The feature is currently available for Office insiders exclusively, to launch for everyone very soon
Microsoft has just announced that its super-advanced Office Researcher feature is coming to Apple’s Macs, with participants in the Office Insider program the first to get it right away.
Expected to become available for all Mac users in the near future, Office Researcher is a feature that can substantially improve writing and help create papers by providing quick access to sources of information, find photos, and create bibliography without even leaving Microsoft Word.
The feature is created in collaboration with the Bing team, whose search engine is powering Researcher, making it possible to find all information right within the main UI.
Already available on the Windows desktop version of Office, the Researcher feature requires an Office 365 subscription and version 15.36 (170508) or later installed. Only a bunch of languages are supported at this point, including English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, and Japanese.
Even though it’s only shipped to insiders in the Fast ring for the time being, there were reports that only a number of users actually got it, with others complaining that the Researcher feature did not show up on their Macs. Microsoft confirmed the problem and re-issued the update, according to a member of the Office team.
“We’ve identified the mystery of the missing Researcher feature on the ribbon. This feature is being rolled out once again and it should appear in the next few hours. You’ll need to close and restart Word in order for the feature to appear, ” Microsoft’s Michelle V. said earlier today.
There’s no ETA as to when the new feature could become available to all Apple users, but given that testing has already started with help from insiders, it shouldn’t take too long before this happens. The next big update for Office is projected to launch next month, as per the company’s typical update roadmap, but it remains to be seen if the feedback the company receives from insiders allows the public release in July.
