More good stuff added to Office for iPad
Microsoft has released version 1.1 of their Office for iPad apps with more useful features added.
EMAIL to PDF
Microsoft gets tricky with the wording of one new feature. They boast about “Export to PDF is available in the Share menu in all of our apps” which is strictly true but doesn’t tell the whole story. In practice the PDF feature is strangely limited.
You can only email Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents in PDF format directly from Office for iPad. There’s no way we can see to ‘Save As ..’ to the iPad or OneDrive which is a curious limitation.
This feature, such as it is, is available for everyone, not just Office 365 subscribers.
Picture Cropping
There are now in-line picture tools for cropping images within the document either with the familiar handles or specific ratios.
More Fonts
It’s possible to add more fonts to the iPad system via third party apps like AnyFont or MyFonts (for fonts purchase through that company).
Office for iPad will now detect those additional fonts and let you use them in documents. That’s very handy for document compatibility.
Excel for iPad
PivotTables have been given a big boost in Excel 1.1 for iPad.
A lot of the neat PivotTable tricks are now available like Sort, Filter, Expand/Collapse, Details. The look of a PivotTable can now be changed. Data can be refreshed IF the source is contained in the same worksheet.
But … you can’t make a PivotTable in Excel 1.1 for iPad. The PivotTable itself has to be made in Excel for Windows/Mac beforehand.
Pick Flick
New to Excel is ‘Flick’ – a simple touch method of selecting a large block of cells. Click on a cell, tap and hold the selection handle and ‘Flick’ in any direction. Excel will select cells in that direction (row or column) until it hits a blank cell.
Keyboard Shortcuts
In Office for iPad: The Complete Guide we complained about the lack of familiar keyboard shortcuts in Office for iPad. Adding an external keyboard would be a lot more useful if the shortcuts would work. Excel 1.1 for iPad now supports just ONE keyboard shortcut … not the many that regular Excel users would like. The new shortcut is Ctrl + 2 to switch between Edit and Point modes while editing formulas.
Printing in Excel for iPad now has better layout options, scaling and paper sizes to choose from. Office for iPad: The Complete Guide has a chapter devoted to iPad printing, how to do it with Apple’s AirPrint and cheaper workarounds that bypass Apple’s expensive options.
PowerPoint
The major handicap in PowerPoint for iPad has been fixed – there’s now a Presenter view.
If you have an additional screen attached to the iPad, the external screen can show the presentation while the iPad gives you a Presenter View. Familiar features like displaying slide notes and selecting slides are there. Annotations during presentations have been given new pen and eraser settings.
Video gets much better support. You can now embed video directly in the PowerPoint app including from the iPad Camera Roll. That means you can shoot some video (maybe of the audience) and add it to the presentation right from the iPad itself.
All nice stuff. The Office for iPad apps are available for everyone from the App Store but only Office 365 subscribers get all the editing features. The version 1.1 apps should appear on your iPad automatically or go to the App Store | Updates to check the available app updates.
See Also
- Office for iPad, September updates
- How to Email direct to cloud storage and services
- How you can update Office for iPad: The Complete Guide
- Office for iPad – printing for all
- Office for iPad ‘thanks for noticing’ from Microsoft
- Printer Pro for iPad
- Office for iPad update April 2014
- Office for iPad can print – sort of
- Office for iPad: The Complete Guide
- Excel for iPad – Formula Keyboard
- Office for iPhone and Android now free for home use
