Microsoft Will Release Office 2021 for Windows and MacOS Versions This Year

Similar to previous Office 2019 releases, Office 2021 is designed for those who don't want to subscribe to the cloud-powered variant of Microsoft 365.

Microsoft hasn't fully detailed all the features and changes in Office 2021 yet, but the Office LTSC (Long-Term Servicing Channel) variant will include things like dark mode support, accessibility improvements, and features like Dynamic Arrays and XLOOKUP in Excel.

As launching The Verge page , Sunday (21/2/2021), Office 2021 will include a similar feature. Don't expect any major UI changes here either.

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Dark mode is a clear change visually, but Microsoft will still focus most of the cloud-enabled interfaces and features on the first version of Microsoft 365 Office.

Office LTSC is a clear acknowledgment from Microsoft that not all of its business customers are ready to move to the cloud.

“It's just a matter of trying to meet customers wherever they are. We definitely have a lot of customers who have switched to the cloud over the last 10 months, it's really happening en masse, ”explained Jared Spataro, head of Microsoft 365.

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At the same time, he added, we definitely have customers who have certain scenarios where they feel they can't move to the cloud.

These specific scenarios include regulated industries where processes and applications can't change every month, or factories that rely on Office and want a time-locked release.

Microsoft is also committed to other versions of Office for the future, but that's changing the pricing and how these new versions will be supported.

Office LTSC will now only be supported for five years, not the seven years that Microsoft normally provides for Office.

Prices for Office Professional Plus, Office Standard, and individual applications also increased by 10 percent for commercial customers, with Office 2021 and small business consumer prices remaining the same.

Office LTSC support timing closely aligns with how Windows is supported, and as a result Microsoft is also aligning its release schedules for Office and Windows.

Both future versions of Office LTSC and Windows 10 LTSC will be released in the second half of 2021.

"The timing of the two will be very close, although we don't yet have the details for a Windows release. The idea is to bring them closer together so the company can implement and manage them at a similar kind of rhythm," said Spataro.

Microsoft now plans to release a preview of Office LTSC in April, with a full release later this year.

The consumer variant of Office 2021 will not be available in preview. The two new Office variants will also ship with OneNote and include 32-bit and 64-bit versions

Microsoft will finally solve this annoying issue with the Windows 10 clipboard

Microsoft is rolling out Windows 10 build 21318 to Insiders in the Dev channel. The update only includes one new feature, but it will make copying and pasting easier on Windows 10. Following this update, you'll have the option to paste content from your clipboard history as plain text.

You can already paste content as plain text by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+V, but that only pastes the most recent content that you've copied. The new option lets you paste any content from your clipboard history as plain text. To open your clipboard history, just press WIN+V. You'll then see an option to "Paste as Text" next to the options to pin or delete the content.

This is the only new feature in build 21318. Here's Microsoft's description of the feature:

Simply open clipboard history (WIN + V) and click the … button next to any text-based entry in your clipboard history – you will now see a "Paste as plain text" option alongside pin and delete! When you use this action in clipboard history, it pastes the text content of the clipboard without its original formatting (font, color, size etc.), allowing it to match the formatting of the destination document.

While the build doesn't have any other new features, it does have some changes and improvements:

Insiders using x64 apps on ARM64 will no longer need to download and install a separate preview version of the ARM64 C++ redistributable package.
We're making a change so that the notification when pairing supported Bluetooth devices will now stay on the screen a little longer, given you the chance to interact with it before it goes away. If you'd like to dismiss it before then, you can still do so at any point by clicking the X in the notification, middle clicking the notification, or sliding the notification off the screen.
Touch keyboard improvements as mentioned in Build 21301 such as updates to the default keyboard layout on 12" or larger screens and the candidate bar are now rolling out to all Insiders in the Dev Channel.
We've improved the smoothness of motion while using Magnifier – for the scenario where you are transitioning between mouse and keyboard focus.
You can read more about the build on Microsoft's blog and can grab the update now through Windows Update if you're a Dev channel Insider.