does microsoft office support touchscreens?

[Pelea]

hey, i'm hesitating between buying the new skylake mbp or mba coming out soon (i hope) or buying the new dell xps with skylake and a touchscreen.

does anyone know if there are any great apps like microsoft office which allow u to take notes and use the touchscreen to draw images? would be perfect for university. i'm really hoping the new macs have a touch screen

 

[ApolloBoy]

Office 2016 has touchscreen support, although personally I find that touchscreens on laptops are gimmicky as all get out...

 

[Pelea]

Office 2016 has touchscreen support, although personally I find that touchscreens on laptops are gimmicky as all get out...

Quick simple drawings would make a laptop 10x more useless for taking notes in school or uni, so that's an actual important feature for me.

I dunno what else they'd be used for though

 

[Steve121178]

hey, i'm hesitating between buying the new skylake mbp or mba coming out soon (i hope) or buying the new dell xps with skylake and a touchscreen.

does anyone know if there are any great apps like microsoft office which allow u to take notes and use the touchscreen to draw images? would be perfect for university. i'm really hoping the new macs have a touch screen

OneNote.

 

[old-wiz]

I don't see Apple making a touch screen laptop or desktop within the near future. OSx isn't currently designed for screen input. I'd hate to have to take my hands off keyboard/touchpad to use a touchscreen.

 

[simonsi]

Office 2016 doesn't support touchscreen as far as I am aware as the OS and HW doesn't have it. Given the current every-5-years update cycle of Office for OSX it wold be quite some time before they did, even if OSX supported touchscreens tomorrow - personally I don't want to be forced to pay for a laptop touchscreen and hope Apple considers the iPad Pro sufficient in that space.

 

[Pelea]

Office 2016 doesn't support touchscreen as far as I am aware as the OS and HW doesn't have it. Given the current every-5-years update cycle of Office for OSX it wold be quite some time before they did, even if OSX supported touchscreens tomorrow - personally I don't want to be forced to pay for a laptop touchscreen and hope Apple considers the iPad Pro sufficient in that space.

That's an excellent point actually, if apple were to add a touchscreen it would force users to pay an extra $200 for something many wouldn't use.. How have they not already added it

 

[Rigby]

hey, i'm hesitating between buying the new skylake mbp or mba coming out soon (i hope) or buying the new dell xps with skylake and a touchscreen.

does anyone know if there are any great apps like microsoft office which allow u to take notes and use the touchscreen to draw images? would be perfect for university. i'm really hoping the new macs have a touch screen

Office for Windows does have a touch mode (which essentially places some GUI elements further apart to make them easier to hit with a finger), and it supports drawing in various apps such as Powerpoint and Onenote.

That said (and assuming you mean the XPS 13 and not the XPS 12 tablet), conventional laptops are no good for taking notes or drawing with a stylus, since (1) the hand position is awkward and (2) the display typically doesn't provide enough support due to the lack of a kickstand. For this kind of thing you're better off with a tablet device or a convertible. I also don't know if the XPS 13 works well or at all with a stylus.

 

[Pelea]

Office for Windows does have a touch mode (which essentially places some GUI elements further apart to make them easier to hit with a finger), and it supports drawing in various apps such as Powerpoint and Onenote.

That said (and assuming you mean the XPS 13 and not the XPS 12 tablet), conventional laptops are no good for taking notes or drawing with a stylus, since (1) the hand position is awkward and (2) the display typically doesn't provide enough support due to the lack of a kickstand. For this kind of thing you're better off with a tablet device or a convertible. I also don't know if the XPS 13 works well or at all with a stylus.

thanks for the detailed answer