Microsoft Word 2016 is the word-processing portion of Microsoft's newly updated Microsoft Office suite of productivity programs. It provides several new features and improvements to existing features. Most notably, it allows users to view and edit PDF documents as if they had natively been made in Word itself.

Better across the board

Of course, Microsoft Word 2016 provides more than that. It provides a new-fangled "Read Mode" that, while subtle, cleans up the menus when you activate it to provide more screen space for better reading. Less subtle is its seamless compatibility with Microsoft's OneDrive storage space: you can even collaborate on documents with other users in real-time. That said, the usefulness of PDF compatibility cannot be overstated. It means that those working with PDFs (outside perhaps of publishing) do not have to learn or own separate apps.

A plan for a better Office

For home users Microsoft Word 2016 (and Office 2016 in general) is good, but its benefits are biggest for medium and large businesses. PDF compatibility can help cut down on the cost of licenses for other software, Read Mode improves its overall usability in reading-heavy jobs or during reading-heavy periods of time, and it is easy enough to adapt to that it does not create much overhead.