Get Early Previews of New Features With Microsoft's Office Insider Program

Taking a page from the very popular Windows Insider Program Microsoft has launched a new early preview and testing feature for Microsoft Officer users dubbed Office Insider.The program runs similar to Windows Insider in that it gives users early access to Microsoft Office's newest features allowing you to test them out and provide feedback for Microsoft for potential changes.

For now, the program encompasses the Windows and Android versions of Office, and is open to Office 365 Home, Business, and University users: All you need to do to join Office Insider is to have an active Office 365 account and download and install the Office Insider build. Mac users will have to wait a bit: Microsoft says that it will provide Office Insider builds for OS X “in the coming months.” If you have an Office 365 business or enterprise plan, you can join First Release, which will similarly offer you early access to new product updates and features as they become available

The program will provide preview versions of almost all of your favorite Office 2016 applications including:

• Excel
• Word
• PowerPoint
• OneNote
• Outlook
• Access

For those interested, instructions on how to become an Office Insider are now live, with directions on how to access various Office previews. You can check out more details on Office 2016 and what's new to the program suite here and be sure to checkout the Office 2016 Quick Start Guides.