Apple demoed plenty of apps during its MacBook Pro even on Thursday, all ready to support the exciting new Touch Bar touchscreen that will offer users a handy selection of contextual shortcuts right under the screen.
One of the companies that’s ready to support Apple’s new computing experience is one of its biggest rivals. Even if Microsoft just announced a bunch of products that compete directly against the new MacBooks and the other Macs, the company is still ready to support customers that want to spend north of $1,800 on a Touch Bar Mac.
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Apple confirmed that Microsoft’s Office suite will be Touch Bar-friendly, and even showed images of Office app adapted for Touch Bar use during the keynote.
But Microsoft also came out with a blog post on the matter, highlighting some of the Touch Bar features it’s adding to its productivity apps.
In Word, a Word Focus Mode hides all the on-screen ribbons and commands so that you can focus on your work. The Touch Bar will display the shortcuts you may need while you work.
In PowerPoint, the Touch Bar shortcuts will let you manipulate graphic elements in presentations.
In Excel, typing an equals sign into a cell will trigger a Touch Bar action: the most recently used functions will appear.
In Outlook, the Touch Bar will feature the latest commands, documents and calendar events.
It’s not clear when the new Touch Bar features of Microsoft Office for Mac will be available, but they’ll probably arrive in time for the laptop’s launch.
