Microsoft is working on a new feature for Word this should help users write documents more quickly and easily.
According one entrance in the company’s product roadmap, Word will soon receive a text prediction feature, designed to anticipate what the user intends to write next and save the effort of typing in full.
As soon as the update is deployed, Word will begin generating real-time text predictions as the user types. These predictions will be dimmed until they are entered, approved with the TAB key or rejected with ESC.
According to Microsoft, the service will improve over time, according to the writing style and language preferences of each user, and should help to minimize spelling and grammar errors.
The feature is still in development, but should be implemented for users of the Windows application by the end of next month. It is not clear when the update will be made for the web client or Word for macOS.
Microsoft Word Update
The next Word update will restore parity between Microsoft’s word processing software and rival service Google documents, which has offered almost identical functionality for some time.
Although Microsoft was previously the undisputed leader in the productivity software market, the transition to a model that prioritizes subscription and the rise of Google Workspace introduced a healthy measure of competition for space.
Information about the new Word feature also comes right after an announcement about the company’s next stand-alone Office suite, designed for customers who prefer to make a one-time purchase instead of using the Microsoft 365 subscription service.
Scheduled to arrive later this year, Office 2021 will presumably deliver a series of updates over the previous 2019 edition, but Microsoft remains silent about the precise ways in which the two standalone packages will be different.
Microsoft has confirmed that Office 2021 will receive support for five years and the company does not intend to change the package price at this time.