Microsoft Previews Touch Bar Support For New MacBook Pros Running Office

During Apple’s MacBook Pro keynote last October, Apple briefly mentioned that Microsoft was working on introducing support for the new Touch Bar across its suite of Office applications.

While Microsoft has yet to officially roll out the support, Office users can opt to test the new Touch Bar features by becoming an “Office Insider”, which is basically a public beta program.

In Word, Touch Bar users will be able to activate the distraction-free Focus Mode to remove the Ribbon, and access text formatting and font style options.

In PowerPoint, the Touch Bar will show a graphical overview of all slides in a deck, and offer the ability to reorder slides. Excel is set to get the most useful Touch Bar features though, bringing recently used functions, color cells, and chart options to the MacBook’s OLED strip.

Lastly, Outlook brings a today view to the Touch Bar, allowing users to see calendar appointments for the day, while recently used documents will display when composing emails, for quickly attaching files. Skype call functions are also set to be available from the Bar.

Office users interested in testing the Touch Bar functions in the beta program – along with any attendant bugs/issues – can sign up to become an “Office Insider” here.

(via The Verge.)

Tag: Microsoft Office
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