Microsoft continues to deliver its Office for iPad promises

Microsoft has shipped useful improvements to its Office for iPad suite, at last bringing mouse and trackpad support to the main shipping product.

Better Word, better Excel

Both Word and Excel now let you use a mouse or trackpad inside the app on an iPad. Excel also gains support for multiple windows, so you can open one spreadsheet beside another in iPad’s Split View mode. Word and PowerPoint gained Split View support last summer.

To access Split View, just open a document and then drag and drop the app icon up toward the right of the screen until the left hand view moves slightly.

Microsoft has also boosted PowerPoint with a new Presenter Coach tool, which helps users rehearse their presentations and provides useful tips around pacing, word choice, pitch and more.

And more is on the way

These enhancements have been some time coming. Apple first crafted a more desktop-like experience more akin to using a Mac on an iPad with iOS 13 in 2019. Developers such as Microsoft and Adobe are now implementing these features within their apps.

Microsoft is also preparing to introduce contextual Teams for Mac meetings controls for the MacBook Pro Touch Bar.

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