Welcome To Office 2016

Begin by finding Microsoft Office 2016 in your Windows Start menu:

1. Select All Programs
2. Choose Microsoft Office 2016 to see the full range of what’s available to you.

Open one or two of the options, picking the software you most frequently use, and get a feel for its new look – and also, a sense of how much is still familiar.

• Some related software may not immediately be installed (e.g. Access 2016, Entrust, InfoPath 2013) Allow up to 48 hours before you contact the National Service Desk about missing functionality. Remember the importance of restarting (not shutting down) your computer at the end of every workday so that your computer will receive these and other updates.
• If something important seems to be missing, or the software’s look has changed dramatically,it is probably a customizable feature that you adjusted in Office 2010, and you will need to personalize it again in Office 2016. See our “Customizing” section (page 8) that identifies the most likely suspects, and how to change these back to the way you like them.
• Microsoft Lync has been replaced by Skype for Business. Some icons and options look a little different, but the idea is the same: instant messaging is available to everyone, and if you had desktop sharing and videoconferencing enabled before then, you will still have those features now.
• Microsoft OneNote! This is now available alongside the other Office 2016 software in your Windows Start menu. If you're not already familiar with what it does, our Welcome to OneNote guide will step you through it so that you can learn how to apply it to your work.
• Older Office file formats: as a security precaution, some of your older files may open at first in protected view, or – if they are very old – may not open at all. If you have a file that you are unable to open with Office 2016, submit an online request to the National Service Desk for their assistance. Also note: Excel spreadsheets incorporating pivot tables may need to be upgraded first before you can open them in Excel 2016.
• Corporate Templates: these are available in Office 2016 for Word, Excel and PowerPoint, just as before, but you may not see them immediately. Select the File menu and choose New from the left-hand menu, to find the six template folders. The first time you open these folders, they may appear empty. At the top, select the word Home to return to the list of folders, open that folder a second time and you should now find your template.
• Using More Than One Computer? In that case, you might discover some Office 2016 preference settings don’t transfer from one computer to the next. You’ll need to adjust the same setting(s) on each computer that you use.
• Group Management Portal notifications for approve/deny requests do not presently work in Outlook 2016, but are being worked on. In the meantime, you will need to visit the Group Management Portal to respond to these requests.
• SharePoint Designer:  if you use this software, note that you’ll no longer be able to launch it from within a SharePoint site after you’ve received Office 2016. To find and open the Designer: go to your Windows Start menu, select All Programs and in the SharePoint folder choose Microsoft SharePoint Designer. Once you have opened the program: select the File menu, then on the left-hand side choose Sites and, in the Open SharePoint Site panel, use the Open Site icon to select and open your site.

Now for the “good stuff”: learning what new functionality and features Office 2016 introduces! Office 2016 improvements are mostly subtle, and you’ll discover the more minor ones over time. Here are a few larger ones we think are worth pointing out.

• General Office 2016 Features

  A Better Help Feature: Tell Me What You Want to Do

  In most Office 2016 software, the last option next to the ribbon menu titles states Tell me what you want to do. Selecting this, you can type a description of what you require assistance with, just as you were accustomed to using a help feature. Now however, instead of providing you with instructions, the software will immediately supply you with the option to do that action as if you had selected its command from one of the other menus.

    Outlook Features

  Attaching Files to Email

  Outlook can now remember all of the files you’ve most recently opened on your computer. When you are writing an email and select Attach File (Message ribbon menu, Include group), it will display a list of recent files you’ve opened in case one of these is the one you want to attach; or select Browse This PC if you need to choose something else.

  Pre-viewing attachments

  When you first open an email attachment only a limited menu will be displayed at the top, and when you scroll through the document the pages will move sideways rather than up/down to remind you that this is a protected preview of what the file contains. To open the attachment normally, in the yellow message bar at the top you need to select the Enable Editing button (and remember only to open attachments from senders you trust!).

  New Skype Meeting

  While viewing your Outlook calendar, on the Home ribbon tab you can select the option New Skype Meeting when you are holding an event that all participants are expected to attend through Skype. An automated hyperlink will be incorporated into the message for all attendees to use, so they can easily join you at the time of the meeting.

  Linking OneNote to a Calendar Event

  When you select a calendar item in Outlook, the ribbon menu will change to Appointment or Meeting Series where you’ll see the Meeting Notes option. Selecting this will open Microsoft OneNote. This is an easy way to associate your related OneNote work with a particular event in your calendar.

    Word Features

  Edit a PDF Document

  Now you can open and edit a PDF file using Word, provided that it hasn’t been protected against editing by its original creator. Select a PDF file to open it as you would open any Word document. A popup message will appear that tells you “Word will now convert your PDF to an editable document,” with the attached warning that the document’s appearance may be altered if it contains a lot of graphics.

  New Reviewing Features

  In addition to leaving comments of your own, you can also reply to somebody else’s comment. Right-click the comment and choose Reply to Comment to express an opinion or describe any responding actions you’ve taken.

  Design and Layout Ribbon Menus

  If you have a very keen eye, you may have noticed that one of the larger menu changes has been introduced in Word. Options that used to be on a combined Page Layout ribbon menu are now divided across two new ones called Design and Layout.

    Skype Features

  New Emoticons

  Skype largely duplicates what you could already do with Microsoft Lync, but it also adds some fun with new animated emoticons to help you better express yourself and accent your instant messages.

  Save Your IM Conversations

  You won’t find a menu option for saving your IM conversation as you could in Lync, but you can still do this with the keyboard shortcut CTRL + S. Your conversation will be saved to the Conversation History folder in Outlook (or if you don’t find it there, check the Junk Mail folder).

    Excel Features

  Chart Recommendations

  Select the portion of your spreadsheet you want to generate a chart from. Then from the Insert ribbon menu in the Charts group, select Recommended Charts. Excel will propose the best chart type for displaying the data you have selected.

    PowerPoint Features

  New Chart Types

  On the Insert ribbon menu, when you select Chart from the Illustrations group you’ll see there are some new options for chart types, including Treemap, Sunburst, Box & Whisker and Waterfall.

• Colour Scheme

  Microsoft has provided a rich colour-scheme for this version of Office (Outlook is light blue, Word is dark blue, Excel is green, etc.). If you find the colour coding distracting, you can turn this off:

  1. You can find this option by looking in the File ribbon menu of most Microsoft Office software. In Outlook, for example, select the File ribbon menu and choose Options from the left-hand menu
  2. In the Outlook Options window, select General from the left-hand menu (if not already selected)
  3. In the section Personalize your copy of Microsoft Office, select a preferred option from the Office Theme dropdown menu (Colorful, Dark Gray or White). Then select the OK button to save your change

  Note: unfortunately, there's no option to reassign colours to each software.

• Quick Access Toolbar

  This is the row of icons which appears in the top left corner of any open Office products. Word, for example, provides quick access icons to Save, Undo and Redo an action. You can add icons for any additional commands you frequently use:

  1. Select the dropdown arrow next to the quick access icons. You can select/deselect any of the listed options to add/remove them as icons.
  2. To see a bigger list of options:
     1. Select the dropdown arrow next to the quick access icons and select More Commands.
     2. In the Options window, you will see Quick Access Toolbar selected on the left-hand side. On the right-hand side there are two sections: one that lists commands to choose from and another that lists the commands which currently appear in your quick access toolbar. Use the buttons between these sections to Add or Remove the commands you select.

  Note: the new commands you add will only appear in the current software's quick access toolbar. You'll need to repeat these steps for any other Office software where you want that command to appear.

• Outlook Settings

  Email and Calendar View Settings

  You can dramatically change how your email and calendar are displayed in Outlook by selecting different view settings, turning panes on/off, etc. Two examples:

  Reader Pane

  The Reader Pane displays a preview of the currently selected email or calendar item. You can turn this on/off by going to the View ribbon menu and selecting Reading Pane in the Layout group.

  To-Do Bar

  The To-Do Bar appears on the right-hand side, and offers summaries of up to three kinds of information (calendar items, contacts and tasks). You can add/remove each of these summaries by going to the View ribbon menu and selecting To-Do Bar from the Layout group.

  Start Outlook with Calendar View

  When Outlook starts, the first thing it shows you is your email inbox. If you prefer to start your day with a view of your calendar items:

  1. Select the File ribbon menu. From the left-hand menu, select Options
  2. In the Outlook Options window, on the left-hand menu select Advanced
  3. In the section Outlook start and exit, select the Browse button. Choose the Calendar folder. Select the sequence of OK buttons to save this change.

  Changing the First Day of the Week

  Outlook will display your calendar with either Sunday or Monday as the first day of the week. If you prefer the other (or any other day):

  1. Select the File ribbon menu and choose Options from the left-hand menu
  2. In the Outlook Options window, select Calendar from the left-hand menu
  3. In the Work Time section, select your preferred day from the First day of week dropdown box.

  Gridlines in Email Listings

  Gridlines can make your email listings easier to scan through. You can change/remove these gridlines:

  1. While looking at an email folder, go to the View ribbon menu and in the Current View group select View Settings
  2. In the Advanced View Settings window, select the Other Settings… button
  3. In the Grid Lines and Group Headings section, select your preferred option from the Grid line style dropdown box (e.g. no grid lines, small dots, solid, etc.).
• OneNote Settings

  Notebook Pane (list of open notebooks)

  If you have used OneNote before then you might be accustomed to seeing the Notebook pane, a list of open notebooks at the left-hand side of the screen that you can easily navigate among. To keep this list visible: select the first tab at the top left (i.e. name of the currently open notebook) to view a drop-down menu. At the top right corner of this menu, you will see the silhouette of a push-pin. Select this symbol to maintain the Notebook pane as an open feature.

• Skype Settings

  Tabbed Conversations (one tab for each)

  Skype will contain all of your open instant messaging windows in one taskbar item. This saves space, but it can also make it difficult to track multiple conversations. To separate them into different items (as you were probably accustomed to with Lync):

  1. In the main Skype window, select the Options icon (gear) and select Tools, then Options
  2. In the Skype for Business – Options window, select IM from the left-hand menu
  3. Uncheck the box next to Enable tabbed conversations, then select the OK button to make this change take effect.

  Expand/Condense the Contacts List

  Skype may choose to display your contacts listing in expanded form, displaying a picture and allowing two lines to describe each one. You can condense your Outlook contacts to display on just one line:

  1. In the main Skype window, select the Options icon (gear) and select Tools, then Options
  2. In the Skype for Business – Options window, select Contacts List from the left-hand menu
  3. In the first section, Display my contacts with, you can choose to display your contacts with either a picture and two descriptive lines, or else with only their name and one line. Select the OK button when you have made your choice.