the Windows version.) And seriously, if iCloud Drive would work as reliably as OneDrive, it would be a miracle.