Microsoft offers free Office 2016 for Mac preview

Microsoft has launched a free preview of a long-awaited update to its Office for Mac suite, offering customisations to support common Mac features.

A preview of Office 2016 for Mac is available for download on the Office website.

Office 2016 for Mac will be the first version of the desktop publishing suite to support Mac devices since Office 2011.

In a blog post, Microsoft said the program has been designed from the ground up to take advantage of the latest Mac features, including thousands of graphics customised for Retina screens.

The new suite includes updated versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Outlook. The apps have been tweaked to take advantage of Mac features including scroll bounce, but the user interfaces have been designed to be familiar to users of Office on other platforms.

The new version of Word encompasses a new design tap to help manage layout, colours and fonts across a document, and a navigation pane to help refine the document structure. Excel includes features designed to speed up data entry, including formula builder and autocomplete enhancements.

Also part of the suite is the recently released Outlook for Mac. The mail client uses push mail support to keep inboxes updated, and includes a conversation view to organise an inbox around threaded conversations and a message preview that gives the first sentence of an email below the subject line.

Microsoft has revealed that a preview version of Office 2016 for Windows is on the way, and that it will support Windows 7, Windows 8/8.1 and the upcoming Windows 10.