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Microsoft Office for Android tablets quick look!

2015-01-30
hello again ladies and gentlemen I'm Joe handy the Android authority app guy we're going to take a quick look at Microsoft Office for Android tablets there are a total of three applications so we're just going to quickly glaze over all three of them let's get started okay let's do Microsoft Word first the interface is actually very similar to the desktop version the opening page the tabs across the top of the editor and the same screens all look like miniature replicas of the desktop version this is great for those who are used to the desktop version but may get on the nerves of fans of holo or material design because this is certainly not those things there are three basic versions that you can have if you don't sign into a Microsoft account you can only use this as a document viewer signing in lets you create and edit documents if you sign up for the office 365 subscription you'll unlock some additional formatting features in my experience the basic free version is good enough for most people you still have most formatting along with the ability to insert images and other stuff to make documents look good performance was actually surprisingly good but that was only after some hiccups in the very beginning if you have the office 365 subscription you're obviously going to have more stuff than everybody else but the basic formatting stuff is there overall it's definitely cleaner than I expected I found the templates were useful and this is actually a decent showing by Microsoft so far excel is a lot like Word in terms of interface it is essentially a mobile copy of their desktop app so fans will know their way around also like Word and PowerPoint an office 365 subscription will get you more features and if you don't sign in with a Microsoft account you can only use this as a document viewer I found the templates to be much more helpful here for starting out it's not that the basic functions are hard to use but having a base to start from seem to be more useful in Excel than the other two the interface was easy to understand and inputting information never felt tedious or difficult much like word you have access to a lot of basic formatting and small stuff like inserting images there is also algorithms built in if you need them the controls for spreadsheets are very spread out which I actually liked because it made things easier to manage on a touchscreen interface than if everything were all squeezed into one little area overall like word it was much better than I was expecting last up is PowerPoint and pretty much all of the same stuff applies here you can view things without a Microsoft account but you do need one to edit stuff in an office 365 subscription is required to get all of the features it is also pretty much a copy of the desktop version to be perfectly honest I wasn't expecting much in PowerPoint because presentation software has historically never been very good on Android much like the other two I was pleasantly surprised by the ease of use and control I had over presentations although I actually did have PowerPoint crash on me once while trying to play a slideshow but it is important to keep in mind that these are early builds and are probably going to receive bug fixes and performance improvements as time goes over all it is PowerPoint and it feels like a PowerPoint application overall I was impressed with Microsoft Office as long as you have a Microsoft account and sign in with it you'll have access to about 90% of the functionality and more importantly the functionality that you're probably actually going to use kudos to Microsoft for not taking the cheap route and making all the important features locked up behind a paywall after seeing how this works in comparing it to the mobile version I can see now why Microsoft decided to wait to release this for tablets the tablet versions are beyond a shadow of a doubt way more powerful than the phone versions and I think that's what they were going for that said there were some pickups here and there when the apps first load up they're a little bit sluggish until everything gets going and that may bother some people who are in a rush and like I said a moment ago PowerPoint did crash on me once there are those who may try to get angry about having to sign into a Microsoft account to use these applications but you may recall that you have to sign into a Google account to use pretty much any Google application and this is really no different it is a bit inconvenient especially if you don't have a Microsoft account but it's not necessarily a bad thing overall this is a positive addition to the Google Play Store especially for those who use Microsoft Office onedrive or otherwise married into the Microsoft ecosystem it's not for everyone obviously but Microsoft finally has a real and functional Microsoft Office and I personally couldn't be happier about it and that about does it for this video folks if you want to download the Microsoft Office suite we'll have those links in the video description below and if you haven't yet do subscribe to the Android Authority YouTube channel as always thank you for watching everybody and have a wonderful day
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