Microsoft releases Word, Excel and PowerPoint previews for Windows 10

Microsoft has released previews of several Office apps today for users running the most recent build of the company's upcoming Windows 10 operating system.

The first batch of universal Office applications, meaning they will run on all Windows 10 devices eventually, are now available in the beta version of Windows Store that ships with Windows 10.

You may notice however that you cannot find them in the store if you search for app names. They appear to be blocked currently which means that you can only get them right now by following these links that lead to the Microsoft website.

• Word Preview app
• Excel Preview app
• PowerPoint Preview app

When you are on the site click on the get button displayed on it. This opens the Windows Store beta page of the selected application which you can download and install then.

This worked only partially on my Windows 10 test system. While I was able to get the application and add it to my account, transfers would not start at all and stayed at 0.0 MB of 0.0 MB.

Update: Microsoft confirmed the issue and is working on a fix.

I'm not sure what is going on but I have confirmed with other Windows 10 testers that they were able to install and use the Office preview versions on their test systems.

Outlook and OneNote will also be made available, and all of those apps are optimized for touch displays and mobile use. According to Microsoft, these apps function the same on all supported devices regardless of size.

As far as the preview apps are concerned, they can be used for free currently. Microsoft did note however that some functionality may require a qualifying Office 365 subscription once final versions are released.

Here is a shot of each Office app:

Final version of these apps will be released later this year.

Here are two short demo videos from January's reveal. The first is a demo of the Word application, the second a demo of the PowerPoint app.

In other news, Microsoft revealed that the next Office desktop suite will be called Office 2016. Despite the name, it will be made available in the second half of 2015.