Microsoft Office for iOS Updated with Real-Time Collaboration, OneDrive Gets Support for Files App

Today, Microsoft announced a major update to its Office suite of apps for iOS, which includes the introduction of real-time collaboration, drag and drop support on iPad, and universal link support for shared files.

Perhaps the most useful new feature for both Office and OneDrive is the integration of drag and drop functionality. Apple introduced support for drag and drop with the release of iOS 11 on the iPad in 2017.

With the latest update, Microsoft Office users on iOS will be able to easily move content between apps. For instance, you will be able to drag a graph or chart from Excel right into your PowerPoint presentation. Users also are able to drag and drop files into and out of OneDrive.

Although multi-user collaboration has been available on Office Online as well as the Mac and PC versions of Office for some time, it’s finally making its way to iOS apps. This feature allows you to share and collaborate on documents in real time. The feature also allows you to see who is in a document and track any changes so you won’t have to worry about losing past contributions.

Microsoft gave OneDrive a major overhaul with the latest update, which brings a more user-friendly experience that makes it a lot easier to find documents. If you use list view, you can also see metadata so it’s simple to who you’ve shared a document with and when it was last updated.

Microsoft also gave the preview function in OneDrive a major boost. With the newest version of OneDrive, you can instantly preview more than 130 different types of files, meaning you can view most files without ever leaving the app.

Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneDrive are all available as free downloads from the App Store. Each app requires a device running iOS 10.0 or later and contain various in-app purchases.

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