Microsoft Announces Availability Of Office Suite For Android

If the events of January are any indication, Microsoft is going to have a killer year. It kicked things off by announcing Windows 10 and following it up days later with a free-to-download preview version. Then, Microsoft announced Office 2016 for the latter half of this year and said it would release updated Office apps for Android and iOS sooner. The iOS update was released just last week, and today the new Office for Android is ready for action.

Excel for Android is meant to make the Office app touch-friendly
Excel for Android

The apps include Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Microsoft also released a preview version of Outlook for Android (and made a full Outlook for iOS available on iTunes). OneNote for Android has been on the Google Play Store for a couple weeks.

PowerPoint is another app designed to be touch-friendly on Android.
PowerPoint for Android

Microsoft has faced a tough challenge with the mobile versions of Office. Where other app makers can create from scratch, Microsoft has to recreate its complex and feature-rich programs in a way that is touch-friendly. In some cases, that means doing things a little differently from the PC versions of Office. The company says that it created a special version of the Format Painter so that it’s easy to use with your finger, for example.



You’ll need at least a 7-inch tablet to use Office on Android. If your tablet is 10.1 inches or larger, you’ll need an Office 365 subscription in order to create and edit documents. KitKat 4.4.x is the supported OS. Lollipop isn’t supported quite yet, but Microsoft plans to release an update that will resolve that.