What’s new in PowerPoint 2016 for Mac?

PowerPoint 2016 for Mac is now available and we want to show you how it can help you present your ideas. While PowerPoint 2016 for Mac includes hundreds of improvements and changes, today we are going to look at some of the features that improve the look of your presentations and discuss new presentation and collaboration features.

Theme Variants feature

PowerPoint 2016 for Mac includes the theme Variants feature—providing you a simple way to switch between various color schemes and designs for your selected theme. Just click a Variant to see how it will look in your presentation. Every theme included with PowerPoint for Mac 2016 includes Variants, giving you even more design options for your presentation.

New Format Options pane

The new Format Options pane places all the Format properties right next to your content. As you adjust values, you can see your changes in the slide. This lets you quickly try different shape and text options to see what works best for your content.

Redesigned Animations pane

The Animations pane was redesigned for PowerPoint 2016 for Mac—bringing the power of the rich animation engine right next to your content. This allows for rapid changes and experimentation, helping you build both simple and complex animations more quickly and easily.

Improved media experience

As we modernized the Office 2016 for Mac suite, we also improved the performance of our media playback engine. Using the latest Apple technologies, your embedded media will play back smoothly and reliably.

Introducing the Comments pane

Gone are the days of adding shapes to act as comments when collaborating with others. With the new Comment pane, you can add and reply to comments right next to your slides—allowing you to easily track discussion threads.

Updated co-authoring conflict resolution

Occasionally, as you collaborate on the same presentations with your colleagues in real time (yes, PowerPoint allows real-time collaboration!), you may encounter conflicts. PowerPoint 2016 for Mac includes an improved experience to help you evaluate and resolve the conflicts, so you can get back to your work quickly and with confidence.

Improved Presenter View

Once your presentation is ready to go, the improved Presenter View in PowerPoint 2016 for Mac offers you more tools with an improved layout, leaving you in complete control. Take and read speaker notes, move between slides in the Thumbnail pane, and even resize each piece to fit your needs. We’ll remember where you had everything when you come back.

But that certainly isn’t all! In addition to hundreds of other changes in PowerPoint 2016 for Mac, the Office 2016 for Mac suite includes a number of great updates including an updated ribbon and keyboard shortcuts familiar to Windows users. Office 2016 for Mac is also fully cloud-connected, looks great on Retina displays, and includes richer collaboration and sharing tools. See what’s new in Office 2016 for Mac.

More than ever, the PowerPoint team is listening to your feedback and regularly updating the app for Office 365 subscribers. The best way to provide your feedback is to click the smiley face icon in the upper right corner to tell us what you like or don’t like.

What are you waiting for? Download Office 2016 for Mac now! If you don’t have an Office 365 subscription, you can start a free 30-day trial today.

—Derek Johnson, senior program manager for the PowerPoint team