After three months of testing and previewing, the final version of Microsoft Office is available for your Android tablet of choice. Tablet versions of Word, PowerPoint and Excel will now work as expected and perform credibly well on your portable.
We have been playing with the preview version of Microsoft Office for Android tablet since late November and have been surprisingly happy with it. Available as apps, Word, PowerPoint and Excel should be available on Google Play as we speak.
For businesses with a mixture of devices, you will be pleased to know that the Android version of Office will look almost identical to the iOS version. They both share the same core code, so should look and feel much the same.
You will be able to create, edit and view documents as well as print them across a huge range of Android devices. Thanks to the extended test, Microsoft said they were able to check 250,000 users and over 500 devices to ensure a seamless user experience across them all. System requirements for Office for Android
To run Office for Android, your tablet must have at least a 7 inch screen and run Android KitKat 4.4. While these apps run on Android Lollipop, they aren’t yet officially supported by the newer OS. We guess there is more testing to do there.
While a 30-day free trial is offered for Office for Android, you will need a Microsoft account to play. After the trial is over you will also need an Office 365 subscription to continue using the apps.
Familiarity breeds contentment
From our hands on with the app, we were pleased to see the same kind of interface as we see on desktop and what has been reported as being seen for iOS. This makes good business sense as whatever mix of devices you run, staff will be able to quickly get to grips with these productivity tools.
The apps themselves are all similar to look at and operate like Office suites of old. Recently opened documents can be found on the left with a link to open at the bottom. Templates are on the right, you can save and store files locally or upload to OneDrive or SharePoint. Apart from a few small details, using Office for Android is very similar to using the desktop.
Microsoft Office for Android tablet should be out and downloadable now. If you need an Office 365 subscription once your trial has expired, you know where to come!
