Microsoft announced today that the consumer versions of Office 2024 are now available for consumers and small businesses. They follow the release of Office LTSC 2024 in mid-September.

"We know some of our customers still prefer a non-subscription way to access our familiar apps, which is why we're releasing Office 2024 on October 1 for consumers and small businesses," Microsoft vice president Bryan Rognier writes. "Office 2024 includes updated, locked-in-time versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Outlook for PC and Mac."

There are two editions of Office 2024, Office Home and Office Home & Business. Office Home costs $149.99 and includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. Office Home & Business costs $249.99 and includes everything in Office Home plus Outlook and the right to use the apps for commercial purposes. Both editions are licensed for use on one PC or Mac only, and both work with Windows 10 or 11 and the three most recent versions of macOS. Office 2024 requires both a Microsoft account and an internet connection, notes.

New features compared to Office 2019 include the new default Office theme, OpenDocument 1.4 support, a Like reaction for comments, search improvements and an accessibility checker in Outlook (plus swipe gestures on Mac), live camera feed support and presentation recording in PowerPoint, Word document recovery, and new functions and dynamic arrays in Excel, among others. You can learn more about the new features on the Microsoft Support website.