Microsoft's unified Office app is now optimized for the iPad

What you need to know

• Microsoft Office has been updated to be a fully optimized iPad app.
• The app was already available on iPad, but opened in windowed mode.
• The Office app brings Word, Excel, and PowerPoint into a single app.

Microsoft recently updated its Office app to fully support Apple's iPads. The Office app was already available for iPads but opened in windowed mode. Now, it's a fully optimized iPad app that brings together Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

The unified Office app initially rolled out to iOS and Android in 2019. Microsoft still has standalone apps for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, but the Office app brings everything together.

Here's the description of what's new from the Office App Store listing:

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• Office is now available on iPad: We're combining the Word, Excel, and PowerPoint apps you know into a single, iPadOS-optimized app. Plus, you'll see additional tools to keep you more productive than ever. For example, you'll be able to quickly create and sign PDFs, and transform pictures into documents.
• Get to Image-based Workflows Readily: Tap 'Share' in the phone gallery outside the Office app, to get to several actions like Create PPT, Create PDF and more. In addition, if there are any recent screenshots when you open the Office app, these are surfaced as a suggestion to covert to PDF or PPT.
• Insert date, shape, image and notes in PDF: Now you can easily insert date, shape, image and notes in PDFs using new capabilities.

In addition to Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, the app also has some handy features like turning pictures into documents and the ability to sign PDFs.

Microsoft may have taken some time to optimize the Office app for iPadOS, but the company is generally very supportive of Apple's hardware. Word, Excel, and PowerPoint gained full trackpad support on iPads last October.