Microsoft Office 2504 (Build 18730.20168)

Overview

Microsoft Office is one of Microsoft's most popular products, and is usually associated with just about any system running Windows OS. There have been a few different versions of Microsoft Office over the past few years, referring to the '13, '10, '07, '03 versions and all those prior. Each individual program has undergone many changes and 2016 actually brings forth some pretty major ones.

Programs that come with Office 2016 include Access, Excel, Onenote, Outlook, Power Point, Publisher, and Word. Each is loaded separately, and support a variety of file extensions. Editing within each program is relatively easy, but some interface problems can be a hassle. For the most part Office 2016 is very quick and responsive, and definitely an upgrade from 2013 - but with a few minor annoyances that can really bug some people.

Installation

The installation process for Microsoft Office 2016 was actually pretty unique, and I liked it a lot. Larger programs and all-in-one type programs like Office can often take a long time to install, with slower machines an upwards of 10 minutes. Fortunately, Office 2016 offers a streaming background installation, that allows you to start using any of the programs within only a minute or two at most.

Interface

For the most part, the updates have been pretty good, but there are a few questionable ones. A very small change that irks me is when I try to save a document, it becomes a three step process instead of a two step process. They added a recent folders section which can be helpful, but it can also be annoying.

Most of the changes are just default settings though, and you can adjust them to be a bit more like Office's previous version. Unfortunately there are so many options and settings spread out in a variety of different places that makes it very difficult to find where exactly the fix you desire is located.

There were however, some positive interface changes that make the document editing process a tad bit easier, so be thankful for those. The fact of the matter is, the next version needs to drastically organize all of the options otherwise they're just going to be way too overloaded and spread out.

Pros

• Edit documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and a variety of other files
• Powerful e-mail client built-in
• Cloud integration in a variety of different ways
• Slight upgrades in certain areas from Office 2013

Cons

• Quite a few interface changes that can be moderately annoying
• Way too many options and settings, making it hard to locate certain changes you want to make

Alternatives

A free to use program that is pretty much just a generic MS Office would be Open Office, and it actually works quite well. For a paid alternative, give Kingsoft Office Suite a try.

Conclusion

Despite making some improvements based off of feedback on Office 2013, Microsoft seems to have gone a bit overboard trying to make things easier. Certain additions that were done with good intentions quickly become irritating. I'll admit this is mainly nitpicking, but that's why MS Office 2016 still gets a 4.0 from me, and I've been using it and will continue to use it.