Microsoft Office

Microsoft now gives you first month free when you sign up for an Office 365 subscription

Microsoft's Word, Excel and PowerPoint apps for the iPhone and iPad allow anyone to edit, create and view Office files on the go at no cost, but advanced features such as a more powerful editing capability, Dropbox integration and more is locked behind a paid for Office 365 subscription.

In the hope of encouraging as many Office for iOS users as possible to move up to the subscription model, the software maker on Thursday said it's now treating you to the first month free if you sign up for an Office 365 subscription.

PowerPoint for iOS now works in portrait

Software maker Microsoft this morning issued a minor update to its mobile Office apps available in the App Store. Word, Excel and PowerPoint for the iPhone and iPad have received a few bug fixes and one new feature.

Specifically, PowerPoint for iOS has finally introduced support for portrait orientation so you can now view and edit your presentation no matter which way you hold your device.

Dropbox rolling out ability to edit Microsoft Office documents

Following Microsoft-issued updates to itsWord, Excel and PowerPoint mobile apps for iOS with native Dropbox integration, the popular cloud storage startup on Tuesday announced it is adding the ability to edit Microsoft Office documents to its free iOS client.

That's right, both iOS and Android users can take advantage of the newly refreshed Dropbox mobile client with Microsoft Office integration to work on the Office files stored in your Dropbox even when you’re on the go.

In addition to editing your Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents from the Dropbox app, you can also access them directly from Microsoft's mobile Office apps.

Microsoft launches iOS developer tools for deep integration with Office 365 features and services

Tuesday, Windows giant Microsoft announced that mobile developers can start building better apps by taking advantage of a brand new Office 365 mobile software development kit (SDK) for native app development and a set of Application Programming Interfaces (API) for mail, calendar, contacts and files. The tools debuted at the company's TechEd Europe 2014 conference.

The move aligns with the Microsoft Open Technologies initiative. The iOS SDK for Xcode supports Objective-C, with Swift support “coming soon”, wrote the team.

More on the SDK, which is currently in preview, is available via Microsoft's Office Dev Center. The Office 365 SDK for iOS can be grabbed through GitHub and the Getting Started with iOS page has details on how to get started with the iOS SDK.

Microsoft adds new features to Word, Excel and PowerPoint for iPad

Software giant Microsoft has issued a trio of updates to its Office for iPad applications in the App Store. Now available as free downloads, the refreshed editions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint for iPad bring over a dozen new capabilities enhancing your experience.

Some of the headline improvements include much-requested user-facing features such as the ability to use third-party fonts in your documents, export docs as PDF files, a new Presenter View for PowerPoint, new Picture Tools that let you crop to focus on the right part of an image, external keyboard support in Excel and more...

Office for iPad updated: AirPrint, SmartGuides in PowerPoint, AutoFit in Excel

A glaring omission from the initial release of the free Word, Excel and PowerPoint for Apple's iPad, printing has now been added to these apps via Microsoft’s first major update to the Office for iPad suite. The software update has arrived on Tuesday, a little more than a month into the suite's iPad launch last month.

Besides printing support across all Office for iPad apps, SmartGuides are now available in PowerPoint making it easy to align the elements of your presentation.

Moreover, Excel users will be happy to learn that a new AutoFit feature has been added to both Excel for iPad and its desktop counterpart. This feature allows you to adjust the width and height of multiple rows and columns at once...

$7 per month Office 365 Personal subscription plan launches with iPad editing

Microsoft last month released its native and rather nicely done Word, PowerPoint and Excel iPad apps as free downloads from the App Store. You're limited to using these apps to view Microsoft Office documents on your tablet as editing and creating new ones requires one of the many Office 365 subscriptions available.

The iPad apps launched with Microsoft's entry-level Office 365 Home subscription plan costing $9.99 per month. If you don't want to pay ten bucks per month just to edit Office documents, Microsoft now offers a more affordable Personal plan for $6.99 per month...

Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote for iPad hit 12M downloads

Seven days into the Office for iPad release on Apple's platform, the native Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote applications for the iPad have been downloaded twelve million times, the Windows giant confirmed on Twitter this morning.

Microsoft released Word, Excel and PowerPoint as individual downloads for the iPad on March 27, 2014. The software giant's note-taking app, OneNote, hit the App Store ten days earlier, on March 17, 2014.

OneNote got refreshed the same day native Word, Excel and PowerPoint debuted on the App Store to bring it in line with the rest of the Office for iPad suite. You can download Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote individually in the App Store, for free...

Microsoft Stores offering free 1-year Office 365 subscriptions, Amazon taking 33% off

If you visit a Microsoft Store today and bring your iPad with you, Microsoft may give you a free one-year subscription to Office 365, a $99 value.

Following yesterday's release of Office for iPad with native Excel, Word and PowerPoint applications, the Windows giant's retail stores are now promoting the apps by giving away a 1-year Office 365 subscription to the first 50 people who turn up at the door and bring in an iPad with them.

If you don't have the time to visit your nearby Microsoft Store or there's no store in your area, Amazon is now offering a discounted annual Office 365 subscription for $67...

Apple getting its standard 30 percent cut on Office for iPad subscriptions

Following today's long expected release of the Office for iPad applications, Apple's boss Tim Cook issued a nice tweet welcoming Word, Excel and PowerPoint into the App Store. Returning the favor, Microsoft's newly installed chief executive Satya Nadella took to Twitter to thank Cook, saying he was "excited to bring the magic of Office to iPad customers".

Redmond couldn't have wished for a better endorsement than this!

So, why are these powerful Silicon Valley executives droning politely on to each other, do you think? And how come Cook is promoting Office for iPad even though the software competes squarely with Apple's own iWork suite, free with iDevice purchases?

Could it be because folks at Cupertino are getting their standard 30 percent cut on Office 365 subscriptions sold within the app...

Office for iPhone is now free for home use

Shortly after Microsoft brought the mobile edition of Office to the iPhone last summer, fans of the Windows giant's productivity software cried foul as the app came across to them as more of an Office companion for mobile than a full-blown productivity application.

Although available free of charge and with editing functionality for your Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents, the app initially required an Office 365 subscription - much like the newly released Office for iPad. But not anymore.

Started today, Microsoft is making both the iPhone edition of Office and the version for Android smartphones free for everyone, like on Windows Phone. And to reflect the updated business model, the app has been rechristened and is now simply called Office Mobile for iPhone - much shorter and easier to remember than 'Office Mobile for Office 365 subscribers', which used to be its full name before...