Microsoft has outlined a number of new features in its upcoming Office for Mac 2011 release, including myriad tweaks to how users share and interact with documents.

“You’ve told us that working together across platforms is a priority to you and that’s why we are making Office for Mac 2011 the best, most compatible productivity suite on the Mac,” says Eric Wilfrid, MacBU General Manager at Microsoft Corp

The new features are as follows:

Co-authoring tools You and your co-workers now have the ability to work on a file from Word, PowerPoint or Excel from different locations, brainstorm ideas, and stay on the same page regardless of time, geography or platform.

Office Web Apps These make it easy to get your work done virtually anywhere. Gives giving you a simple way to access and share Office documents from any machine with an internet connection.

New user interface new design is an evolution of the Office 2008 Elements Gallery and uses the classic Mac menu and Standard Toolbar giving you the best of both worlds.

Outlook replaces Entourage Outlook for Mac replaces Entourage. It leverages the Exchange Web Services protocol and is being built using Cocoa, allowing for improved integration with the Mac OS. The system now also supports PST files.

Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 has a UK release date of later this year. Pricing is still to be announced.