Microsoft Office for Apple iPad: Five best features

MICROSOFT has finally released its Office software onto the Apple iPad and it’s no cut and paste job. Here are the best things about the new app.

THERE’S no need for a double take.

Microsoft Office is finally available on Apple’s iPad.

Those familiar servings of software such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint will arrive with relief to many who have been craving the PC experience on the Apple tablet.

But this is not a simple cut and paste job from Microsoft, this Office suite has been built from the ground up and has some great new features optimised for your pinkies.

Voice dictation:

Can’t be bothered to tap away your text? Word allows you to speak at your device and it’ll convert your speech. This could come in mighty handy if your hands are occupied or you need to make annotation notes on the fly.

Collaborative working:

Finally, the tools we need on tablet.

This really productive feature will allow several people to view and edit the same document at the same time by working through the cloud. You could all be on your iPads in different parts of the world and still see the same document. It’s a great way to get the job done without having to create individual versions. You can even work on these collaborative docs when you’re offline and it’ll sync up when you’re next online.

Pictures:

Very fancy.

You probably have a heap of photos on your Apple mobile devices and you can seamlessly slip these into your documents. Because the software has been built for fingertip control you can resize, move, tilt images by pinching. There’s no need to format or re-save, you just select from your Camera Roll or Photo Stream. You can then even make them look all flashy by adding built-in styles to add things like shadows or reflections. Oooh.

AirPlay:

For business users this could revolutionise your meetings and avoid those awkward moments of fiddling with projector cables to no avail. You can release the power of your PowerPoint to the big screen by hooking up to Apple TV and projecting your presentation wirelessly.

Laser power:

Yep, a built-in laser pointer.

There’s a built-in laser pointer so if you’re displaying your presentation on another screen you can make your point known by furiously circling those profit margins by dragging your finger across the screen and a little red dot will follow your every move.

Apple’s own iWork suite with apps like Pages and Numbers has been doing the job for productivity on the iPad since it launched and also has features like collaborative working and AirPlay functionality. It also recently became a free app so it’ll be interesting to see whether the lure of Office’s familiarity will be enough to have people paying the $119 annual subscription if they want to edit documents on the app. Otherwise it’s free to open and view docs.