Office for Windows and Mac are now closer to alignment given that Microsoft has finally launched Office for Mac 2016.

Four months after releasing the Office for Mac 2016 Preview, the final version was launched on 9 July 2015 for Office 365 subscribers only (at this point). The updated Office suite provides a number of new features, with a huge focus on co-authoring and, more importantly, a unified experience across multiple platforms, meaning a less clunky transition for those using both Windows and Mac platforms.

Microsoft has also said that it has made many tweaks to the final version of Office for Mac 2016 based on thousands of pieces of feedback provided during its public trial programme. The software giant has stated that Office for Mac is cloud-connected, so documents may be accessed from various devices from the point last saved. New, built-in document sharing tools will make it easy to invite colleagues to work on a document together, although we wait to see this working in practice recalling the dark days of Excel file sharing.

For the cynics amongst you that might wish to suck it first to see users still have until Sunday 9 August to download and use the Preview versions of Office for Mac 2016.

Office for Mac is exclusively available for subscribers to Microsoft’s Office 365 service in every supported country, apart from Turkey (not Australia for once!). However with this being said, Microsoft representatives have said that a standalone version of Office for Mac 2016 should be available as a digital download or boxed product later by September – around two months after it becomes available for subscription customers.

According to Microsoft, all you need to run Office for Mac 2016 is OS X Yosemite, which will automatically rule out any older Macs that do not support the recent operating systems. The following Macs should be able to run Yosemite:

• iMac (mid 2007 or newer);
• MacBook (late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer);
• MacBook Air (late 2008 or newer);
• MacBook Pro (mid / late 2007 or newer);
• Mac Mini (early 2009 or newer);
• Mac Pro (early 2008 or newer); and
• Xserve (early 2009).