Microsoft will be testing out a dark mode for Office on macOS Mojave

Microsoft will be bringing a new dark mode option to its Office apps on macOS Mojave. The move will compliment Apple’s own dark mode. It also follows similar dark mode changes for both Outlook.com and Windows 10. According to Microsoft Office Product Manager Akshay Bakshi, Office testers could get access to the feature as soon as next week. It’ll most likely be limited to Office 365 subscribers. With the recent launch of Office 2019, Microsoft has been putting the focus on releasing new features to its Office 365 users first with promises of new features being added constantly.

Source: The Verge

You’ll need Windows 10 to run Microsoft Office 2019

With Microsoft Office 2019 set to come out in the latter half of the year, Microsoft made an important announcement about the productivity suite. The latest version will need users who aren’t subscribed to Office 365 to have machines running on Windows 10. Obviously, this move is the company’s attempt to get businesses to subscribe to its Office 365 business. They have even extended support for Windows 10 enterprise and education customers running versions 1511, 1607, 1703, and 1709 an additional six months to update to the latest supported versions of Windows 10. The support lifecycle for Office 2019 is changing, too. It gets five-year mainstream support and “approximately two years of extended support.”

Office 2019 will include Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook client apps as well as server versions of Exchange, SharePoint, and Skype for Business. Preview copies are going to be released in the middle of 2018. The software is intended for organizations that aren’t using the cloud Office 365 versions. It must be noted that Office for Mac won’t be affected by this change as it’s a different product with its own release schedule.

Source: The Verge

Microsoft Office comes to all Chromebooks

One of the things possibly hampering the adoption of Chromebooks is the fact that it still couldn’t be considered as much as a laptop or desktop alternative for the lack of things like Microsoft’s Office suite. It was available for some but not for everyone. That is about to change though. Chrome Unboxed discovered that Microsoft Office apps have started to show up in the Play Store for all the Chromebooks they have, including the Samsung Chromebook Pro, Pixelbook, Acer C771, and two Chromebook 15 models.

So if you own a Chromebook with a display larger than 10.1 inches, you can download Word, Excel, and PowerPoint now. You will, however, need an Office 365 subscription to be able to edit files on these apps.

Canadian Cancer Society’s transition to Office 365 use helps bottom line

Canadian Cancer Society has been able to keep its bottom line in check after leaving behind its costly outdated technology for Microsoft’s Office 365 platform. According to the non-profit, the transition is set to save them over $250,000 in the next five years or so. The migration was spearheaded by the Cancer Society’s divisions in Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, and Prince Edward Island.

What prompted the shift most likely is a relatively young set of staff and volunteers. The Canadian Cancer Society in Ontario alone has 412 staff and around 55,000 to 65,000 volunteers, many of them are under the age of 30. Using Office 365 lets them access their information from almost any mobile device, making collaboration easier.