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Microsoft Updates Office Apps for iPad With Mouse and Trackpad Support

sdwaltz said:
I've been using the Magic Keyboard w/Office apps with no problems for months now, trackpad included...am I missing something?
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Use Pages or any of the many third party apps that have been maintained with iPadOS 14 in mind, and then switch over to Word. Yeah, the MKB works, but the cursor doesn’t change to the vertical bar, you can’t select text by dragging, etc.

I use OneDrive heavily, so I’ve made it work, but it has not been a good experience compared to other apps.
 
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This will make doing my class work on the go editing much easier. I will be very happy if this update works as intended.
 
Simmias said:
With the latest Office updates, I am very close to being able to use my 12.9" iPad Pro as my full time work computer. In addition to trackpad support, Word and PowerPoint now allow multiple windows/documents to be open at the same time. For some reason, Excel still only allows one spreadsheet to be open at a time. I'm not sure why it's taking so long (it took nearly a year to add multi-window support after it was demoed onstage at the WWDC iPad OS 13 keynote), but I'm glad the updates are finally coming. Once Microsoft enables multiple windows in Excel, I will finally be able to use the iPad for 99% of my professional workflow!
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As a MBP user, that's interesting to hear. Just out of curiousity, what is the other 1% that is missing?
 
MauiPa said:
I completely gave up on MS apps awhile ago. Things like pivot tables always seemed to crash, the UI was horrible (looked like a Kindergarten class designed it, the ribbon was worst invention ever contemplated). Wouldn't it be funny, if it took MS writing an app for an iPad to finally get it right?

Hey if you love MS Office - cheers to you. I respect that, please respect my choices too. thanks
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I use it for work. The day I retire is comes off my Mac and iOS devices. I seriously could live with Pages, Keynote and Numbers for anything I do personally.

My work pays for Office 365 so I don't care so much. I do use an Outlook.com account for my personal email, as I find the webmail for iCloud about the worst thing on the market and the reliability even in 2020 if iCloud mail in general just seems hit or miss, especially the SPAM filter.
 
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Now if only Microsoft would allow Minecraft PE to use the mouse and keyboard. That would be so awesome!
 
sideshowuniqueuser said:
As a MBP user, that's interesting to hear. Just out of curiousity, what is the other 1% that is missing?
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If I’m doing pivot tables or building a deck that needs to pull content from a bunch of other docs/sources, it’s still easier to use my iMac. Full external display support is the other feature that would make the iPad into a true workhorse for me. Hopefully in iOS 15.
 
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acgmph said:
I’ve been using a mouse/trackpad since this summer with Remote Desktop. Not sure why it’s not working for you.
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The standard rdp? I tried using it with eclipse, and the context menus and hotkeys weren't working as intended.
 
Outlook app has added drag and drop support also so you can drag and drop files from other apps (files, onedrive etc). These apps are getting pretty good now.
 
No updates available here yet. Just tried Mouse in Excel and it really works really bad.
Tried Numbers and that is not that much better. I can’t even scroll holding the scroll handle to the right in numbers.
 
kave said:
No updates available here yet. Just tried Mouse in Excel and it really works really bad.
Tried Numbers and that is not that much better. I can’t even scroll holding the scroll handle to the right in numbers.
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I think "phased roll out" means we might not have it yet.. and we don't really realize when the app is being updated right? I think my word updated the last time some weeks ago, and there is no Update available.. can anyone explain how I can now? despite noticing the new functions of course (which is difficult since I can find no precise changelog except the quote, which is also up here in the thread: For e.g. marking a text by dragging works but not always, sometimes it only works after a doubleclick. I haven't seen the cursor changing its shape yet but am not sure when this is supposed to happen (I enlarged an image where the mouse would become a two sided arrow in Windows.. but the cursor here remained a dot) And still can't click withing a word to put the cursor inbetween letters so split a word or insert another letter.. I quess this should come with that update right?
 
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acgmph said:
I’ve been using a mouse/trackpad since this summer with Remote Desktop. Not sure why it’s not working for you.
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I've just tried rdp from ipad with wireless magic keyboard. The keyboard doesn't work inside the remote connection, lol.
 
Just got an update today to version 2.43 of Excel. It just mentions ”small updates” and no better mouse support at all. Anyone knows which exact version this should be working in?
 
kave said:
Just got an update today to version 2.43 of Excel. It just mentions ”small updates” and no better mouse support at all. Anyone knows which exact version this should be working in?
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Same for me.. no idea, still waiting
 
So, after nearly two months it is here according to the release notes. Update is available. Talk about ”staggered” update.
 
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