14 DAY TRIAL // Office for iPad was officially launched four months ago, but since then, Microsoft has been hard at work to improve the productivity suite, so the very first wave of updates has been officially rolled out a few minutes ago.
Microsoft has tried to improve basically every single Office for iPad application, so users can now export files to PDF, benefit from new picture editing tools, and work with third-party fonts.
Starting with this version, whenever you tap a new picture, two additional options are waiting to be used, namely crop and reset. While crop has a pretty much self-intuitive role, the reset option allows you to quickly remove all styles and changes, and start over with a specific photo.
PowerPoint now has a presenter view feature for projecting, audio and video playback and the ability to insert media, just like it’s the case with the other versions that are available on desktop computers. Last but not least, PowerPoint users are also allowed to add and edit hyperlinks.
“With this update you can also make your presentations more rich and interactive than ever by more easily including video and sound to help get your point across. Not only do all of your embedded videos and sound recordings now play right from PowerPoint for iPad, but you can insert video directly from your Camera Roll as well. This allows you to quickly record, embed, and present interactive content more quickly than ever, and all from one device,” Microsoft explains.
Excel, on the other hand, comes with improvements to the way you interact with data thanks to enhancements to pivot table interactivity, while also adding print and scaling options. A new flick gesture is also being offered to make selecting large ranges of data easier.
“Excel is all about interacting with, consuming, and manipulating your data. When it comes to interacting with data, PivotTables are key to helping explore that data. With Excel for iPad you can now sort, filter, expand and collapse, show details, and even refresh PivotTables whose data is all contained within the workbook. You can even change how your PivotTables look and feel by changing both their visual style and layout,” the company adds.
All these updates should be automatically shipped to your iPad through the App Store, but you can also download them manually again if you don’t like to wait. Keep in mind that, in order to edit documents, an Office 365 subscription is still required.