Office 2019 for Windows and Mac Lands Today

Today is the day. After previewing Office 2019 for months, Microsoft is finally releasing the next major upgrade to its Office suite of apps today on Mac and Windows. The company is making Office 2019 generally available to commercial volume license customers today, with all consumer and commercial customers gaining access in the next few weeks.

With Office 2019, Microsoft’s office apps are getting smarter while building on modern features like inking. Apps like Word, for example, is picking up a brand new black theme, Focus Mode, improved inking features, and new tools for learning. Microsoft is also bringing intelligent features like Focused Inbox to Outlook, along with an improved design, new travel and delivery summary cards, and more.

Windows Intelligence In Your Inbox

Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday — and get free copies of Paul Thurrott's Windows 11 and Windows 10 Field Guides (normally $9.99) as a special welcome gift!

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

As for Excel, Microsoft is introducing new 2D maps, funnel charts, new functions and connectors, combined with enhancements to PowerPivot and PowerQuery. PowerPoint, as you’d expect, is getting fancy new transitions like zooming and morphing that will make your slides look even better. The update introduces other features like improved roaming pencil case, support for SVG and 3D models on PowerPoint, etc.

Office 2019 also brings security improvements to the product suite, although they are quite minor for consumers, the installer improvements make it easier for IT Pros to upgrade their systems to Office ProPlus. Microsoft says today’s release will follow updates to Exchange Server, Skype for Business Server, SharePoint Server, and Project Server in the coming weeks. For its commercial customers, Microsoft is pushing users to move to its cloud-based offerings, even though it will continue to provide another on-premises release in the future.

You can find all the details to Office 2019 here.

Tagged with

Share post

Please check our Community Guidelines before commenting

Conversation 11 comments

  • dontbe evil

    24 September, 2018 - 12:27 pm

    <p>but but MS now only provides sw on the cloud and in abonnement /s</p>

  • jdmp10

    24 September, 2018 - 12:37 pm

    <p>Anyone with this new update care to share the build number they have? My 2019 still has the Preview name in it and none of the easier recognizable differences that are mentioned here.</p>

    • MikeGalos

      24 September, 2018 - 1:46 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#327242">In reply to jdmp10:</a></em></blockquote><p>I have Version 1810 (Build 10910.20007 Click-to-Run) and my copy of Word has the Black theme. I have no idea whether that's the final build that will ship to non-Preview consumers or not.</p>

  • halap3n0

    24 September, 2018 - 3:56 pm

    <p>does anyone know which version of Office 365 ProPlus this is equivalent to?</p>

    • wright_is

      Premium Member
      25 September, 2018 - 2:17 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#327386">In reply to halap3n0:</a></em></blockquote><p>Not exactly, but I believe they took a snapshot in the summer, so it is recent, but not current. The question is, how many of the other new features added to Office 365 over the last 2 – 3 months will also appear in Office 2019.</p>

  • skane2600

    24 September, 2018 - 5:55 pm

    <p>Since it requires Windows 10, it again illustrates Microsoft's favoring Windows 10 over the needs of its customers. It's unlikely that there's any technical reason why it couldn't run on Windows 7/8/8.1 since it isn't a UWP app.</p>

    • wright_is

      Premium Member
      25 September, 2018 - 2:15 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#327412">In reply to skane2600:</a></em></blockquote><p>Windows 10 isn't just a UI change, there was a lot done under the hood and a lot done since the original launch, New APIs and .NET libraries, for example, which aren't available on Windows 7, for example.</p><p>That is why corporate customers get extended support on 2016.</p>

      • skane2600

        25 September, 2018 - 2:54 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#327499">In reply to wright_is:</a></em></blockquote><p>Given its long history, we can be pretty sure that Office isn't implemented in .NET to any significant degree, if at all (they didn't really use MFC either back in the day despite their encouragement for others to use it). I don't know if any new Windows 10 APIs were used, but since MS wrote both Win 10 and Office, it would be rather trivial to duplicate the missing API functionality as part of the application itself should Office actually be using some new APIs.</p>

    • MikeGalos

      25 September, 2018 - 12:03 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#327412">In reply to skane2600:</a></em></blockquote><p>Windows 10 is under Full Support.</p><p><br></p><p>Windows 7 SP1 and 8.1 are no longer on Full Support</p><p>Windows 7 SP1<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;and 8.1 are </span>only on Extended Support</p><p>Windows 7 SP1<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;and 8.1 </span>only get security patches not compatibility or feature support</p><p>Windows 7 SP1 was replaced in October 2012</p><p>Windows 7 SP1 stops getting even security patches in January 2020</p><p>Windows 8.1 was replaced in July, 2015</p><p>Windows 8.1 stops getting even security patches in January 2023</p><p><br></p><p>If you are using a product that is on Extended Support you should be in the process of transitioning to a Full Support product.</p><p><br></p><p>If you are using any version of desktop Windows other than those three you are on an unsupported operating system and should have already migrated.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

      • skane2600

        25 September, 2018 - 1:43 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#327613">In reply to MikeGalos:</a></em></blockquote><p>Yes, I'm quite well aware of Microsoft's policies which I would argue is more evidence of it favoring it's own agenda over that of its customers. </p>

        • MikeGalos

          26 September, 2018 - 12:17 pm

          <blockquote><em><a href="#327687">In reply to skane2600:</a></em></blockquote><p>Odd. Apparently Microsoft must run every other company as well since I don't know of anyone who keeps updating their applications to support obsolete versions of operating systems.</p><p><br></p><p>In fact, since I posted this I got a notice that an application suite I use (on Windows) was now available for macOS 10.14 and was no longer supported on 10.10 (which was replaced 3 years ago). </p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p>Guess they're all secretly working for Microsoft in some massive plot against you.</p>

Windows Intelligence In Your Inbox

Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Thurrott © 2024 Thurrott LLC