Microsoft Office Preview for iOS Updated with Lots of New Features

Microsoft has released a new testing build of Microsoft Office to iOS insiders, and this time, the changelog includes plenty of additions.

First and foremost, there’s a new AutoSave status indicator in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, and its purpose is as straightforward as it could be. This indicator lets you know when the latest changes have been saved, so you can see if the file is secure by simply looking for this icon.

Then, Microsoft has introduced support for accessing PDFs offline in Office Mobile.

“You can’t always count on having an online connection to access your information. Now you can download your PDFs in Office Mobile, allowing you to access them when you’re offline. To download the online PDF file to your device, just tap the Cloud icon (to the left of the triple-dot menu indicator),” the company explains.

Still in preview stage

As far as Excel is concerned, the latest version of Office for iOS insiders includes an optional to quickly copy all formatting with Format Painter.

Available for iPad users, the whole thing works pretty much the same as in the case of the desktop sibling.

“Format Painter enables you to copy all the formatting from one object (cell or range) and apply it to another in a single click. To try it out, select a cell you want to copy all formatting from. Then tap on the Format Painter icon (on the Home tab) and select the cells you want to copy the formatting to. Tap on the icon again to turn the feature off,” the company says.

Keep in mind, however, that this is still an early version of Office mobile for iOS users, so certain bugs might still be discovered. There’s no ETA as to when the aforementioned features could make their way to the stable version of Office on iOS.