Mobile And Computer

Microsoft's new Office for iPad makes a favourable first impression and it has much in common with the version of Office you are familiar with on a PC or Mac. But if you think Microsoft has designed a near clone of Word, Excel and PowerPoint for Apple's popular tablet think again. Here are five quick takeaways to keep in mind:

1. It's three separate apps.

Office for the iPad isn't like Office Mobile for the iPhone, Android or Microsoft's own Windows Phone. You must download Word, Excel and PowerPoint separately, assuming you want each app. The good news is the apps are free, though to get the full benefits of editing and creating stuff from scratch you must subscribe to Microsoft's Office 365, currently $99.99 a year for use on up to 5 PCs and/or Macs and up to 5 tablets.

2. What you cannot do. 

For starters, you cannot print, not directly from any of the Office iPad apps anyway. If you have to print a document, you can always email it to yourself and print from another machine, not necessarily the most productive or ideal use of your time. You cannot insert a video into PowerPoint either. Of course there's no reason Microsoft couldn't add such features in the future; I'd certainly expect them to do so.

3. Get cozy with OneDrive.

The online storage locker formerly known as SkyDrive is your cloud destination for the documents, spreadsheets and presentations you saved through Office for the iPad. Other cloud destinations (Google Drive, Dropbox, Box) are not currently an option.

4. Use touch.

The large and finger friendly area where you'll find the "ribbon" interface common to each Office app only shows appropriate commands when you need them (e.g, chart or picture commands when you select a chart or picture) as on the computer versions of Office. But you can easily manipulate these commands via touch. Touch-friendly "handles" also make it simple to resize and rotate objects.

5. Use voice.

Here's where Office leans on Apple's iOS operating system. You can dictate a document in Word, for example. Merely tap the Microsoft icon on the keyboard that pops up inside Word and start gabbing.