Microsoft’s Office app now supports Apple iPadOS

The new Office app combines Word, Excel and PowerPoint into a single application, and was originally launched for iOS and Android back in 2019

San Francisco: Microsoft has updated its unified Office mobile app with support for iPadOS, bringing the experience of Word, Excel and PowerPoint to Apple’s tablet platform.

The new Office app combines Word, Excel and PowerPoint into a single application, and was originally launched for iOS and Android back in 2019, The Verge reported on Tuesday. Microsoft has been gradually improving it ever since, but it always ran in a windowed mode instead of a fully optimized iPad app, the report said.

The app also bundles in some useful tools designed primarily for mobile tasks. These include the ability to quickly create PDFs or sign documents, converting images to text and tables, and more quick actions.

Microsoft has been simplifying its mobile Office offerings into this single app, but standalone apps for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are still available and updated regularly.

While it took a while for the main Office app to be iPad-friendly, Microsoft has added many iPad-specific features to its Office apps, including mouse and trackpad support recently, the report said.

Office for iPad is free to use for iPad Air, iPad and iPad mini users, but requires a Microsoft 365 subscription to make full use of all features.