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Microsoft watcher Mary Jo Foley's blog covers the products, people and strategies that make Microsoft tick.

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Microsoft already made available last month one of two of its non-subscription, perpetual Office products: Office LTSC. Today, October 1, Microsoft officials shared details about the other Office 2021, which will begin shipping on October 5, the same day that Windows 11 starts rolling out. 

Office 2021, which is aimed at consumers and students, not business users, will be available in two versions. Office Home and Student 2021 will cost$150; Office Home and Business 2021 will cost$250. The Home and Student version includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Teams for PC and Mac. Home and Business includes everything in Home and Student, plus Outlook for PC and Mac and the rights to use the apps for business purposes, officials said. Both of these variants are limited to use on a single PC or Mac and will be supported for five years.

Microsoft officials are giving Office 2021 the same visual update that they're providing for Microsoft 365. Rounded corners, a "neutral color palette," refreshed tabs in the ribbon and synchronization between the app themes and Windows light/dark mode are all part of this refresh. The apps in the suite -- Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Access, Project, Publisher and Visio -- all will get the UI update. The visually updated Microsoft 365 and Office 2021 will work on both Windows 11 and Windows 10.

Microsoft is also adding some features to the perpetual, non-subscription Office 2021 that are already available to Microsoft 365 subscribers. These include the ability to "modernize" formulas in Excel, record PowerPoint presentations more easily, and access to more creative content. As officials have said before, Microsoft is not making all the Microsoft 365 features available in the non-subscription Office, so things like advanced grammar suggestions in Microsoft Editor and Presenter Coach in PowerPoint won't be part of the non-subscription version.

The full list of features included in Office 2021 is here.  

Microsoft will be making the visual updates to the apps in Microsoft 365 available starting October 5. Microsoft's officials said they'd be adding consumer Teams features to both Microsoft 365 and Office 2021 during October and November so that users can run Teams on Windows 10 and macOS. 

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