Office 2016 Preview adds new charts in Excel, real-time typing in Word, and more

Dave W. Shanahan

Office 2016 Preview adds new charts in Excel, real-time typing in Word, and more

WinBeta previously reported on a major update coming to Office 2016 Preview, and it looks like the day has come. The newest update to Office 2016 Preview added a number of new features. Microsoft is constantly looking to improve Office 2016 and appreciates any feedback that you may have to improve Office 2016 sometime later this year. Microsoft based the latest update on mostly user feedback. Some of the new features include:

  • New charts in Excel – The six new charts include Waterfall, Histogram, Pareto, Box & Whisker, Treemap, and Sunburst.
  • Real-time typing in Word – You can now see where and what other people are working on and see in real-time what they are typing, editing, and adding. If you want to try this, you can save a file to OneDrive for Business and share your content with your associates to join in on a simultaneous editing session.
  • Insights in Excel and PowerPoint – Powered by Bing, Insights adds information from the web and integrates it into your office experience. Insights allows you to explore word definitions and other subjects without leaving your Excel spreadsheet or PowerPoint presentation. To perform this action, simply right click any word or phrase and select “smart lookup.”
  • Tell Me – Tell Me is a new way to find the commands you need without the need to remember shortcut keys. All you need to do is just type what you want to do in the Tell Me box at the top of Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Outlook, and you will find the suggested actions based on what you typed into the Tell Me box. 
  • Convert Hand Written Equations to Text – You can use the Insert Equation option to write math equations in Word, Excel, or PowerPoint with your digital pen (or Surface Pen), mouse, or even your finger to write, and Office will convert your handwritten entry into “typed” format. 

Microsoft is constantly adding new features and improvements to Office 2016 and always welcomes user feedback as it always helps sculpt the final Office 2016 product, so if you haven’t done so yet, you can still be apart of Office 2016 Preview, download it here now.