Microsoft Office 2016 Preview Available for Mac as Free Download

Microsoft has released a free public preview version of the Microsoft Office 2016 Suite for Mac. The Office suite includes Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, and OneNote, which are arguably the most popular productivity apps in existence. 

Office 2016 has all of the features of Word, Excel, Outlook, and Powerpoint that you’d expect, plus a variety of new features, including enhance cloud support to be able to store and access document from anywhere, be it the web, an iOS device, another Mac, or Windows PC. The user interface has been redesigned to fit with modern versions of OS X as well.

The Office suite will remain free as long as the apps are in preview (effectively a public beta). You’ll want to keep on top of updates for the apps, as each preview build will expire 60 days after it has been posted. An included Office for Mac Auto-Update tool will notify users when a new version is available to download. The final public preview build will apparently continue to work for about a month past the official launch date, at which time Mac users who wish to continue using Office 2016 apps will need to pay for the final software.

Go here to download the free preview version of Office 2016 for Mac directly from Microsoft

OS X 10.10 Yosemite or newer is required to run Office 2016 on a Mac. Pricing for the final version is not currently available.

For those wondering, yes you can run the Office 2016 suite of apps alongside Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac apps. The Office 2016 apps will install in the /Applications/ folder as usual, and can be uninstalled / removed by placing the appropriate applications into the Trash.