Edit PDFs on-the-go, transform printed tables to Excel: New MS Office app redefines mobile productivity

Microsoft’s annual Ignite conference kicked off in Colorado, Florida on November 4 and will continue till November 8. On the opening day of the conference, Microsoft announced updates that redefined mobile connectivity and changed the way we manage our documents and data for the better.

For starters, a new analytics service, ‘Azure Synapse Analytics’ was introduced and several updated capabilities were added to Azure, Microsoft’s very own cloud computing platform.

What’s more? The folks at Microsoft also launched Project Cortex, a knowledge network for your company that uses machine learning to analyze all the documents and contracts and surfaces them in Outlook and Office apps when appropriate.


However, the launch which ended up hogging the limelight was the new Microsoft Office mobile app. The good folks at Microsoft have finally heard our pleas and have saved us from downloading the holy trinity of Office apps - Word, Excel and PowerPoint separately.

Yes, you heard that right. The new Microsoft Office app has all the 3 most important apps bundled into one. Microsoft has also introduced an ‘Actions’ pane in the app which allows the users to perform a variety of tasks such as creating and signing PDFs on-the-go and sharing them with other devices.

But wait, it doesn’t stop here. The Actions tab also allows users to take a picture of a document and turn it into an editable Word file. Similarly, printed tables can be instantly transformed into Excel files.

The new Microsoft Office app is available to Android users on Google Play Store and to iOS users through Apple’s TestFlight program.

Another announcement that ended grabbing eyeballs was the new Microsoft Edge browser which is set to release on January 15. The all-new Microsoft Edge offers the enterprise new tab page, where users will have direct access to Microsoft 365 files.