Microsoft has updated its trio of Office apps for the iPad — Word, Excel, and PowerPoint — adding a number of significant features. Perhaps the biggest addition is support for PDF export, but new third-party fonts have also been added, as have new Picture tools that let people crop an image or reset it to an unaltered state. Other changes are specific to Excel and PowerPoint.
The former has received better external keyboard support and more printing options, as well as a “Flick to Select” gesture that lets people quickly select all the cells in a row or column. PivotTables can now be sorted, filtered, expanded, or collapsed, and given new styles and layouts.
PowerPoint’s main upgrade is a new Presenter View, which enables viewing and editing speaker notes, previewing upcoming slides, and jumping to later ones. Highlights and drawings can be erased, and as needed presenters can insert videos, sound, and music. The app has also gained the ability to add/edit URLs.
The apps are free to download, but can’t be used to create or edit anything without an Office 365 subscription.
