Microsoft Office Apps for iPad Pro - Features and Details

Microsoft’s Office apps were one of the highlighted productivity apps for Apple’s new iPad Pro. During Apple’s September 9 event, Microsoft demonstrated Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, on stage, to show how it works with iPad Pro’s new features which include split screen multitasking, slide over and Apple Pencil.

Microsoft Office for iPad pro 2

Microsoft had released Office apps for iOS last year. This included Word, Excel and PowerPoint, whereas OneNote had already been available on the platform. Outlook was later added via acquisition of an app called Accompli by Microsoft. Together, these apps form the Office productivity suite and are the best versions of the apps on any platform after Windows. Document rendering and editing, along with cloud syncing works very well and Microsoft is always quick to adapt the latest iOS features.

With iPad Pro, Apple welcomed Microsoft representatives on stage by announcing that they are the developers of the best productivity apps. Apple chose Office apps as the first ones to display the productivity benefits of the new larger iPad, instead of their own iWork apps.

The new Office apps on iPad Pro will take full advantage of iOS 9 and the larger screen. Supported features include:

Split screen multitasking. You will be able to work with 2 apps, side-by-side, on the large screen. So you can have Word and Excel open and copy content between the two.
Slide over support. Quickly open up another Office app for quick reference or to take notes while working in another app.
Outlook will work side-by-side with Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. This will help users quickly open attachments from email, edit them and send them back in email again without switching between apps. This will be similar to how the Mail app in Windows 10 works.
Office apps and documents will be searchable from iOS search. Any email messages will also show up similar to how iOS Mail app messages currently show in search. This is due to the new app content indexing in iOS 9.
Wireless keyboard support will allow shortcuts to be used to complete tasks quicker.
Apple Pencil support will allow inking support inside the Office apps for easy document annotation and handwriting.

Office apps updates will be available in the App Store when iPad Pro and iOS are available. iOS 9 and WatchOS 2 are releasing on September 16 so Microsoft might update the apps to support it.

Imran Hussain

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