New Microsoft Office Preview Update Enables Haptic Feedback for Surface Pen

Microsoft has released a new preview build of Microsoft Office for users enrolled in the Insider program, and in addition to the typical fixes these updates come with, the company has also included an exciting new feature.

It’s support for haptic feedback in the entire Office suite for the Surface Pen, so if you’re using the productivity software with a pen, the experience overall should now be substantially improved.

Microsoft says it has also addressed a critical issue that was causing Office version 2109 to stop responding after a recent update. In other words, if the application previously crashed after installing the latest update, this new release brings things back to normal, and all Office apps should run properly on your Windows device.

App-specific improvements

At the same time, there are several fixes aimed specifically at the built-in apps, including for Microsoft Word. The company explains the following on the Microsoft Word front:  

• We fixed an issue where there was a potential for data loss without error when a user carried out a Save As action to a location using a server path in a CICO library synced by the OneDrive client.
• We fixed an issue where contact cards were not working in Office.
• We fixed an issue where values in a table sometimes didn’t refresh when entering new data.

If you’re using Microsoft Outlook, the Redmond-based software giant says it correctly a glitch that caused the email client to stop responding when navigating to a shared calendar.

And at the same time, Microsoft says Outlook now comes with a new design change to prevent the Automatic Replies banner from appearing at certain times.

The new update bring the Office Insider Preview build number to 14186.2004, and it’s available today for Windows users who are enrolled in the Beta channel of the program.