Microsoft may offer versions of its Office software for iPad, iPhone, Windows Phone, and Android. But the company still hasn’t released a version of Office for touchscreen tablet, notebook, and desktop computers running Windows 8.1.
But the company’s working on a touch-friendly version of its Office suite, and Microsoft showed a preview today at the MS Build 2014 conference in San Francisco.
The new office suite features support for gesture-based navigation such as swiping to move between slides in a PowerPoint presentation, or pinching-to-zoom. You can also swipe down from the top of the screen to bring up extra options such as a pen you can use to circle parts of the presentation.
In all apps, the ribbon user interface has been tweaked with larger buttons. And there’s a touch-friendly file selector.
Office will use some of the same technology Microsoft offers developers for creating Universal Windows Apps — so Windows tablet users will be able to use the same Office user interface as smartphone users in the future.
This is light years ahead of the UI for other office suites deigned for touch. Good job, MS. I was hoping that you wouldn’t screw this one up.