Releasing Office for the non-Microsoft, iOS platform was one of the biggest news stories right after Satya Nadella took the CEO job at Microsoft. The release was met with such approval and acceptance that, in just four months, Office for iPad has been downloaded more than 35 million times. Microsoft subsequently released Office for Android, but a touch-enabled version of Office has yet to release for Windows. Clearly, this shows a new mindset for the company where it wants to reach every user on every platform (specifically the most popular ones) using Office as the tantalizing candy. Windows seems to be an afterthought, but Microsoft has assured Windows users that their day is coming.
Today, Microsoft has taken the wraps off a major release of new features for Office for iPad, promoting the update as a customer-focused release that includes the top-requested features.
What's included in today's update:
- All apps: Export files as PDFs
- All apps: New picture editing tools
- All apps: Support for third party fonts
- PowerPoint: Presenter view
- PowerPoint: Audio and video playback
- PowerPoint: Insert media capability
- PowerPoint: Add and edit hyperlinks
- Excel: Enhanced pivot table interactivity
- Excel: Print and scaling options
- Excel: "Flick" gesture for easier selection of large data ranges
The update is available from iTunes: Office for iPad
Microsoft has a blog posted that goes into the details of each new feature: Office for iPad: now with Presenter View, Pivot Table interaction, Export to PDF, and more top-requested features