Microsoft Office for iPad

Microsoft has finally released Office for the iPad. For iPad users that rely on Microsoft Word and Powerpoint exclusively for their computer work, this is a very welcome announcement. Now when opening Powerpoint files on your iPad, you won’t have to worry about the formatting changing or things not working properly.

While you can open your Office files on the iPad for free, you must purchase a subscription to Office 365 to create, edit or save your documents. A subscription to Office 365 is $70 for a personal account, which is disappointing since Apple’s own iWork applications are free for iPad users.

If users do sign up for Office 365, they will have only one online storage option, Microsoft’s Skydrive, which is not a service that we directly support.

Office for iPad provides a nice alternative for sharing Word, Powerpoint and Excel documents on your iPad. Documents should retain their functionality and formatting. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to edit your documents and currently IST is not recommending that users sign up for Office 365, because it stores your files on outside servers.

Even without a Office 365 account, you can still get your office files onto your iPad by several methods.

1. Email them to yourself
2. Save them to Google Drive
3. Upload them into Canvas

If you have questions about using the new Microsoft Office apps on your iPad, you can email John-Mark Ikeda,  jikeda@law.berkeley.edu .