Microsoft shows off new Office features at MWC 2015

Towards the beginning of the year, Microsoft teased users with a new version of Office for Windows 10 on phones and tablets. At Mobile World Congress 2015, Microsoft has given us a bit more detail about the forthcoming application.

While not much was revealed, we did get to see a couple of new points that focused on Outlook and Excel. Microsoft was adamant to highlight that Outlook for mobile will be a rich and immersive experience unlike any other email application. While Outlook is primarily thought of as mail app, Microsoft was quick to point out that many rely on the app for its robust calendar features. Since the application will be integrated with other Office applications, it will allow quick and seamless integration between apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

Microsoft Excel will also have a new and beautiful appearance. The functionality of the app will be presented so that no matter what device you are using, it will function in a manner that promotes productivity. Naturally, inputting characters into cells can be quite difficult on a touch device, but to combat this, Microsoft will introduce snap functions and smart scrolling to make the task easier. The app will also allow users to alter the current Ribbon menu into something called "Palette" mode that will make navigation of menus much easier. These features will scale up or down depending on the size of the device as demonstrated on the newly announced Lumia 640 XL.

"Insights" and "Tell Me" are two new features that made their debut at Microsoft's MWC event. Both of these features are meant to enrich the users experience while using Office applications. Insights will allow users to search for words or phrases by pulling results from the internet. The results will be different from traditional search results and will be contextually aware. 'Tell Me' will be a smart search feature that will allow users to search for and create commands. For example, if you are trying to create a chart in Word, you will be able to plainly search for "create a chart" within the search barand it will give you multiple options to create a chart and allow you to insert it into your document.

All in all, it looks like Office for Windows 10 is turning into something a bit different then previous releases, which is definitely a good thing.