A few weeks ago, we had reported that Touch Bar support was added in a February Insider Slow update for Office 2016 on Mac. Today Microsoft has followed up and announced to us via email that support for the Touch Bar in Office 2016 on Mac is now generally available for all users. The support ultimately means that Office for Mac users can make use of the new MacBook Pro Touch Bar in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint to achieve more.
As our Brad Stephenson reported, the Touch Bar support was first announced by Apple back at an event in October. Microsoft is also committed to bringing Office to more and more platforms and is working together with Apple to meet the needs of both Microsoft and Apple customers throughout that journey. Mac users should expect the following features with the Touch Bar in Office.
- Insert comments, photos, and hyperlinks in Word directly from the Touch Bar Present your slideshow easily with new view-specific controls in PowerPoint Experience a more intuitive and precise rotation experience with the new object rotation slider in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint
- In Word, the Touch Bar support will activate a new mode, Word Focus Mode, which essentially removes all of the UI from the program and focuses on the main content.
- Touch Bar commands in PowerPoint add a new Reorder Objects button and allow for swipe gestures to rotate objects.
- In Excel, the Touch Bar displays recently used functions for faster access and quick access to borders, cell colors and recommended charts.
- In Outlook, the Touch Bar presents the most commonly used features such as attaching a file to an email. The Touch Bar’s Today view can also display Outlook calendar events and provide a faster way to join a Skype for Business call.
To receive these features you can, check for updates in your Office for Mac subscription by going to Help > Check for Updates in any of your Office for Mac apps. As always, please let us know what you think of these features by dropping us a comment below!
