Office for iPad review

Updated: Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint apps are now on the iPad. Are they any good?

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.

Reasons to buy
  • +

    Simple, touch-friendly design; Free to view documents

Reasons to avoid
  • -

    Expensive without a subscription; Not compatible with third-party cloud services

Word

The iconic word processing program is the most downloaded free app in the App store as of 4 April 2014.

There's less functionality than on the desktop version but this is to be expected. The ribbon includes tabs for home, insert, layout, review and view.

File is in the top left corner and allows you to toggle the AutoSave feature on/off, as well as duplicate or change the name of the document.

Being an Apple product, the iOS keyboard is locked down so typing relies on the standard onscreen keyboard. Using this keyboard is sufficient for creating or editing smaller documents, but if you want to make serious headway with your work, we recommend getting a Bluetooth keyboard.