As per usual on Fridays, Microsoft has posted the changelog for yet another new build of the Office suite of apps for Windows for those in the Insider Fast ring. Those using the apps on mac/OS have also received updates today.
For Windows users, there are two remarkable additions, one of which is the new XLOOKUP formula for Excel. Microsoft announced the new formula along with other updates to Microsoft 365 a couple of days ago. It replaces the previous VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP formulas and outlines some of the issues with the former, such as being unable to return results in left-hand columns.
Another new feature is in PowerPoint, which can now save images and graphs as SVG image files. SVG, short for Scalable Vector Graphics, is a format of image that, rather than being based on pixels, is based on vectors that can escalate to any size. By saving graphs and charts in this format, they’ll be able to adapt to different resolutions and have better quality in more scenarios. Technically, users can save JPG and PNG files in the SVG format from within PowerPoint, but they will still be pixel-based.
Aside from those two bigger changes, this week’s builds for Windows include a long list of fixes to many of the apps in the Office suite.
As for Mac, the only app getting notable changes is Outlook, with support for dark mode in the compose windows now being fully rolled out. The app also now has better support for VoiceOver, which can now read message and unread counts in e-mail threads, the position of messages in a thread, and the unread status for individual messages.
The app also got some bug fixes, though there are still known issues. This includes some Gmail users seeing an error saying their account is permanently offline.
The new updates should roll out automatically to users in the Insider program soon if they haven’t already. You can manually check for updates to make sure you’re on the latest version.
