Microsoft Office 2021 is on the way

If Microsoft had been successful, Office 2021 probably wouldn’t be news at all – the Redmond giant would almost certainly prefer everyone to just subscribe to Microsoft 365, pay a small monthly or annual fee, and get new features and fixes in the future. as and when deployed. For many, if not most, Office users, the subscription-based service is the most convenient way to get Office, even if they want to use it as locally installed software rather than doing their job. in the browser and in the cloud.

For the rest of us – and for those who don’t want to put up with the Byzantine procedures required to install Microsoft 365 apps on remote desktop servers – there is Office 2019 now, and there will be Office 2021 later this. year. There will also be a new Office Long Term Service Channel (LTSC), which trades a 10% price hike for a guarantee of longer support periods … longer than the consumer version of Office 2021, that is. that is to say.

In fact, the “Long Term Service Channel” version of Office 2021 will still have a shorter support lifecycle than previous versions of Office. Office 2019 had a seven-year support window – Office 2021 LTSC will only offer five. There is no official word yet on the support lifecycle of the likely shorter consumer version of Office 2021.

So far, Office 2021 appears to be focusing primarily on visual updates; its apps include a new dark mode for those who prefer light text on a dark background, and unspecified accessibility improvements are also underway. Excel should benefit from a few bigger improvements from Office 365, including dynamic tables and xlookup. The few Office 2021 screenshots we’ve seen don’t otherwise look drastically different from previous versions.

Office 2021 and Office 2021 LTSC will include OneNote and will be available in 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Office 2021 is expected to be available on Windows and Mac in the second half of 2021, with a Windows preview of the LTSC release expected in April.