By comparison, Apple's office suite of Pages, Numbers, and Keynote is visually dazzling but underpowered in its feature set. With PowerPoint, the iPad version gives me almost exactly the feature set I need. Word and Excel for iOS are also the best mobile apps of their kind, but when I use them on the iPad I wish they included desktop features like the ability to open two documents at the same time. For anyone who uses Microsoft Office ($69.00 at Amazon) (Opens in a new window), on a desktop or laptop, the consistent interface and shared features in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are a major plus. I am puzzled by one other limitation in the app: when I have the same presentation open on my desktop and my iPad Pro, the desktop version shows the names of both people who were working on the presentation, but the iPad version shows only that two people were collaborating without identifying them.Īll in all, PowerPoint on the iPad is a pleasant surprise-easy to use, with a lucid interface that I prefer to PowerPoint's only serious rival on the mobile platform, Apple's Keynote ($0.00 at ) (Opens in a new window). Surprisingly, it doesn't display a timer, but otherwise it has all the features I need. The mobile version also has a minimal but well-designed Presenter View that lets you use your finger or the Apple Pencil as a pointer and also gives you space to add notes. (Opens in a new window) Read Our Microsoft Office 2016 (for Windows) Review ![]() The Convert to Shapes option isn't able to convert a roughly drawn five-pointed star into a neat geometric shape the way it can with triangles and circles, but you can easily add a five-pointed star from the Shapes button on the Insert menu if you want. The latest upgrade adds a Draw toolbar that lets you draw lines by touching the screen with a finger or the Apple Pencil ($98.99 at Amazon) (Opens in a new window), with an option to convert your rough drawings into shapes like triangles or rectangles. It also lets you insert tables, videos, shapes, text boxes, and pictures-including a toolbar button that lets you snap a picture with the tablet's camera. PowerPoint's iOS version lets you select themes but not modify existing ones or create new ones. If I want to waste time on fine-tuning, I can open the presentation in Windows or OS X, but it's probably better for me and my audience if I don't. The default settings for speed and duration are perfectly adequate, and the default settings are all you get in the mobile version of the app. If I use a transition effect or animation at all-and I tend to think they distract from the content of a presentation rather than enhancing it-I don't much care about fine-tuning the effect. I find that I don't miss the advanced features that Microsoft left out of mobile PowerPoint the way I sometimes miss the advanced features left out of the iPad versions of Word and Excel. Read our editorial mission (Opens in a new window) & see how we test (Opens in a new window). Since 1982, PCMag has tested and rated thousands of products to help you make better buying decisions. It's a strong candidate for the title of best office app available for the iPad, period. And the vast processing power and vivid graphics on the iPad Pro makes a graphic-centric app like PowerPoint look better than I've seen it on any other mobile device. I do a lot less typing when making a presentation than when editing a document in Word ($0.00 at ) (Opens in a new window) or a spreadsheet in Excel ($0.00 at ) (Opens in a new window), and so the awkward on-screen or attached keyboard on a tablet doesn't cause as many problems. The built-in limitations of a tablet are far less limiting in graphic-centric apps like presentation software than they are in text-and-number apps like word processors or spreadsheets. Microsoft gave the iPad app almost all the features you might want to use in a presentation app, all within an interface that makes those features easier to find and manage than on any other platform-including the PC. Presentation powerhouse PowerPoint is the first office app that very nearly seems more at home on a tablet than on a laptop or desktop-especially when it's running on the spacious and vivid screen of the iPad Pro ( at Amazon) (Opens in a new window). ![]() Fine-tuning of effects must be done in the desktop version.How to Set Up Two-Factor Authentication.How to Record the Screen on Your Windows PC or Mac.How to Convert YouTube Videos to MP3 Files.How to Save Money on Your Cell Phone Bill.How to Free Up Space on Your iPhone or iPad.How to Block Robotexts and Spam Messages.
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