Review by Grimmy

This is probably a product every Mac user will need to get to fix the feature gaps in Apple’s own versions of similar software (if you can really compare them). It is the buy-once alternative to Office 365, and you have to decide whether to choose the Office 365 (which includes Outlook) annual subscription for multiple devices or this version for just one device. 365 also includes free support and Skype, which 2016 doesn’t.

Oddly enough, although the ribbon is closer to the Windows version (which has also been tweaked and streamlined), Office has also adopted a Mac look - a task pane for certain functions such as styles, resizing, manipulating graphics, animations (PowerPoint), and formulas (Excel). Some gestures such as pinch zoom are also supported. You also get threaded comments in Word and PowerPoint, and co-editing features which allow several people to edit at the same time, alerting you to changes and conflicts (not real-time until they save, however). A document navigation pane provides easier, well, navigation, through page thumbnails.

Excel’s new Analysis ToolPak gives you advanced statistical functions.

PowerPoint provides a Presenter View that lets you control your presentation from a different screen. You can also set up a presenter window to show notes, the next slide, or an overview of where you are.

The Ctrl key now also works instead of the Command key.

Unfortunately you are limited to OneDrive for cloud storage - no iCloud support. However, Office 2016 includes 15 GB of OneDrive, versus 365’s 1 TB/user. Unlike the Windows version, you can’t import PDF files. I miss the back-arrow button that Windows has - instead, you have the Mac-style menu at the top, which is hard to keep mousing to, unlike the Windows version which has it attached to the window. (This is a pet peeve which applies to the overall Mac OS.)nnSome previous features are gone, such as being able to save a PPT as a movie.

Another problem was some occasional slowdown/hanging after pressing the Save shortcut.

However, no matter the problem areas, this is an office suite you will most probably want to get (or its alternative 365 version).