Word 2016: Researcher and Editor tools

Martin Brinkmann
Jul 26, 2016
Updated • May 22, 2018
Companies, Microsoft, Microsoft Office
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Microsoft announced two new tools, Researcher and Editor, for Word 2016 today that introduce better research integration and writing assistance.

Word 2016 is the newest version of the popular word editing software that is available to Office 365 users and customers who purchased a standalone copy of Office 2016.

The update is available today to all Office 365 subscribers who are using Word 2016 on the Windows desktop according to Microsoft.

The easiest way to find out whether you have it or not is to open Word 2016 on the Windows desktop and check whether the new "Researcher" option is available under References when you edit a document.

Researcher

word 2016 researcher

Researcher is a new tool that you may use to find references directly from within Word 2016. The feature uses Bing's Knowledge Graph for that and displays data in a sidebar in the Word 2016 when enabled.

You find the new option under References > Researcher.

Researcher is a new service in Word that helps you find and incorporate reliable sources and content for your paper in fewer steps. Right within your Word document you can explore material related to your topic and add it—and its properly-formatted citation—in one click. Researcher uses the Bing Knowledge Graph to pull in the appropriate content from the web and provide structured, safe and credible information.

You may use the new tool to add quotes and "properly formatted citation" to documents. While this may not be suitable for science-grade documents, it may do for many other types of documents.

Editor

word 2016 editor

Editor is touted as a new digital writing assistant that assists you with proofing and editing services. The initial release flags unclear phrases, redundancy or complex words, and makes recommendations by displaying alternatives to you.

The service uses machine learning and natural language processing for that, and will improve over time according to Microsoft.

While Researcher helps you start a paper, Editor assists you with the finishing touches by providing an advanced proofing and editing service. Leveraging machine learning and natural language processing—mixed with input from our own team of linguists—Editor makes suggestions to help you improve your writing. Initially, it will help you simplify and streamline written communications by flagging unclear phrases or complex words, such as recommending “most” in place of “the majority of.”

Microsoft plans to improve Editor this fall by informing you why words or phrases may not be accurate, and listing corrections at the same time.

word 2016 editor choice errors

Word 2016 distinguishes between the following kinds of underlined hints:

  • Red Squiggle for spelling mistakes.
  • Blue Double Underline for Grammar mistakes.
  • Gold Dotted Line for Writing Style issues.

The following video highlights the new tools briefly.

Additional information about the Researcher and Editor tools of Word 2016 for the windows desktop, and new features introduced in Outlook and PowerPoint, is provided on Microsoft's Office blog.

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Word 2016: Researcher and Editor announced
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Word 2016: Researcher and Editor announced
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Microsoft announced two new tools, Researcher and Editor, for Word 2016 today that introduce better research integration and writing assistance.
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Comments

  1. Marco said on July 28, 2016 at 3:03 pm
    Reply

    My Office 365 says I’m on 16.0.7070.2033, it says it’s up to date but I don’t have any of the new features

    1. JL said on August 7, 2016 at 6:52 am
      Reply

      Same here, I removed 32-bit, and made sure I had 64-bit (32-bit is loaded unless specified??).
      Same thing in 64-bit: [ 2016 MSO (16.0.7030.1021) 64-bit ]
      I run 8.1
      This thread is the only one even recognizing the problem.
      Oh well, at least it loaded, and for now works…

  2. Richard said on July 26, 2016 at 6:06 pm
    Reply

    Odd that I updated my Office 365 ProPlus this morning to the Insider edition and, although the new “Zoom” icon and feature showed up on PowerPoint, Researcher did not appear on the Word Ribbon. However…

    I decided to add it to the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT), if it was in “All Commands” and, surprisingly Researcher was available.

    Editor was not an available QAT add.

    ICYMI: Software quality control at Microsoft has gone to hell in the last couple of years.

    1. A different Martin said on July 28, 2016 at 8:06 am
      Reply

      @ Richard: You wrote, “Software quality control at Microsoft has gone to hell in the last couple of years.” I used to concede that LibreOffice was somewhat buggier than Microsoft Office. Maybe I need to stop doing that. (I have my own personal illustration: Several versions ago, LibreOffice Writer’s spelling checker would sometimes get stuck in a loop if you switched from the spell-check pane to the document window to make direct corrections more than a few times. When this happened, you had to exit the spelling checker and restart it. The same thing happened in Microsoft Word 2010 the last time I used it, except that the whole document froze and you had to forcibly terminate and restart Word — losing all of the work you’d done since the last save. My all-time favorite, however, was a bug with Microsoft Excel’s auto column fit: you’d see all of the numbers correctly onscreen, but they would print out as ####. You had to manually add a little extra space to each column’s width after doing an auto-fit or you’d get hosed. This bug lasted something like ten years, through multiple versions of Windows and multiple versions of Office. I almost feel nostalgic about it…)

  3. Andrew said on July 26, 2016 at 6:01 pm
    Reply

    Needs more clippy!

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