As early as June, Microsoft announced that it was transforming the Office desktop application for Windows. The purpose is to make these applications consistent with the design language of Windows 11 (even on Windows 10). In the next few weeks, the company began rolling out updates to Beta channel users. In September, this extended to users of the current channel, but only as a preview. Today, Microsoft announced that it is accelerating the pace of rollout.
If you are running on Windows 10 or higher and running Office 2110 version and 14527.20226 or higher, Microsoft may now provide you with visual updates at any time. This is because Microsoft has automatically provided the update to 50% of users on the current channel. At the same time, if you are on Windows 11, the revision is bound to be open to you. In both cases, you may need to restart your Office application to receive the visual update.
As a summary, the visual transformation includes Office themes, which now match your Windows themes (including dark mode), and the Quick Access Toolbar is hidden by default, making the interface simpler. You will also notice new smooth design elements. You can simply click on the loudspeaker icon in the upper right corner of the title bar of the Office application and then turn on the toggle key in the “coming soon” pane to enable visual updates. The same switch key can also be used to return to the existing user interface.
The upcoming pane is suitable for Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. If you enable the new user interface through any of the above applications, it will also be available in Access, Project, Publisher, Visio, and Outlook. Although there is also a dedicated “coming soon” pane in the Outlook application, it doesn’t really do anything.
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Currently, 50% of Current Channel users running Microsoft Office Home & Student 2021, Microsoft Office Home & Business 2021, Microsoft Office Professional 2021 or Microsoft Office Personal 2021 can automatically get the revised version.
The following are known issues:
When Use System Settings is selected, the Disable Dark Mode check box in Microsoft Word does not work. Please switch the dark mode from the “View” tab, or switch to the black theme to enable it. Note: Dark mode only affects the color of the document page and is separate from the Office theme.
The theme selector in Word’s options menu has an error for 64-bit users. Please go to “File”> “Account” and click the “Office Theme” drop-down menu to change the theme.
The dark gray theme has been updated to meet the new accessibility color contrast requirements. The development team is listening to your feedback on this change to explore ways to better support the theme. The background (ie: file menu) has not been updated, but it will appear in a future update. The mica background effect has not been added to my application, but it will be brought to Windows 11 users in a future update.