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A full suite of office applications are available in this one software package from Microsoft

A full suite of office applications are available in this one software package from Microsoft

Vote: (47 votes)

Program license: Trial version

Developer: Microsoft

Version: Preview 16.0.3823.1005

Works under: Windows

Vote:

Program license

(47 votes)

Trial version

Developer

Version

Microsoft

Preview 16.0.3823.1005

Works under:

Windows

Pros

  • Comes with integrated apps like Wikipedia and Maps
  • Has lots of tools for editing and saving documents under different formats
  • Tell Me feature shows you how to use some tools and access other features
  • Gives you access to Excel and other Microsoft programs
  • Provides access to the Microsoft Store for downloading additional apps

Cons

  • Doesn't introduce a lot of of new changes to the software
  • Costs a lot of money to upgrade to the full suite
  • The preview is a trial that is only valid for a short period of time
  • Microsoft will block you from using all features once your trial expires
  • Many free programs now come with the some of the same features

Microsoft Office is the top word processing program in the world, and the company offers Office 2016 Preview for those who want to try out the software suite before purchasing it. This preview is a trial offer that lets you sample different features and use different programs and apps for free and for a limited time. Once your trial period expires, Microsoft will limit what you can do with the software until you pay for an upgrade. It may even block you from using all features and even opening files saved on your computer.

Microsoft Office 2016 comes with the complete suite of programs and features. The largest and most important of those might be Microsoft Word. If you ever created a document from scratch on your computer before, you probably used this program. It lets you save files in the latest format or in one of the formats used by previous editions.

This software is especially important for those who work and those who are in school. You can insert additional information and content into a document such as a graph, photograph, chart or even video. It also comes with features for adding citations to your work like endnotes or footnotes and for creating a bibliography of your research.

Microsoft Office also comes with a toolbar that makes it easy to edit your work. You can use fonts of different sizes and colors and choose from a dozen of font styles. Buttons let you align your writing to the left or right of the page and in the center of the page. You can also add a list of bullet points or a numbered list and add words in a bold, italicized or underlined font.

Also, it includes is Microsoft Access, which is a management tool designed for databases. It includes many of the features found on older editions of Excel and lets you automatically add up figures based on the information you list in the database. It also comes with Excel, which you may feel more comfortable working with until you gain more familiarity with Access.

You'll also get a copy of PowerPoint, which is a must-have for many. With PowerPoint, you can create detailed presentations that incorporate videos, images, graphs and other visual aids. This program is perfect for creating a project that you share in front of your classmates or for a research project that you present to clients or your supervisors at work.

To better assist users on the go, Microsoft added features that work in the cloud like OneDrive and OneNote. OneDrive is great for classmates working on a project together and for business owners and employees. You can save all your files in the OneDrive cloud and later access those files from anywhere. Some colleges actually require that students use programs like this when working on papers and projects. Professors can log in and check on the progress that their students made.

OneNote is similar, but this handy app is more useful for jotting down notes. You can create hundreds of files and select names for each one. Those files help you keep track of appointments, your grocery lists, things you want to try and other information. As with OneDrive, you can log in and check those notes later.

Internet integration is one of the best features of Microsoft Office 2016. As long as you have a Microsoft account, you can access all the same apps and information from any device. You can link your phone, tablet and computer to the same account. Anytime that you delete content from a file or add more information, the files on your linked devices will automatically update. You can use many of these same apps on your XBOX One console too.

Microsoft Office 2016 comes with nine programs inside one simple package. You cannot download just one program or select the programs either because Microsoft requires that you download the entire package. This can take up a lot of valuable hard drive space and may limit what you can do with other programs. If you have Office 2013 on your computer, this version will automatically override that old version. Attempting to open the older version will cause this version to open instead. To use Office 2013, you'll need to delete the 2016 edition.

Tell Me is an entirely new feature that comes with this program suite. Microsoft added this feature to help users who had problems with previous editions. Tell Me will bring up a search box that lets you search for information on how to use certain tools and features. You can then ask the feature to do that for you. It can insert a new comment box into a file or add a new page. Tell Me works specifically with PowerPoint and Excel.

The biggest issue with Microsoft Office 2016 is that it's too similar to the last edition. If you looked at both programs running at the same time, you would have a hard time deciding which one is which. To see how the Tell Me feature can assist you and to see if you should upgrade to the full version, download the Microsoft Office 2016 Preview to try it out for yourself.

Pros

  • Comes with integrated apps like Wikipedia and Maps
  • Has lots of tools for editing and saving documents under different formats
  • Tell Me feature shows you how to use some tools and access other features
  • Gives you access to Excel and other Microsoft programs
  • Provides access to the Microsoft Store for downloading additional apps

Cons

  • Doesn't introduce a lot of of new changes to the software
  • Costs a lot of money to upgrade to the full suite
  • The preview is a trial that is only valid for a short period of time
  • Microsoft will block you from using all features once your trial expires
  • Many free programs now come with the some of the same features