Microsoft Latest Office Documents Update Via Fluid Framework Coming Soon

The biggest change to Microsoft’s Office documents in decades will soon be brought to life: The update with the so-called Fluid Framework will soon start in Microsoft Teams, OneNote, Outlook, and Whiteboard.

That comes from a report by The Verge. The Verge found out in an interview with the head of Microsoft 365, Jared Spataro, that the group is currently in the process of launching the biggest update for Office in a long time. Above all, it is about new ways of interlinking the individual Microsoft applications more closely. This is what the Fluid Framework is for.

Microsoft presented Fluid for the first time last year and showed how the framework enables blocks of Office content to be used independently of one another and also mixed together on the web. That idea is now becoming a reality with collaborative content that can be copied, pasted, and shared with others. Incidentally, Microsoft had already shown these changes at the Build 2020 developer conference. Now the changes due to the new Fluid framework and the associated improvements in cooperation are finally starting.

Instead of tables, diagrams, and lists that are static and bound to specific documents, fluid components are collaborative modules that exist across different applications. According to the company, these elements will initially start in Microsoft Teams, this summer. It will then be possible to embed additional Office elements in meetings and chats. Microsoft’s Fluid components can be used across apps.

Corona impacted the development

“We were excited to get started with Fluid, and then came the pandemic,” said Jared Spataro, head of Microsoft 365, in an interview with The Verge. “So we’ve put a lot of our energy into teams, and we see teams as the scaffolding that connects, but now that we’re moving back to hybrid we increasingly believe we need more innovation in what I do name the canvas that enables collaboration. “

Every Microsoft Teams meeting will soon be equipped with an integrated, collaborative note function. The notes are displayed in a teams meeting or in an Outlook calendar, and anyone invited can write on them in real time.

The components like the meeting notes will be available in a preview later this year, along with a few other tests that will then also integrate the whole thing into the desktop version of Outlook. It is likely that the Fluid components will first appear in Teams and in the Office Web Parts before they find their way to the desktop. The start for teams is just the beginning. Fluid is not just a small change, but a “revolution”; it is the biggest change to Office in decades.