Office Insiders on Windows get faster account switching, new icons, and more

Office icons
Office icons (Image credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft is pushing out a set of updates to its Office suite for Insiders on the Slow ring, and there's plenty of new stuff to check out. Most prominently, you'll now see the revamped Office icons present across the suite, but Microsoft has also added in a new feature to quickly switch between accounts on the fly, along with several improvements to Outlook and Word.

Here's a quick rundown of everything that's new:

All apps: Seamlessly switch between accounts

  • The new account manager shows all of your work and personal accounts in one place, and puts you in control of switching between them. This updated experience makes it clear how you're logged in, and now you can toggle between work and personal accounts without having to sign out first or deal with complex dialogs.
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Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote: Product icons have a new look

  • The product icons have been redesigned to reflect simple, powerful, and intelligent Office experiences.

Outlook

  • A simplified ribbon that's customizable too: Enjoy a streamlined, single row of the most frequently used buttons. Easily switch between classic and Simplified views, and pin/unpin commands.
  • Relaxed or tighter layout? Choose what feels best: Tighter Spacing lets you decide if you want more space between items, or a tighter layout to see more in your Inbox.
  • Set once and forget it: Your Focused Inbox preferences are now stored in the cloud. Enjoy the same experience when you use Outlook for Windows on any computer or Outlook on the web.
  • Pick your favorite actions: Don't use Flag and Delete? How about Archive or Mark as Read? Customize the quick action menu for easy access to the commands you use the most.

Access

  • Get smart with Microsoft Graph: Import or link to smart contextual data stored in Microsoft Graph and reinvent your desktop database with Intelligent Technology.

Word

  • Say goodbye to distractions: A favorite Mac feature comes to Windows! Switch to Focus on the View menu to remove distractions and concentrate on the work at hand.
  • More colorful pages: With the addition of more page theme colors, which allows the changing of the background color of the page, we hope to enable people who have challenges reading with an all-white or all-black background to make adjustments that suit them.

The latest updates are currently available on the targeted monthly channel for Office Insiders enrolled in the Slow ring. Presumably, should testing go well, we'll see these features make their way to everyone before too long.

Dan Thorp-Lancaster

Dan Thorp-Lancaster is the former Editor-in-Chief of Windows Central. He began working with Windows Central, Android Central, and iMore as a news writer in 2014 and is obsessed with tech of all sorts. You can follow Dan on Twitter @DthorpL and Instagram @heyitsdtl