One of the advantages of doing the last Office 2016 product review is that I can leverage work others have done to save you, the reader, some redundant explanation. So if you haven’t yet, check out the reviews of,. Much of what you’ll read about in those apps applies to, too: Mac-specific features like multi-touch gestures, full screen support, Retina graphics, a cleaned-up and easily-hidden ribbon, a fixed task pane that replaces floating palettes for formatting, integrated support for OneDrive, and excellent cross-platform file compatibility. You can read more about these features in the above-mentioned reviews; they work just the same way in the new Excel.
Nov 11, 2015 - Learn how to quickly become productive with Excel for Mac 2016, including how to use functions, format data, and collaborate with others.
(As with the other apps, you can only presently get Excel 2016 if you’re an Office 365 subscriber.) What else is new When you launch Excel 2016, you’ll be greeted by Excel’s clean new appearance. You can choose from a colored header (new in 2016) or the usual gray header from previous releases. Workbooks with multiple tabs get a much cleaner tab bar, losing the fake 3D appearance. Colored tabs are now colored with a thin bar, instead of a gradated fill on the entire tab, making it easier to read tab names. Overall, I found the new interface pleasant and easier to use than in older versions of Excel.
Excel includes the Smart Lookup feature found in other Office apps. Smart Lookup uses Bing to show contextual information for a highlighted word—while this is undoubtedly useful in Word, I didn’t really find myself using it much while working on spreadsheets. But if you suddenly need to look up everything there is to know about the word “amortization,” Smart Lookup is ready for you. So what’s new and unique to Excel 2016?
Quite a few things, starting with the removal of the Standard and Formatting toolbars. While you could hide these in Excel 2011, they’re completely gone—replaced by the task pane—in Excel 2016. I don’t miss them at all, as they were redundant and took up screen space. Also new is greatly improved sharing. Save your file to OneDrive, and you can then use a sharing button to invite people via their email address, copy a link you can then email to others, or send the workbook as either a PDF or native workbook attachment. Recipients can (assuming you grant permission) edit your file, even if they don’t own Excel, through Microsoft’s web-hosted Excel app.
Fans of pivot tables will find a new slicer tool that greatly increases the usability of pivot tables. A slicer is a way to limit the data you see in a pivot table. In a pivot table showing years of sales by salesperson, for example, you can use slicers to restrict the table to one or more years, or to one or more salespeople. Slicers let you limit what you see in a pivot table; you can add one or more to really refine what you see. Here, only data from 2012, 2013, and 2015 is visible. Another “new” feature is the inclusion of the Analysis Toolpak add-on.
I say new in quotes because while new to Excel 2016, long-time Excel vets will remember the Analysis Toolpak from the pre-OS X days. If you need to do complex statistical and/or engineering analysis—think Anova, Fourier Analysis, Regression, etc.—you’ll find the Analysis Toolpak invaluable. Also included are a number of formulas that were previously found only in Excel 2013 for Windows, improving cross-platform compatibility. Again in the interest of cross-platform compatibility, many Excel for Windows shortcuts now work on the Mac, which is quite useful if you regularly work on both platforms.
Excel also makes charting easier by analyzing your data and letting you select a recommended chart from a convenient drop-down menu. Select the data you want graphed, click the Recommended Charts button, then browse the mini chart previews to find the one that best matches what you’re trying to say.
Excel 2016 helps you pick the right chart by analyzing your data and presenting a list of charts you can use to visualize that data. What’s gone If you’re a serious user of Excel’s macro facilities, you are in for a big letdown: Excel’s 2016 support for macros is. While you can create and record macros, the macro editor is crippled: there’s no way to insert procedures, modules, etc. About all you can do is hand-edit a recorded macro.
Further, you can’t create custom menu commands, as you could in prior versions of Excel. (Microsoft details is Visual Basic support in a ). In short, if you need macros, stick to Excel 2011.
After the great progress made with macros in the 2011 release, this is a real letdown. Assuming the macro issue doesn’t affect you, the only other real problem I have with Excel 2016 is the loss of customizability of keyboard shortcuts and menus. In older Excel versions, you could easily customize which commands show on which menus, and even create entirely new menus containing just the commands you specify. This dialog in Excel 2011 allowed you to easily customize Excel’s menus and commands—even adding a new menu to the menu bar, if you desired.
You could also assign one or more keyboard shortcuts to any Excel command, including commands that you can’t program via OS X’s keyboard shortcut interface. The dialog that handles all of this customization is missing from Excel 2016; if you don’t like what Microsoft gave you for menus and certain shortcuts, you’re stuck with them. A related issue is that some familiar—and useful—shortcuts are now changed or gone. Control-I and Control-K used to insert and delete rows or columns; now you must use three fingers (Shift-Command-Equals) to add a row, and Command-Minus to remove a row.
You also used to be able to Option-click a row or column to quickly add a new blank row or column; this no longer works. If you use the keyboard a lot, you’ll want to open Excel’s help and search “keyboard shortcuts,” where you’ll find a huge list of shortcuts. Bottom line If you’re an Excel user who doesn’t rely on macros, and doesn’t need to customize your menus and commands, Excel 2016 has a lot going for it. The new interface is pleasant, the cross-platform features are a welcome addition, the performance is very good, and the Mac-specific features make Excel feel as native as any other Mac app.
But if you do need macros and customizability, then you’re going to have to stick to Excel 2011and that’s too bad, because Excel 2016 is a solid release in every other regard.
The Windows version of Microsoft Office has always been the gold standard for office suites, as far as features are concerned. Office exists on other platforms too, like the Mac—but those versions are missing some products and features. RELATED: Microsoft recently announced a.
Check out that link for a detailed list of updates, but the big stuff includes bringing some long overdue features to the macOS version, like collaborative real-time editing, automatic saving of documents stored in the cloud, and Google Calendar and Contacts support in Outlook (finally). That said, there are still features (and entire apps) that you might miss out on if you’re working with the Mac version. If you’re switching between Windows and Mac (maybe using one at the office and one at home), or maybe thinking of moving from Windows to Mac, it’s worth comparing the available features in the two versions. The big question is do you need to or just so that you can run the Windows version of Office, or can you get by with just buying the Mac version (or, better, using one of the installations that comes with your )?
What Products Are Missing from the Microsoft Office Mac Suite? RELATED: Microsoft sells Office for Windows in various editions. Almost all editions come with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. Depending on the edition you buy, you might also get apps like Outlook, Publisher, and Access. If you’re using a Mac, though, there are couple of Office apps (and Office-related apps) that you just can’t get:. Publisher: Publisher is an entry-level desktop publishing app, aimed mostly at home users. There’s no Mac version.
While you can easily find comparable apps for macOS, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to bring your Publisher files from the Windows version across very well—at least not without having to work them back into shape. Access: Access is a relational database management system that comes with the Professional editions of Office for Windows. You can’t get Access on the Mac, so if you (or your company) works with Access databases, you’re out of luck. And while we’re on the subject, there are also a couple of higher end “Office-adjacent” apps that aren’t available on macOS:. Visio: Visio is a diagramming and vector graphics app that lets you visualize complex information in the form of diagrams, graphs, flowcharts, and other forms.
There’s no Mac version, so if you need it for work, you’ll need access to Windows. Project: Project is a project management app that hooks into a company’s Outlook and Exchange Server setup. It lets project managers develop project schedules, create and assign tasks and resources, and manage it all with real-time input from people’s calendars.
There’s no Mac version. If you really need any of the specific apps we’ve listed here, you’re going to need run Windows and the Windows version of Office. What Features Are Missing from the Mac Versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote? So what about the core Office apps that are available on the Mac?
While there are a number of very small features missing (stuff that affects very few people), most of the features you find in the Windows versions are present in the macOS versions. Here are the main things you’ll miss out on, though. Suite-Wide There are a couple of fairly big features that, while not missing entirely from the Office suite for Mac, are not quite up to their Windows counterparts:.
Visual Basic: Visual Basic integration lets you in your Office documents. While macro support is included in Office on macOS, that support is not quite as fully featured as it is in the Windows version.
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If you make extensive use of macros, or use complicated macros, you should expect that some won’t work. SharePoint Integration: SharePoint is an intranet product used to share files, distribute news, and streamline collaboration on projects.
If you’re using a Mac and connecting to your company’s SharePoint servers, you might find that some aspects of SharePoint are not as well-supported as they are in the Windows version of Office. There are, of course, some other missing suite-wide features, but they really pertain to installations that are part of a company network. For example, roaming (the ability to use Office on different computers and have your configuration follow you) is not available for macOS. However, if your system is part of a company network, these things have likely been thought out in advance. Word Key features of Word that are missing from the macOS version include:.
Open and Repair: While the Mac version of Word can attempt to, it doesn’t have the specific Open and Repair command featured in the Windows version. This makes it harder to recover files that Word might not recognize as Word documents. Embed Fonts: When you, they are included in the Word file. That way, when someone else opens the file, it displays correctly even if they haven’t installed the fonts you used. You cannot embed fonts in the Mac version of Word. Digital Ink: This feature provides freestyle drawing tools that you can use to draw, write, or highlight areas on your document.
It’s not available on the Mac version. Document Inspector: The Document Inspector scans your Word document and, making it safer to share documents with others. This feature is missing from the Mac version. Excel Fortunately, the disparity between the Windows and Mac versions of Excel are minimal.
Both versions support all the major features. Here are a couple things to note, though:. PivotCharts: While the Mac version of Excel fully supports, its support for PivotCharts (charts derived from PivotTables) has always been lacking. The January 2018 update to Office 2016 for macOS does bring the Mac version’s support of PivotCharts more in line with the Windows versions, but you may still find some charting abilities missing. Built-In Database Connectivity: Excel for macOS doesn’t support the built-in database connectivity options that the Windows version does.
These are some pretty “power user” features, so it’s likely you won’t miss them much. PowerPoint The Windows and Mac versions of PowerPoint are also mostly in parity. That said, there is one feature worth noting that’s missing on the macOS side of things: video and animation triggers.
These triggers let you make an animation effect begin playing when you click the object being animated, or automatically at the beginning of an audio or video clip. Note that the Mac version does feature all the same animations, and does let you. It just doesn’t include the advanced triggers that the Windows version does. Outlook Most of the Outlook features missing from the Mac version have to do with advanced features you see when connected to an Exchange server.
These include things like access to public calendars, distribution lists, retention and compliance features, receipt tracking, and various social features like voting buttons. There are also a few other missing features worth noting:. Save As for Emails: In the Windows version of Outlook, you have access to a Save As command for emails that lets you save them as messages, PDFs, or whatever outside the Outlook message database. You can’t do that in the Mac version. Word as an Email Editor: The Windows version lets you use Word as your email editor, granting full access to Word features like formatting and autocorrect. The Mac version does not.
Side-by-Side Calendars: In Windows, you can view two calendars side by side. In macOS, you can’t. That isn’t a lot of missing features (unless you’re part of an Exchange-based organization), but how important they are depends on you. And, as we mentioned before, the newest update to Office 2016 for macOS now brings support for Google Calendar and Contacts—a pretty big missing feature for lots of people. OneNote The basic functionality of OneNote is present in both the Windows and Mac versions (and, in the mobile versions, for that matter), but there are still a few differences:. Extensible: The Windows version is extensible, providing an API that allows for add-ins and some advanced features.
The Mac version does not include this extensibility. Linking and Embedding: The Windows version of OneNote is stronger when it comes to embedding and linking files. For example, in the Windows version, you could embed an Excel file. Clicking on that Excel file in OneNote opens a full, editable version of the file in Excel. On the Mac version, you can only open a read-only copy of embedded files.
Versioning: The Windows version maintains previous versions of tabs that have changed. The Mac version does not. More Searchable: The Windows version lets you search handwritten text, as well as audio and video recordings. This feature is not available in the Mac version. If you’re not using any of these features, then you’d be fine using the Mac version of OneNote. As you can see from our lists, the features mostly missing on the Mac side of things are small, rarely-used features or real “power user” features mostly used in office settings.
If you don’t need those features, and you don’t need the few apps missing from macOS (and we suspect that applies to over 90% of our readers), you’re probably fine going with the Mac version of Office 2016 or Office 365. And it sure beats jumping through hoops to get the Windows version running on your Mac!