IT Pro Verdict
If you've got an Office 365 subscription then it's worth downloading the apps as you'll have full editing capabilities. Starting at £7.99 per month for access to Office on the tablet and desktop, it's only worth signing up if you're going to use this as your primary word processing suite.
Pros
- +
Simple, touch-friendly design; Free to view documents
Cons
- -
Expensive without a subscription; Not compatible with third-party cloud services
The wait is over. Office is finally available as a natively on Apple's popular iPad.
Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel are available as three separate apps and are free to download. You can view documents, spreadsheets and presentations without paying any money. But to get full editing functionality you'll need an Office 365 subscription.
We take a look at the design (below) and drill down into the core feature of each app - so feel free to skip to the sections about Word, PowerPoint, Excel as well as details about Pricing and Verdict.
Design
All of the applications have been redesigned specifically for the touchscreen interface on the iPad. However, anyone who has used Office 2013 on the desktop will immediately be at home using the apps.
Update: 30/4/14
Microsoft has added the ability to print after this was the number one most requested feature from users.
You can opt to print either the whole document or just a selection in Excel or Word and Powerpoint allows you to print out a whole presentation or a single slide.
Create a new document, spreadsheet or presentation and you'll be presented with dozens of templates to help you get started. All three apps have the same basic design with a ribbon running along the top. It's a clean interface, which is easy to navigate.
There are flaws in the functionality. Office for iPad only allows access to Microsoft's OneDrive cloud sharing service. The lack of cross-platform connectivity with popular services like Box, Dropbox and Google Drive is a letdown.
