Office 365 plans will automatically convert to the new Microsoft 365 bundle of software and services on April 21. New features announced for Office apps, Teams, Edge, and more.
Yesterday Microsoft announced Personal and Family subscriptions for the 365 universe, which bundles Office apps, OneDrive cloud storage, Outlook, Family Safety, and Teams for Families. Redmond also announced intriguing updates to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and the Edge web browser.
If you are already an Office 365 subscriber, your plan will automatically convert to the new Microsoft 365 bundle of software and services on April 21. Pricing remains the same; $6.99 per month for Microsoft 365 Personal and $9.99 per month for Family. The Family plan lets you “share your subscription with your family for up to 6 people, and use your apps on multiple PCs, Macs, tablets, and phones,” Microsoft says.
Microsoft Word: Gender-neutral and anti-plagiarism
New for Microsoft Word are AI tools intended to improve your writing. Among other things it prompts you to be more gender-neutral. It can also check similarity with published documents to avoid plagiarism. A new Microsoft Editor browser extension also lets you extend these capabilities to web writing.
Microsoft Excel: Life as a spreadsheet
Excel gets a new Money In Excel template for home finances. You can log into financial services right in the spreadsheet and generate a personal financial snapshot. You can also make decisions about calories–really? As well as colleges–with the College Decision feature which allows you to compare pros/const.
Microsoft PowerPoint: Your inner graphic designer and presentation coach
PowerPoint gets a new library of premium images, including some “live” moving backgrounds. It can also determine if a text slide would look better as a graphic and automatically create one. For when you’re actually presenting, PowerPoint Presenter Coach can pop up messages telling you about delivery missteps, like if you’re saying “um” too much or reading in a monotone or too fast. Luckily for your ego it also cheers you on when you’re killing it.
