Microsoft’s new all-in-one Office application is now generally available to everyone after a few months of public testing.
After Android got it just over a day ago, users of Microsoft’s productivity suite on the iPhone are also getting access to the same app now.
The app replaces the 3 separate apps that Microsoft has provided users over the last 3 years for word processing, creating and editing spreadsheets and working on their presentations.
While that is so, there is no immediate incentive for anyone already hooked to their workflow using the three apps that have now been rolled into one with the new Office application, to get the new app.
Sure, the new app has some nice new features like integration with Office Lens, syncing with Notes, the ability to sign documents on the go as well as scan quick response (QR) codes and whatnot but maybe that is not what defines your workflow.
To entice as many users as possible to switch to the new app now and in coming days, Microsoft has announced that at least 3 new features are coming to the app.
The new Office app will soon let users turn their voice into words by using voice commands. Sure Cortana may be all but dead on Android but we should be able to reap from Microsoft’s little experiment over the last few years.
The other day, while riding on a matatu, I was very much surprised to find a gentleman calmly working on his spreadsheet on their computer without any care in the world. Some of the questions I got after sharing a photo of what I was seeing went something like this: why did he need to do all that when our phones these can do pretty much everything?
Eer, it’s usually not that easy and those that have tried using Excel on the go may attest to this. Having to pan through multiple columns on our tiny smartphone screens (now that 6-inch displays are now almost a standard, is it still valid to say this?) in order to key a new entry in a dense workbook is not fun. What if it could all be easier?
That is exactly what’s coming in a future feature update, according to Microsoft.
“View and edit data in an Excel table row in a simple, digestible card format so you do not have span across columns that extend beyond the limits of the screen.”
Oh, I can’t wait for that.
For those that usually get caught up in last-minute dashes to cobble together a decent enough presentation, it will be possible to just type up your slides real quick then sit back and watch PowerPoint Designer do its magic – put everything in order “with the proper styling, formatting, and iconography of your content”.
