Microsoft to Pack Office 15 with a Touch Mode

Microsoft’s upcoming Office 15 suite of applications is expected to become available with a so-called touch mode, which will be enabled only on devices featuring touch capabilities.

The suite will arrive with support for touch, but desktop users won’t be forced to have it enabled if their computers lack touch, it seems.

Basically, Microsoft will make the Office 15 applications desktop apps, but will also pack them with a button to enable touch capabilities, ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley notes. 

Office 15 applications were promised with touch-optimizations, to fit the needs of upcoming devices running under the Windows 8 platform. 

Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote will be loaded on Windows on ARM devices as well, as desktop applications as well, but with the said touch capabilities packed inside. 

These won’t be WinRT-based Metro-Style applications, as the rest of the software designed for Windows 8. 

Last month, Microsoft made available the Technical Preview version of Office 15, and the screenshot available to the left is a proof of the changes packed in Word 15. 

The said Touch Mode button is visible there, though it appears that it is not yet functional. However, the touch-friendly Office UI will be available in future product milestones. 

Through enabling both a touch and a non-touch mode in Office 15, Microsoft appears set to make the application suite also fit for users relying on keyboard / mouse for navigation and input. 

The latest leaked screenshots with the new product show a series of interface changes from the current flavor of Office, though they are not yet as clearly visible as they should be. 

The next release of Microsoft’s productivity suite, set to become available for the general public sometime in the summer, should unveil more on what the final product will actually look like. 

For the time being, no official release date for the product has been unveiled. Apparently, the Office 15 client, server and Office 365 complements will be released by late 2012.

Posted in: Preview, Software, Tablet