6 Tricks for Microsoft Office on iPad & Android Tablets

It’s now easier than ever to take your work with you wherever you go since Microsoft has released Office apps for both iOS and Android devices. They aren’t quite as powerful as their desktop counterparts as of yet, but they have quickly advanced in their usability to the point that you can almost ditch your desktop and laptop and use your mobile device as your primary technology tool.

Below are a list of tips and tricks for Microsoft Office on iPad and Android tablets that will hopefully increase your proficiency in using Office on the go.

iPad

Keyboard Tips for iPad Office Apps

If you want to bring up the keyboard, just tap somewhere on the document in Word, inside a cell in Excel, or in a textbox in PowerPoint. To make the keyboard go away, tap the keyboard icon in the bottom right corner of the keyboard.

If you get tired of constantly having to hit the period every time you need one, a fast way to is to just double-tap the spacebar. This will give you a period and a space after it to start the next sentence.

Send Office Files to Other iPad Apps

First, make sure that you have OneDrive installed on your iPad. Next, make sure that you’re saving all of your Office documents to OneDrive instead of on your tablet locally. To send the document to another app, find and select the file you want to send in OneDrive. Tap the ellipsis symbol in the bottom right-hand corner. When the context menu appears, tap on the “Open in Another App” selection. This will bring up a list of available apps that you can then select to send the file to.

Open Files on Your iPad that are Stored on Your PC

The best way to do this is to store your Office files in the cloud using OneDrive. If you aren’t already saving them to OneDrive, you can easily upload them. Just open a browser and sign into OneDrive. Next, locate the files on your local machine and then drag them into the webpage where you have OneDrive open. Depending on the number and size of the files, this might take a while. After the files are loaded, you should be able to immediately open the OneDrive app on your iPad and edit your documents from the folder where you uploaded them.

Android Tablet

Link to Files Instead of Attaching Them

In Outlook, instead of attaching an Office document, you can link to a document in OneDrive. This will give the recipients of the email edit permissions so that you can collaborate in the cloud instead of having multiple outstanding copies of the document that have to be merged later.

Voice Dictation

You can use voice dictation through Google Voice to quickly create and edit Office files while working on offline documents. The document can then be uploaded to OneNote so that it will be available across all of your devices.

Comments in Documents

You can add a comment by double tapping the text you want to select and then press the speech bubble icon in the top right corner of the screen. After adding the comment, a blue speech bubble will appear in the document. To read the comment, simply tap the blue speech bubble and it will pop up above the document.

Both Apple and Android tablets give you the ability to create, edit, collaborate, and manage Microsoft Office Apps without being chained to a larger computer. While they don’t provide all of the features of the computer versions, they give you tons of functionality. Training for Microsoft Office will unlock features that you might not have been previously aware. The tools contained in Office are vast and the only way to maximize their potential is to get training.

To find out what you’re missing, why not investigate getting Microsoft Office training from ONLC today?