What's New in 2021
Co-author documents
With real-time co-authoring, you can work with others in the same document at the same time. There's no need to send extra notes or emails because everyone will be notified when a file is updated.
New in: Word, Excel, PowerPoint
Better collaboration with modern comments
Have control of when you send comments to your co-authors and be productive with a consistent commenting experience between Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
New in: Word, Excel, PowerPoint
Know who's in your document
See who else is working along with you and where they are in the document. You'll find this experience in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
New in: Word, Excel, PowerPoint
Visual refresh
Work with a modernized Start experience and newly refreshed tabs in the ribbon. Experience a clean, clear style with monoline iconography, neutral color palette, and softer window corners. These updates communicate action and provide features with simple visuals.
New in: Access, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Visio Project
Look left, look right XLOOKUP is here!
Row by row, find anything you need in a table or range with XLOOKUP.
New in: Excel
Dynamic arrays
Write one formula and return an array of values. Expedite calculations and insights with six new functions: FILTER, SORT, SORTBY, UNIQUE, SEQUENCE, and RANDARRAY.
New in: Excel
LET function
The LET function assigns names to calculation results. This allows storing intermediate calculations, values, or defining names inside a formula.
New in: Excel
XMATCH function
The XMATCH function searches for a specified item in an array or range of cells, and then returns the item's relative position. You can also use XMATCH to return a value in an array.
New in: Excel
Sheet views
Create customized views in an Excel worksheet without disrupting others.
New in: Excel
Accessibility ribbon
The Accessibility ribbon puts all the tools you need to create accessible content in one place.
New in: Excel
New and improved Record Slide Show
Record Slide Show now supports presenter video recording, ink recording and laser pointer recording.
New in: PowerPoint
Ink Replay - Slide Animation for Ink object
Now you can apply the new Replay or Rewind animation to ink and get the drawing effect directly in your presentations. You can adjust the timing of these animations to be faster or slower to match the experience you want.
New in: PowerPoint
Arrange elements on your slides for screen readers
See the elements in screen-reading order and re-arrange them as necessary to communicate your message effectively.
New in: PowerPoint
Link to a slide
Ask a colleague to contribute to your slide deck, and start them directly on the slide you need help with.
New in: PowerPoint
Improve comprehension with Line Focus
Move through a document in Word, line by line, without distractions. Adjust the focus to put one, three, or five lines in view at a time.
New in: Word
See what's new in stock media
We're constantly adding more rich media content to the Office Premium Creative Content collection, a curated library of stock images, icons, and more that helps you express yourself.
New in: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Visio
Find what you need with Microsoft Search
At the top of your Microsoft Office apps on Windows you'll find the new Microsoft Search box. This powerful tool helps you quickly find what you're looking for, from text to commands to help and more.
New in: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote
Increase the reach of your content
Accessibility Checker keeps an eye on your documents and tells you in the status bar when it finds something you should look at.
New in: Word, Excel, PowerPoint
Performance improvements
Experience improved performance, stability, and speed across Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook.
Get faster calculations from common Excel functions like SUMIF, COUNTIF, and AVERAGEIF.
New in: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook
Updated Draw tab
Quickly access and change the color of all your inking tools in one place.
Simplify how you work with ink using new Draw tab additions: Point Eraser, Ruler, and Lasso.
New in: Word, Excel, PowerPoint
Save your changes as they happen
Upload your files to OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, or SharePoint Online to make sure all your updates are saved automatically.
New in: Word, Excel, PowerPoint
Support for OpenDocument format (ODF) 1.3
We now include support for the OpenDocument format (ODF) 1.3. The ODF 1.3 specification adds support for many new features.
New in: Word, Excel, PowerPoint
Try the Sketched style outline
You can give a casual, hand-drawn look to shapes in your presentations with the Sketched style outline.
Try out the Curved, Freehand, or Scribble options under Format Shape > Line > Sketched style.
New in: Word, Excel, PowerPoint
Pick the perfect color
Based on your feedback, we've added a new input field in the Colors dialog for Hex color values. Now you won't have to spend time converting Hex color values into RGB values.
For any property where you can define a color, you can now enter a Hex color value in the Hex box, for example, #0F4C81 or 444.
New in: Access, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Visio Project
