Microsoft Is Testing Trackpad Support for Excel and Word on iPad, Here Is What You Need to Know

by Eva Watson Writer

Apple has always been working towards innovating its products and recently they made a significant change in the functioning of the iPad. They introduced a Magic Keyboard accessory for the iPad, which also includes a trackpad. This step by Apple to improve the functionality of the iPad is being seen as an effort to present the iPad as a potential alternative to a laptop. The latest update in iPadOS has also made it possible to use external devices like a mouse and trackpad-related accessories with your iPad, affirming the assumption. Meanwhile, to enhance your experience of using Microsoft Office apps on the iPad, Microsoft has also started testing trackpad support for Microsoft Office apps on iPad.

Microsoft is planning to make the trackpad support available for Microsoft Office apps on iPad, for Excel and Word primarily. It is a good step as it will make the usages of these apps on iPad easier, and it will make these apps similar to the Microsoft Office apps on your computer. The typing, navigating among different cells, and hovering on other fields will be easier with a cursor on your display of your iPad. We can also expect the cursor to disappear from the display when we are not using the trackpad, to avoid the distractions, just like a computer. After this feature is launched officially, it will surely improve the usability of your iPad, and it will be a big positive for the aspirations of Apple to present the iPad as a replacement for a computer.

Microsoft is testing trackpad Support for Word and Excel for iPad through TestFlight, which is the beta testing service of Apple. This feature will be available for all those iPad Pro models which have iPadOS 13.4. The range of other models with iPadOS 13.4, which include iPad Air 2 and later, iPad 5th generation and later, and iPad mini 4 and later, will also be supporting this feature. The trackpad support of Microsoft Office apps will be compatible with Apple’s Magic Mouse and Keyboard, Apple’s Magic Keyboards for iPad, and some specific third-party keyboards, which can connect with your iPad with USB or via Bluetooth. Microsoft has not yet made any official statement about the availability of trackpad support to Microsoft Office apps for public use. Currently, it is available to TestFlight users on the beta only. However, we can expect this feature to be rolling out for the public in the fall of this year, and Microsoft Office apps on your iPad are surely going to be a lot more functional with the trackpad support.

Mia Watson is an avid technical blogger, a magazine contributor, a publisher of guides at Blogs Book, and a professional cyber security analyst. Through her writing, she aims to educate people about the dangers and threats lurking in the digital world. Visit My Site, scoutq.com

Source: Microsoft Is Testing Trackpad Support for Excel and Word on iPad