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Microsoft released its Office Mobile suite (Give-and-take Mobile, Excel Mobile, PowerPoint Mobile, and OneNote) on July 29 forth with the much predictable Windows 10. These apps are intended to provide a impact-friendlier functional bridge betwixt the browser-based Microsoft Offline Online spider web apps and the full featured Part 365 components. Nevertheless, all is not what it seems here.

The Office Mobile apps are supposed provide "core editing" functions for complimentary on Windows 10 tablets with displays that are 10.ane inches or smaller. However, in testing, this is non what I experienced. These mobile Part apps gave me basic editing features on a Dell tablet with an 8-inch display equally promised, which is fine. Notwithstanding, when I tried to utilize the same apps to edit a Word certificate on a Asus tablet with a 10.1 inch display, I was greeted with the pop-up window you see hither beneath, advising me that I need an Part 365 subscription to edit the file.

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That was confusing, and so I initiated an Part web back up chat to larn what is going on. I asked well-nigh editing using the free version of Word Mobile for Windows 10 on a tablet with a display of ten.1 inches or smaller. The patently ill-informed back up person told me that there is no free version of Word Mobile that supports editing documents. This is, of class, contradicted by Microsoft'southward own and my feel with Office Mobile apps on a tablet with an 8-inch display.

Ignoring this support event for the moment, how are the Part Mobile apps on a Windows ten tablet? They are relatively finger friendly on an viii-inch Windows 10 tablet. However, yous might have noticed that the icons and buttons on the correct side Word Mobile's ribbon expanse (screenshot above) are relatively small for an interface that is supposed to be touched with a fingertip. Overall, I'd say the apps are not as finger-friendly every bit whatsoever number of productivity apps for an iPad or Android tablet.

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The apps besides seemed to take extremely limited admission to my Microsoft OneDrive cloud storage account. In fact, I could not notice a way to navigate to whatever OneDrive folder. And, the apps frequently reported that information technology could not read the files information technology listed from OneDrive.

If you lot desire to use features beyond basic editing, it turns out yous might need to pay for an Function 365 subscription. For case, you'll need a subscription if you lot desire the ability to track and review changes, alter page orientation, insert department and page breaks, or enable text columns in Word. Customizing Excel pivot table layouts and viewing PowerPoint speaker notes while presenting are also tied to an Office 365 subscription.

In my feel, fifty-fifty the relatively low-powered and low-priced tablets for Windows 8 piece of work reasonably well with the regular desktop versions of Microsoft Role. Since the Part Mobile apps are only good, but not great, for employ with touch screens, I'm not sure at that place'southward much incentive to use these minimally featured Office apps.