Microsoft delivers Office 2019 for Mac test build
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Two months after rolling out to commercial testers its Office 2019 for Windows preview, Microsoft is delivering a test build of its Mac counterpart.
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Microsoft is releasing on June 12 a preview of Office 2019 for Mac, which includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote. It's the next "perpetual" update to Office on Mac. Perpetual means this won't require an Office 365 subscription and will be available for purchase to run on a single device once it rolls out in the second half of 2018.
Like Office 2019 for Windows, Office 2019 for Mac includes features that Microsoft already has delivered to Office 365 ProPlus customers. Among the new features:
- The roaming pencil case and ribbon customizations across Office apps
- Focus mode in Word
- Morph transitions, in-click sequence and 4K video export in PowerPoint
- New charts and functions in Excel
- Focused Inbox in Outlook
Office 2019 for Mac also will include: IT-targeted features, like command-line tools for controlling how and when Office updates are applied to users' devices; and support for mobile-device-management and organization-wide security policies, including Visual Basic macros and app settings.
Office 2019 for Mac is supported on the two most recent versions of macOS. Office 2019 for Mac and Office 2016 for Mac cannot run concurrently on either Windows or Mac machines.
A full list of new features for Office 2019 for Mac is available on the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page.
The Office 2019 for Mac preview, like the Windows variant, is meant to be tested by business users with volume-license agreements with Microsoft, not consumers, as the FAQ page notes.
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The previews for Microsoft's next release of its on-premises/perpetual Office Servers (Exchange Server 2019, SharePoint Server 2019, Project Server 2019, and Skype for Business Server 2019) are expected sometime in the next few months.