Remember Clippy (Clippit), the annoying paperclip animation that offered up assistance in versions of Microsoft Office in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s? He’s set to make a return in the next major version of Redmond’s productivity suite – well, sort of.
Clippy’s spiritual successor, the “Tell Me” helper currently found in Office Online apps, is coming to the desktop according to sources familiar with the matter as reported by The Verge.
For those not up to speed, Tell Me is more or less a search field positioned at the top of documents. It allows users to search for answers to questions about Office features without having to dig through the help documentation.
The new version, dubbed Office 16, will also contain a darker theme – apparently the top request for Office 2013. As you can see above, it’s a unique look for Office (it resembles a Halloween theme IMO) but it could be easier on the eyes for those that spend most of the day working with documents.
The publication points out a couple of other new features destined for Office 16 including automatic image rotation and new sync options for Outlook that can sync a single day, three days, a week or two weeks worth of e-mails at once. The current version of Outlook only lets you download a month of e-mails at a time. If you receive a lot of messages or are low on space, this can be an issue.
Keep in mind that this is an early build of Office 16 so the end result could look a bit different and will likely include a few additional features.
